JC Disciples
The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck, MD
M. Scott Peck’s opening statement, "Life is difficult," draws from the first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism; however, recognition of this truth is by no means exclusive to Buddhism. From that opening statement, Peck describes how self-discipline is necessary to cope with the difficulties of life. Love is presented as the motive for self-discipline, the reason for coping with the difficulties of life. Because religion shapes the way and individual views the world, Peck discusses the various ways people are helped and sometimes hurt by religious views. His concluding section examines the role of grace in the world and the healing it brings.
Because living requires facing difficulties and pain, which we would rather avoid, self-discipline is required. Such discipline involves, among other learning to delay gratification, to spend the time and effort necessary in order to solve the problem at hand, to accept personal responsibility as well as acknowledge the reality of the situation. Peck does an excellent job of explaining how self-discipline is being phased out of our increasingly undisciplined culture. He also shows, with several clear examples, how people steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the realities of their situations and thus eliminate the possibility of solving their problems.
According to Peck, love is "[t]he will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth." Working from that definition, he explains why it is impossible to truly love inanimate things. He also examines actions that, although they appear to be loving on the surface, are detrimental to both the one who professes to love and the allegedly beloved. His discussion of romantic love exposes the danger of our modern myth of "true love" and emphasizes the role of the will in a loving relationship.
His discussion of religion is not Christocentric and, in one case study, the patient benefited by distancing herself from her faith. However, it is true that religion is subject to individual understandings and it does uniquely shape the way in which each person views the world. The lesson I found in this section is that it is important to move beyond the official teachings to an understanding of how faith is understood by each person in a counseling situation. Misunderstandings of God, of the nature and work of faith, and other elements of religion can be harmful to those who hold them. A clearer, more accurate understanding can help people immensely.
In the end, Peck describes the world as being infused with grace and cites the best evidence for grace as the work of evolution. Evolution is a process of growth and improvement and it runs contrary to the thermodynamic principle of entropy. (From my engineering studies, I know that everything the universe tends to move toward a state of disorder or maximum entropy.) Peck’s presentation of laziness, or tending toward entropy, as the original sin is intriguing. Laziness is certainly contrary to the self-discipline necessary for living in the face of pain and difficulties; it also undermines the proper functioning of love. While it may not be the original sin, it is certainly a sinful behavior that may create problems in many lives.