Brussats: Spiritual RX

Brussats: Spiritual Rx

“Spirituality won’t solve all your problems, but it will you deal with them. The first step is to examine your symptoms--what is really happening in your life—to see what they reveal about the best spiritual practices for you.” Frederic and Mary Ann Brussats, Spiritual Rx. p. 16.

Well known writers about spirituality for five decades, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, have written extensively about spiritual practices. My favorite book is Spiritual Rx, which is a rich resource for 37 spiritual practices, markers for the spiritual life, their alphabet of Spiritual Literacy, each of which is common in the world’s major religions. With each practice, there is an extensive discussion about it from the basic practice to teachers of the practice, videos, rituals, prayers or mantra, journal exercises, storytelling, community projects, fiction, poetry, art, music.

For example, if you are someone living in the past or future, the opposite of this symptom is being present.  The spiritual practice of being present includes reading Brother Lawrence’s Writings and Conversations on the Practice of the Presence of God, viewing the German film, Wings of Desire, imaging exercises of sensing God’s presence all around you, practicing free intuitive writing, watching children at play who live in the moment, learning about Haiku, listening to Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony.

Advent or Lent could be no better time to read this book alone or in a group.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Schmidt: Feng Shui 2

Guest Writer: Frederick Schmidt

Schmidt: Feng Shui 2

“Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.” Alice Walker

Not everyone who considers themselves spiritual necessarily takes that larger responsibility into consideration.  In fact, most of us are taught that spirituality is about getting God involved in our lives, fixing our problems, comforting us when we are down, showing us the way.  Our culture has taught us to think that way; and some spiritualities are devoted to that understanding of the spiritual life.

Now, at one level, I’m all for God being involved in my life.  I don’t relish having problems.  When God seems particularly close I enjoy the palpable sense of peace that goes along with such moments and I never mind knowing what to do next.  But, at the same time, I don’t think that is the purpose of the spiritual life. 

We have a larger responsibility.  Feng shui doesn’t quite capture that responsibility, but it hints at a concept found in the Torah, in the prophets, and the teaching of Jesus --- pretty much the entire Bible, in fact.  It’s called the righteousness of God --- the order God intended, to put it in more accessible terms.  Put another way, we are called into partnership with Jesus to care about the way in which the world around us does or does not conform to God’s design. 

Contributing to the righteousness of God won’t be as easy as rearranging the furniture in a room.  Doing that in our world is a much bigger job.  Not everyone will think that God’s opinion on where the furniture should go will agree with us.  We won’t even agree among ourselves on where it should be all the time.  And this side of eternity the furniture will never be where all of it should be.

But we can witness to making God’s righteousness a reality.  We can make personal choices and relate to one another in ways that reflect the presence of God in our lives.  Those may not be large pieces of furniture, but it’s a good place to start.

Frederick Schmidt

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Schmidt: Dys-Feng Shui

Guest Writer: Frederick Schmidt

Schmidt: Dys-Feng Shui 1

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest. “ Mahatma Gandhi

I don’t know a great deal about Feng Shui (pronounced Fung Shwee), but it is, as I understand it, a Chinese concept of aesthetics that used the laws of heaven and earth to order one’s life in a way that maximized the use of life’s energy in a fashion that harmonized with the world around us.

Today it is used in a rather more trivialized and commercial fashion by interior decorators who probably don’t know a lot about ancient Chinese philosophy.  But they do know an exotic way to sell their services when they see one.

In the middle of a rather lengthy business meeting some years ago, those of us around the table found a way to kill a few free moments by joking about the rather strange table arrangement we had been given for our meeting.  The worst of it was that there were people left at tables behind us.  They were forced to face the backs of our heads and we were forced to turn our backs on them.

Thus, one of the funnier “you had to be there to understand” moments was one in which we critiqued the arrangement as a product of “dys-feng shui.”

Whether you find that funny or not, I think it is true that the more we live into the spiritual life, the more we take responsibility for the world around us.  We notice feng shui and dys-feng shui --- or to turn the vocabulary in a direction that is a bit more familiar to me, you notice where the Spirit of God is at work and where the Spirit of God is marginalized.

I am not talking about some kind of soft social consciousness, never mind a body of political beliefs.  I am talking about the capacity to look at the world around us through the eyes of God.

Frederick Schmidt

Joanna joannaseibert.com