Nadia: Spiritual vs Religious

Nadia: Spiritual vs religious

“I think this is why we at House for All Sinners and Saints sometimes say that we are religious but not spiritual. Spiritual feels individual and escapist. But to be religious (despite all the negative associations with that word) is to be human in the midst of other humans who are as equally messed up and obnoxious and forgiven as ourselves.” Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints, Convergent Books, 2016.

Again, and again, Nadia makes us sit up and take notice. I have heard so often that phrase, “spiritual but not religious,” and I know I have said it as well and have seen it as a badge of courage. What I hear is that this person has a relationship with God but not with a religious institution or church or creed or denomination. This person is trying to “home school” God, as I have actually heard some say. They often have been harmed by the institutional church or have been misunderstood by the church or may even misunderstand the church themselves. I hear this often from people whose experience of church was not a church that believed as much in a loving God as in a vengeful God watching their every step to catch them doing something wrong. They have been wounded, but they so want to have a relationship with God. They are truly seekers.

Nadia, however, is reminding us that God most often does not call us only to a one on one relationship. God also constantly calls us to community, and that is where we will so often experience God in the unlikely humans we learn to live and work with, especially when we are a part of a community believing in a loving and forgiving God.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Kidd: Spiritual Whittling

Kidd: Spiritual Whittling
“There’s an old Carolina story I like about a country boy who had a great talent for carving beautiful dogs out of wood. Every day he sat on his porch whittling, letting the shavings fall around him. One day a visitor, greatly impressed, asked him the secret of his art. “I just take a block of wood and whittle off the parts that don’t look like a dog,” he replied…. In spiritual whittling, though, we don’t discard the shavings. Transformation happens not by rejecting these parts of ourselves but by gathering them up and integrating them. Through this process we reach a new wholeness. Spiritual whittling is an encounter with Mystery, waiting, the silence of inner places—all those things most folks no longer have time for.”
Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits. HarperSanFrancisco 1992.

This is my experience of transformation as well. I constantly realize that parts of my life that keep me “together” or keep me connected to God that are so useful at one time of my life or keep me safe may be tired and worn and need to rest. These gifts are still a part of me, but what I have to offer, my ministry changes. One of the hardest of course was giving up my medical practice that had been my identity, but I was learning that there were so many other things I wanted to do, and it was more and more difficult to keep up with the constantly changing technical medical world.

I also came to learn that just because we are good at one ministry doesn’t mean we should keep doing it. We may be keeping others from the joy of that ministry, and actually they may be able to do it better! What we learn in one part of our life also can be helpful in another ministry, so we do not discard it. In medicine I learned a great deal about suffering, especially about the suffering of children and their parents. I learned about looking deep inside for hidden clues as to what is causing a disease or difficulty. This ability is now helpful in spiritual direction. I also learned how to work with people with a multitude of different personalities. This has helped me to be a little less judgmental and perhaps appreciate differences.

I am slowly learning to be more vigilant about habits that kept me safe during some parts of my life which have later become destructive.

What am I trying to say?

Life is about constantly giving up control or the allusion that we are in control. It is also about being open to change, letting doors shut, but being open to entering new doors or not being afraid to sit in the hallway for a while, waiting to hear the squeak of another door opening. It is about trusting, avoiding being stuck and stagnating or thinking we are out of options.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Merton: Prayer as Distraction Again

Merton: Prayer as Distraction Again

“If my prayer is centered in myself, if it seeks only an enrichment of my own self, my prayer itself will be my greatest potential distraction..”

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1999.

Thomas Merton reminds us what our prayer life and the rest of our life as well becomes when our prayer life is centered on ourselves, our own desires, our own needs, our own knowledge. Merton calls this kind of life a distraction, something that keeps us from the truth, a diversion, a disturbance of the mind, a hindrance. We think we are doing everything right, but in essence we are back where we started with our world centered on ourselves rather than God.

We may think that God is our co-pilot, but we are the pilot. We have such good ideas. God is there to make certain that our ideas, our prayers are answered. I only have to think about all the prayers that I prayed for that were not answered that later I learned would have been disastrous. There were the boyfriends who never gave me the time of day that I would have sold my soul for. I also well remember the prayers that were answered that became harmful, the jobs I thought I had to have, the co-workers I just knew would be perfect.

As friends in recovery say, “our best thinking got us here.”

When we do not say to God, "thy will be done," it seems his answer to us may sometimes be, "your will be done."

Merton is calling us to the prayer of surrender, turning our prayers as well as our life and our wills over to God. “Thy will be done.”

This kind of prayer and prayer life also calls for acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, and most of all love. We begin to learn that we are loved beyond any love we could imagine, and that this love is daily offered to us if we only choose to connect to it and accept it.

Joanna joannaseibert.com