CR spoke with Jo Swinney

Jo Swinney

Jo Swinney set herself a challenge to trial one spiritual discipline per month. God Hunting is her diary of discovery. She invites us to join in the hunt for God through prayer, fasting, Bible study, worship, solitude and simplicity. Jo is a writer, speaker, novice gardener, avid reader, ex-traveller and an asker of probing questions. Rebecca Duffett turned the tables on her and asked her some probing questions.

Rebecca: Tell us about this book.

Jo: I wanted to give an immediate feel to it and I wanted it to be honest and an account of what was actually going on as I tried these disciplines. I would spend a month with each thing for example prayer. As I was going through the month I was keeping notes and journaling. Then I would write it up at the end of the month.

Rebecca: Would you say that any particular discipline out of the six you tried was more effective than the others in your God Hunting journey?

Jo: I think all of them together make up quite an effective way of knowing God. There were various things that I experimented with or tried that had been missing. One of those would be solitude; that really wasn't part of my life before I tried it out for the book. I have to say I didn't do solitude in a very impressive manner. I had planned to go to a convent for three days, which seemed to me like a very long time. In the end I couldn't because I was in hospital having early labour with my second daughter. I think I had been running away from time on my own until that point. Looking at it for the book made me realise the value of being quiet, even in really tiny chunks and looking for spaces and not filling up silence when there was a time for silence; so turning the radio off or not reaching for the phone the minute the kids were down in bed.

Rebecca: Another thing that you looked at was fasting. You didn't do the traditional fast of giving up all food. Do you think that doing a fast of different things can be just as effective?

Jo: I didn't fast from food because I was pregnant at the time and I found it a very interesting experience. I looked at the things that I was most dependent on, that would hurt the most to give up and some of the principles behind food fasting definitely applied. It bought me time. One of the things I gave up was media, so no TV, internet use, radio or magazines and that definitely freed up a lot of space that hadn't been there, to focus on God.

Another thing that surprised me in a way was how strong my addictions to those things were; that I'd never really challenged them before. In some ways my reliance on those was almost the same as my reliance on food. The craving that I had for the things I gave up was almost as uncomfortable as physical hunger. I think those things were quite significant to me spiritually and they did allow me to rely again, turn that dependence towards God and to realise how much I was comforting myself or focusing on things that weren't God.

Rebecca: Another thing you look at is Bible study. Do you have any advice from what you've learned?

Jo: I think that a lot of us have in mind a prototype way of approaching the Bible, which is a half an hour sit down study time, quiet time model. I guess I felt quite freed up by realising how many different ways there are to get your biblical six kind of thing.

One of the things I did was to memorise a chunk. I memorised about a chapter of Hebrews and having that present in my mind while I was going about life and being able to chew over different bits. The way the different phrases come to mind in different circumstances was really interesting and helpful.

I also spent a week just looking at a couple of verses and going deeper into a shorter, smaller piece. That was another interesting experience.

I know that quite a lot of people get emails and other people listen to the Bible on their IPod. I think we just need to explore ways of approaching the Bible that fit with our temperament and our lifestyle and time constraints.

Rebecca: The other discipline that interested me was simplicity, because we have very busy lives here in the west. How did you go about making your life simpler?