spirituality – Page 15 – Southwest Conference Blog

Detangling

Recently we have been asking people to leave their cellphones in a basket while events are happening at Pathways of Grace. One of the side effects I had not anticipated has been the realization that when I am not thinking about activity on my phone I become aware of the all the other “attachments” I have. It seems the phone is the first layer, yet there is a deeper layer under that.

The phone connects me to family, friends, work and schedules. With each text, email, and pull to social media, I easily connected to all of it. Yet when I leave my phone at home or in a basket at work, I notice those connections don’t end. My mind is spending a lot of time thinking about family, friends, work, and schedules without the phone. The only difference is that I don’t unconsciously and frequently connect and in so doing not really know how connected and powerful some of those connections are. Without the phone, I notice that maybe I am spending too much time thinking about certain things and taking on more than I should. I also find that rather than immediately connect, I can instead trust the person or situation to God and offer a prayer. In addition to all of that, I get to make a choice – to create some space between my thoughts and all the aspects of life. In doing this I engage the Divine on where my thoughts are being invited to go in a way that brings light and love.

Who knew that leaving a cell phone behind would be a type of contemplative meditative practice? I am very excited about some of the new opportunities happening at Pathways of Grace to take a breath and listen deeply to life. I invite you to have some phone unplug time and use it as a spiritual practice. Let me know what surprises you.

Blessed Stillness

by Amos Smith

The writer Kathleen Norris tried to get some kids in a classroom to sit in silence. When asked to sit silently a second time one fifth grader retorted, “I don’t want to!” He continued, “It’s like we’re waiting for something, it’s scary.” ¹ Silent prayer is not only scary. It’s exceedingly difficult. On the surface, it seems simple, yet anyone who’s tried it will attest to its difficulty. It’s perhaps the hardest thing I’ve ever undertaken. Yet, it’s also the most rewarding.

The nature of the untrained mind is like a wild monkey, jumping from branch to branch. The mind’s always clinging to one thing or another. Rarely, will it let go of the numerous stimuli and settle into silence. Because of its distracted nature, the mind has to be trained to focus. This training takes time. A challenge is that training the mind is less tangible than training for a marathon or practicing a musical instrument. Training the mind is more primal and less concrete than other kinds of training.

Because training the mind seems insubstantial and doesn’t produce any immediate measurable results, the Western mind usually dismisses it as “navel gazing” or “self-hypnosis.” “Don’t you have something better to do?” Yet, the mind is the root of our existence and our experience. Our state of mind is everything. So changing habits of the mind is powerful! At times it may seem insignificant—as if anything else is a better use of time. Yet, mystics the world over tell us this kind of training is the key for dismantling hidden addictions and the key to freedom.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers retreated from all worldly affairs. They sojourned into the desert to behold blessed stillness. And Quakers through the ages have written that deep listening to God requires stillness and silence. We can’t pray unless we pause and listen for the “still small voice of the Lord” (1 Kings 19:12b, NKJV).

¹ Norris, Amazing Grace, p.17.

image credit: Rich Lewis

The Shame Agreement

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I have shame.
I have shame that abides.
I have shame that abides and demands.
I have shame that abides and demands and destroys.
I have shame. As do you. As does most of humanity.

I wasn’t born with shame.
I was born with a tender vulnerability that deserved nurture and grace.
I was born with a knowing in my heart that I was worthy of love.
I was born with the audacious spirit to experience need and develop a loving reliance for those who met my need.
As were you.
As was and is often humanity.

Yet I have this shame and it seems to think I put out a classified ad in which it responded and somehow became my silent partner in the affairs of my life. It keeps pointing to some agreement it’s made with me.

We choose an interesting set of words when we wish shame for others: “Shame on you!” Shame ON you. The burden, the weight, the overwhelming nature of shame cloaking us and seeping in. Once it is on us, it is in us. Shame is a rather manipulative behavior modification tool that is often abusive as it causes lasting harm to the mind and spirit of the person being cloaked with it. Shame does the dirty work for some pretty hard feeling states like loathing, self-hatred, and hatred of others. It prepares the heart in such a manner that these other parts get to storm right in, no guard on duty, everything valuable open and exposed. And we are robbed of our precious life yet again.

We really oughta move.

I watched a documentary about September 11th not too long ago. A man was telling his story about surviving the attack. He painted a vivid picture of emerging from death all around and described being covered in dust, his mind dazed, his face a blank slate as he went deeper and deeper within to stand the death outside of himself. He said an officer approached him and said something to the effect of “It’s okay. What you are experiencing is PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” He did not respond out loud, but internally he remembered thinking, “How can it be ‘post’ when it is still happening?”

Besides this exchange being an object lesson into why lay folks shouldn’t attempt to diagnose mental health and feeling states, it is a powerful image that I would like for us to hold for a bit here as we maneuver through. The survivor of 9/11 was cloaked in thick dust and dazed. He did not choose to be cloaked in dust. He did not invite being cloaked in dust, but cloaked in dust is what he was living in, sitting in, wiping off. The dust found any porous part of the body to invade. And invade it did. He had this dust in his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears for a long time to come.

The survivor’s thick cloak of disaster seemed to have been mixed with a hue of shame. “Why did I survive? Why did they die? I had to deserve this in some way. What did I do that made this happen?”

Ever since I started thinking about this essay the song “Fame” has been running through my head, replaced with “Shame”, of course. “Shame! I’m gonna live forever!” Well, that’s the opposite of remotely true in any way, shape or form. My experience with shame is it stifles and burdens, it creeps and takes over. Shame is lonely, deadly, and common.

Shame is devious and tricky. Shame has loads of costumes that keep us from noticing it. Its favorite thing to get dressed up as is morality, while contrition is a close second. It wears these long enough to get in the door and then like a Scooby Doo bad guy, the mask gets removed and low and behold, it’s that shame again! And it would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for your meddling, discerning spirit.

Let’s walk a bit more with the survivor of 9/11 covered in the second skin of dust. You get one side; I’ll get the other. He shouldn’t be alone right now. We can play a game of “What If” as we walk with him away from the rubble and the madness.

What if shame has absolutely nothing to do with God?
What if shame is unnecessary and a futile exercise that doesn’t mean a darn thing about our love for and belief in God?
What if shame was not a requirement of a spirit-filled life and is actually a lousy substitute for things like conviction and morality?
What if the cloaking of shame divides us from each other and takes over with diligence and fear, essentially snuffing out the love and life that is our birthright?

We’ll go ahead and leave the survivor we have been walking with as he is getting passed onto the people who can help him. Spoiler alert: He is going to be well again.

You and me, though, let’s keep walking. Let’s keep talking.

The rubble I find myself sifting through nowadays came from the sexual assault that happened to me not that long ago. It’s heavy to sift through this, especially when each rock I pick up has a phrase written on it: “This was your fault. Shame on you!” Toss that aside. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” Toss that aside and yet the rubble seems endless. Shame works against the sifting of the rubble and paves the way for a lot of hopelessness to bound through into my brokenness.

What caused your rubble?

The rubble happens. The cloaking of shame happens. Most of the time, this happens to us and we do not bring it on ourselves, it happens as a part of being a global citizen on this planet. It is largely unfair and it is deeply grievous to have anyone go through the destruction of self that happens with shame at the helm. We don’t get a choice initially. It just is and we can’t deal with it when it is still happening because we are putting everything we have into surviving. We need some distance and stability from what caused the shame so we can truly start the work of healing.

And this is where it can get better for us.

When I feel shame and accept it inside as valid, I am saying yes to the harm within or outside of me that uses the tool of shame to break me in some way. I am creating a Shame Agreement with Harm. It’s as good as sitting at a table with Harm across from me, handing me a contract that says, “You are nothing. You are broken. You are alone. You are worthless. Now if you agree to these conditions, please sign here, here, and here. Initial here.” Once that is done I can hold my breath and survey this own private hell I just became co-owner in. What a horrible investment I made. I need some solid heart space management. Where’s the Suze Orman of the heart when I need her?

If we can opt in, we can also opt out. And my life right now is about that very thing. I want out of this Shame Agreement. It’s a fraud.

I have a helpful (to me) image about creating space for shame in my life. I hope you can take and use it if you need to. Since I was young, I knew how to play darts. I spent a lot of time in bars due to family members working in them so I got a little seasoned at darts. I remember the day the dartboard at the Cow Pony was replaced by one of those digital dart boards with plastic darts that you have to throw hard enough to stick in the tiny holes riddled all over the board. You have that image in your mind? Great. I picture that dart board as my heart space, my feeling state, my tender soul. If shame is the dart and it is thrown at me, it will only stick if there is something for it to penetrate. If I prepare my heart space in such a way that the intrusion of shame doesn’t have space to land, it simply bounces off.

Our cloak of shame can be washed off. Our shame agreement can be voided. Our shame filled heart space can be made whole. As in all things, I turn to love.

I have love.
I have love that abides.
I have love that abides and invites.
I have love that abides and invites and heals.
I have love. As do you. As does most of humanity.

And there just isn’t any shame in that.

Constant Change and the Unchanging Truth

by Amos Smith

One comes to understand…the changeable nature of visible created things: how they derive from the earth and return again to the earth, thus confirming the words of Ecclesiastes: ‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity’ (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

–Peter of Damascus

These lines come from an early Christian writer named Peter of Damascus who wrote a work called “Treasury of Divine Knowledge.” More or less one thousand years ago Peter wrote about how the only thing that is everlasting is the Creator. And so the only way to participate in life everlasting is devotion to the Creator through praise, written and spoken acclamation, and prayer.

The biological creatures of this planet and the dense matter that swirls through the cosmos all have their source in the Creator. According to Peter of Damascus when we go into the depths of prayer we perceive that all creatures arise for a time, then return to their Source. It is the Source that is timeless, eternal.

Worship in the most profound sense is acknowledgement that in the midst of all the numerous changes, in the midst of the institutions of society that were here for a time then vanished. In the midst of the tumultuous events of our times including global terrorism, climate change, and a flood of refugees, there is a constant that forms the universe and binds it together. It is enveloped in mystery, yet came to us in the fullness of time in the person of Jesus.

When the constant changes of life reach a crescendo may we recall that our Source is from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2). This Source is our ultimate security from age to age – not distant, but personal in the ministry of Jesus.

The Micah Mandate

by Talitha Arnold

What does God really want from us? 3000 years ago, the Israelites wanted to know. The Assyrians had overrun their country. The people were wracked by war and oppression. To make sense of the hardship and suffering, they asked what we humans often ask in such times–what are we supposed to do? What does God want from us?

Did God want animal sacrifice–new born calves or thousands of rams? Would sacrificing their first-born children do the trick? What did God really want?

The (minor) prophet Micah answered his people with words that echo through the ages:

God has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God?

President Theodore Roosevelt called it “The Micah Mandate.” “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.” In this 8th c. prophet’s words, Roosevelt heard God’s call in his life and the life of this nation. For Roosevelt, the individual soul and the country heart both needed a sense of justice that is tempered by mercy and mercy that is strengthened by a commitment to justice. Moreover, Roosevelt knew that neither the individual nor the country is the center of the universe nor the seat of all wisdom. God is.

Like the other Hebrew Prophets, Micah didn’t go into great detail as to how to live out the commitment to justice and mercy. That is for each generation, each nation, each individual to work out. Instead, as with Amos’ call to “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” Micah’s words are a standard by which to measure our lives and the life of our church and our nation.

The Prophet’s words are echoed in those of Janusz Korczak, a Jewish educator and pediatrician in 1930’s Poland. Known for his humane approach to teaching, Korczak had his own radio show (before the Nazi occupation of Poland) in which he advocated for the rights of children. He also directed an orphanage for both Jewish and Gentile children. When the Nazis came to power, Korczak was offered sanctuary but continually refused it, choosing instead to stay with the orphans in his care. In 1942, Korczak and 190+ children were deported to Treblinka where all were put to death.

In one of his radio presentations, Korczak offered an understanding similar to that of the Prophet Micah’s, 3000 years before. “You lived,” Korczak affirmed,

. . . . how many fields did you plow,
How many loaves of bread did you bake,
How much seed did you sow,
How many trees did you plant,
How many bricks did you lay?
How many buttons did you sew,
How many patches, how many seams did you make,
To whom did you give your warmth,
Who would have stumbled but for your support,
Who did you show the way without demanding gratitude or prize,
What was your offering,
Whom did you serve?

What does God really want from us? Korczak’s answer was to give warmth, offer support, live a life of service–even to the end. For the 8th century Prophet Micah, it was to “do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.” Micah’s Mandate shaped Janusz Korczak’s life, even as his world thundered with hatred and fear. Amidst the thunder of our time and our world, we need to hear Micah’s Mandate, too.

Walking in Misty Blue

by Amanda Petersen

One of the most amazing gifts of walking early in the morning at this time of year is the gift of what I call the “misty blue time”. I leave in the dark, and just before the sun comes over the horizon, there are a few minutes where everything turns a misty blue. Everything looks different during this in-between time. I know the neighborhood when it is dark, and of course I am familiar with it when it is daylight. Both have their own unique looks and I notice different things at both times. During this misty blue time my brain does not know what to jump to. Everything looks surreal and different. It is as though I am in a different world altogether and I get to enjoy my neighborhood in a whole new way.

In the contemplative walk, this misty blue time could be seen as liminal space. That space that says one time is over yet the next season has not quite arrived. Liminal space is a whole new world of noticing, practicing, and waiting for the sun to rise on the new season of life. I often witness the discomfort of this liminal space. It is easy to want to skip this space by taking what was known in the past and overlaying it on to the future and calling it good. The challenge in doing that is it limits the possibilities of the future with old patterns. The truth is the space yet to come has not been lived yet and the signposts are all new. With just our past knowledge, it is difficult to navigate. Yet, if one allows the liminal space to teach them, one can begin to learn how to live into the new place and releasing what no longer works. By remaining in misty blue, and allowing the knowledge of the past and anticipation of the future to guide one’s way, one is open to visions of life and God in a whole new way.

This August is a misty blue place for Pathways of Grace. We have more people using the space. New facilitators will be providing opportunities to experience growth. The website is getting a face lift and Mind Body is our new home base for scheduling and signing up for classes. At the same time we will be celebrating the past and your support in it, while providing the same safe place to experience your own liminal spaces. I have no idea how all of this will look, yet I am excited to see what I notice and live into the experience of what the next sunrise for Pathways of Grace will look like. Won’t you join me on this great adventure??

Are You Mourning the Death of Normal?

by Amanda Petersen

It seems like there is a memorial that many have attended; a service for the biggest celebrity of our times. The memorial is for Normal. I seem to be watching it die all around me in the weather, politics, how culture is viewed, social norms, etc. Maybe as a second half of life issue, I’m becoming that person in the rocking chair on the front porch with my cronies, talking about Normal before Normal died.

The vows of the Benedictine society are to obedience, stability, and conversion of life. Briefly, obedience rests in a listening heart. Who are you listening to? The response is God’s and Christ’s example. Stability is to the community and all that unfolds with that. Stability centers in the listening heart. Conversion of life is both the personal and communal commitment to always be growing and moving closer to God and others.

What I love about these vows is they recognize that normal is good and yet normal is not God; that normal is always evolving into the new normal and that is a process. Like any grief process it has its stages, yet in a contemplative life, letting go of Normal is normal. That is not the focus. After all, the death of one person’s Normal might be the cause of celebration for another. Think of segregation, women’s rights, etc.

If you find yourself mourning the loss of Normal in this season of great change, know you are not alone. Honor your grieving process and cling to a listening heart because God is in the midst of the transition. Listen with your heart, stand with community, and embrace that this new Normal is an opportunity to draw closer to God and others.

Pathways of Grace is in the midst of embracing a new Normal and over the next few weeks, I’ll fill you in about how it is evolving. This week, find ways to notice your relationship with Normal. How does it impact your listening heart?

Places of Health and Healing

by Karen MacDonald

In a training for faith community members and leaders, I often ask participants to name places that enhance health. Answers usually include things like doctors, gyms, clinics, the local Area Agency on Aging, organizations addressing diabetes or heart disease or dementia, hospitals, even the place where I work, Interfaith Community Services. Every once in awhile, in a group of faith community people, the $64,000 answer comes up: our faith communities!

Indeed, for ages, spiritual sages have seen and taught the interconnectedness of our well-being—spirit, mind, body, community. The heady Age of Enlightenment (as if previous ages weren’t enlightened in their holistic views of life) separated body and spirit, science and religion. Still, wise ones always kept alive the whole view.

The health ministry movement gained traction in the 1970’s, largely through the work of Rev. Grainger Westburg, a Lutheran pastor and hospital chaplain, and his colleagues. Congregations are intentionally reclaiming their role as places of health and healing. There are classes on healthy nutrition, fall prevention, mental illness/health, spiritual practices, and more. There are yoga, tai chi, chair exercise classes, and more. There are healing services, prayer gatherings, spiritual direction groups, and more. There are support groups, community gardens, labyrinths, and more. There is the understanding that everything a congregation offers is interwoven to support well-being, of individuals, families, the congregation, the community. Through all activities is threaded faith, drawing on scripture, prayer, worship, ritual, trust in the Source of Life. As I hear from pastors and health ministry leaders, such health-minded programs enliven the life of congregations.

For a point of interest, the Health Ministries Association, the national group for anyone involved or interested in congregation-based health programs, is holding its annual conference this year in our backyard—Chandler, AZ. Dates are September 12-14, with a lineup of inspiring speakers, enlightening workshops, meeting and learning from other participants, caring for our spirits…..it’s always a great time together. More information on Health Ministries Association (HMA) and the conference is at www.hmassoc.org. (Disclosure: I serve on the HMA Board.)

To health!

Why Doing Nothing Can Be Good

by Amos Smith

A number of my peers are devoted to fishing and sailing.

I’m convinced the primary motivation for these activities is an excuse to do nothing – to just sit waiting for a bite – to just get carried by the wind. Rarely, in our industrialized world, are we afforded the time required for our minds to still – to settle into the desert quiet that fertilized the minds of the prophets – the minds of shepherds like David who wrote “God leads me beside still waters. God restores my soul” (Psalm 23:2-3).

Christian tradition, especially Protestant tradition, emphasizes revelation from scripture. Yet, at its root, revelation in scripture begins with silence. Silence is the fertile soil where God’s word originates. To discover the revelations of scripture we expose ourselves to scripture. To discover the revelations of silence, we expose ourselves to silence.

In silence there is revelation – revelation about ourselves. We come to the frontiers of silence and we find a number of things. Some feel discomfort, some anxiety, some feel tension in their bodies, and still others feel emotional turmoil. And most will discover above all else the wondering monkey mind and how difficult it is to still it. What we experience reveals something about our nature. The revelation of the wandering monkey mind is itself a great gift of awareness.

When our mind finally stills and enters deep silences we come to understand more and more about ourselves.

Advice for Myself in Difficult Times

by Karen Richter

As I pondered what to write this week for the blog, I was reading a lot. And much of what I was reading was, at least on the surface, contradictory. Within the same five minutes, I would read “You’re not doing enough. No one is doing enough,” and “Rest and take care of yourself. You are enough.” I like to look for moments of spiritual whiplash, because they seem like moments of growth… and these last few weeks have been a whiplash bonanza. I meandered around the edges of several different writing topics, but everything seemed to be already said, better and more eloquently, by someone more qualified than I.

So I offer this little listicle… imagine that you are eavesdropping on an inner conversation, as I try to assimilate the messages of this heartbreaking July.

There’s a difference between guilt and shame.

This is a helpful distinction for me, from the work of Brene Brown. Guilt is that feeling you get when you do something that’s out of step with your values. Guilt self-talk sounds like, “I did X but I believe Y. People who believe Y don’t do X. I want to be a person who acts consistently with Y! This feels bad.” Healthy guilt prompts us to act with integrity and wholeness. Shame self-talk is stronger and more difficult to experience. It sounds like, “I did X because I’m a bad person. People who do X are not worthy of love and respect.” Shame might result in temporary changes in behavior, but they don’t last.

In this difficult July, I’ve sometimes needed to sit with guilt and feel those difficult feelings. Twelve step spirituality talks about a ‘fearless moral inventory.’ Many of us (read: white folks) need to do some fearless reflection on race and privilege.

But as much as is possible, stay away from shame. ☺

Take care. Sleep. Move your body. Eat healthy food.

I’m treading carefully here, friends. Recently, I’ve heard the expression ‘Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others…” and it feels like an excuse for selfishness. I hear friends talk about Netflix and shopping as self-care and it sounds like a cop out.

So the questions are always What is valid self-care for me? How do I balance care of those closest to me and care of the world? How will I know when it’s time to step out of the cocoon of self-care and back into the hurting world?

Tentatively, I am reaching toward a rule that if a self-care tactic gives me energy to help others, that’s a good tactic. If a self-care tactic feeds an unhealthy dependence (social media, obsession with self-image, materialism), it’s not so good. The corollary to this rule is to be gentle with myself and others.

Helpful stuff

Reach out. Listen. Help.

Last weekend, about a dozen of us gathered at Shadow Rock. In the days and hours after the shootings last week (Alton Sterling, Philando Castille, and the officers in Dallas), many in our congregation expressed a need to be together. So despite the valid self-care of our July Sabbath, we opened the sanctuary to sing, talk, pray, and comfort one another.

And it was a good thing. But there’s a reaching out that’s beyond our comfort zone, a reaching out to people with backgrounds, cultures, faiths, and experiences different from our own. It’s hard and holy work. And it’s in this part of the list – #3 – that I feel most humbled and need to hear my own advice the most.

Helpful stuff

Love matters.

You know all those begats in the Bible (I’m talkin’ about you, Exodus chapter 6 and Matthew chapter 1)? Genealogies are often thought of as the most boring parts of scripture. But think of this: our spiritual ancestors were parents. And for a lot of them, that’s ALL WE KNOW ABOUT THEM. And parenting in 2016 is hard work. If nothing else, everyone on the Internet and IRL seems to find tremendous satisfaction in telling you what you’re doing wrong.

But it’s so important. Raising kind and brave children and supporting parents who are trying to do the same may be the only thing I do with lasting impact.

Helpful stuff

And #4 gives me the most hope. All around me, I see adults treating children with respect. I see parents trying to parent peacefully. I see our culture slowly, slowly become more welcoming to all kinds of families and kids.

So, so all the parents out there, I SEE YOU. And you’re doing great.

Listen to your yoga teacher: When in doubt, soften.

Breathe. Center yourself. Find some muscle to relax. Repeat as necessary.