Nouwen: Emotional and Spiritual Lives

Nouwen: The Dynamics of the Spiritual Life
“Our emotional lives and our spiritual lives have different dynamics.  The ups and downs of our emotional life depend a great deal on our past or present surroundings. .
 Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us. The ups and downs of our spiritual lives depend on our obedience - that is, our attentive listening - to the movements of the Spirit of God within us…We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children.”  Henri Nouwen,  Henri Nouwen Society, Daily Meditation, July 26, Bread for the Journey, A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith.

I need to read this every day and share with spiritual friends. Our spiritual connection to God is always there even when we do not feel it. Nadia Bolz-Weber compares God in Accidental Saints to the “thief who comes in the night” (Matthew 24:36, 40, 42-44), breaking in when we least expect him and may not be prepared. God is always desperately, relentlessly searching to be connected to us says the English poet, Francis Thompson in The Hound of Heaven.  Our emotional life may be different and depends on relationships, moods, our chemistry, our physical and mental health, outside forces, and God knows what! It is so important to remember what Nouwen is telling us that our emotional and spiritual are not the same.  God is always there no matter where our emotions are, up or down.

Joanna    joannaseibert.com

Keating: Centering Prayer 2

Keating: Centering Prayer 2

“Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation.” Thomas Keating, Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation

I daily talk with spiritual friends who are prisoners to the business of their minds trying to keep pace with the business of the world. It is natural to see Centering Prayer as an escape from the world, but Keating and Cynthia Bourgeault remind us that this spiritual practice is instead a reconnecting to God. This is not a one-time practice like a shot of penicillin for an infection of pneumonia. It is more like a daily heart medication which can strengthen a muscle that perhaps has not been cared for in the past.

Another difficult concept  is that the change that takes place in a person’s live is usually most felt some time later than when he or she sits and practice the exercise. The change also may be more prominent in others than in the one practicing centering prayer. God is the healer.

We put ourselves in position to be healed in centering prayer.

 I also have friends who as with most other exercises find this one easier to stay with it when they meet on a regular basis with others doing Centering Prayer.

Thomas Keating, “The Method of Centering Prayer: The Prayer of Consent,” Contemplative Outreach, http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/category/category/centering-prayer

Joanna   joannaseibert.com

Meeting God

Praise Be

“Praise be to the not-nearly-a-girl anymore

clerking at our local grocery outlet

since junior high. Single mom, moved up

after a decade of customer service

to manage four well-ordered aisles

of hairsprays, lipsticks, and youthful glow

in glittering squeeze tubes. Familiar

red-headed, brown-eyed, gap-toothed

smile. Willing to put aside her boxes of chores

to chat with each of us she names by heart.

I forget if she’s Mary or Alice or Jane.

Fine, I answer after she asks, How’s

your day? And driving my sacks

of next week’s meals home, I wonder

why she rises from her labors to greet me,

why she straightens her smock

where it’s pulled up a bit and rides her hips.

Tucks in place a loose wisp of curl.

When I walk by, what does she want to know,

when she asks, How's your day?

I wonder why so seldom I’ve asked it back.”

"Praise Be" by Lowell Jaeger from Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone. © Shabda Press, 2016.

This is where we meet God. In the interruptions of life, often by the most unlikely means or person. Some interruptions by God are more obvious. This interruption by the grocery store employee who calls each by name is one of the more obvious ones. She stops what she is doing to call us by name and ask us how we are doing.

I honestly believe that God does the same for each of us every day. God constantly calls us by name and asks us how we are doing. It is in the brief moment of peace we feel as we walk outside and feel the cool breeze on our arms. It is in the smile from a friend or someone we don’t know. It is in that tug on our shirt by a grandchild. It is early in the morning when we first wake up and hear the birds singing near our bedroom window. It is in stopping to hear our favorite music or read a poem like this. It is in the card or tweet or email or Facebook message or call from a friend or maybe someone we barely know.  It is in the book we read that transports us to another world. It is the smell of fresh lavender or rosemary in our garden. You can help me name more.

The next movement of this poem takes us to another place. How often when we get this special interruption message often from the most unlikely person do we look into their eyes and see their face and remember their name and ask them, How are you doing as well? Do we ever ask God, God, how are you doing today?

Joanna  joannaseibert.com