Parker Palmer: Sanctuary, Sacred Spaces

Parker Palmer: Seeking Sanctuary in Our Own Sacred Spaces

"At times something happens that makes us hypersensitive to all that threatens our souls. Sanctuary is wherever I find safe space to regain my bearings, reclaim my soul, heal my wounds, and return to the world as a wounded healer. It’s not merely about finding shelter from the storm: it’s about spiritual survival. Today, seeking sanctuary is no more optional for me than church attendance was as a child." Parker Palmer,

“What We Need to Flourish Is Here,” On Being,

https://onbeing.org/blog/what-we-need-to-flourish-is-here/, September 21, 2016.

Parker Palmer reminds us how important it is to have a safe place, a sanctuary where we can go to and renew our spirit when we are wounded, when all around us is falling apart, when we lose our direction. It is indeed about spiritual survival. I think of people who live in crowded quarters, multiple families in a few rooms, refugees in camps. How do they ever renew their spirit? Perhaps this is factor in their unrest.

I have had so many sanctuaries, my bedroom growing up, a cigar box filled with sacred treasures, my grandparents’ home, a school, a dock, a river, a woods, listening to music, playing music, singing, a chapel, a person, many other bedrooms, a church camp, many offices with little altars, a dress shop, books, paintings, a favorite hotel, a writer, a daily walk, museums, phone calls, a chair, a beach, a balcony, a church, special friends.

Today my sanctuary is writing, trying to clear thoughts from my head and move them from my head to my body. I give thanks that somehow these sanctuary places came about at the right time. The seemingly healthiest friends I have all have sanctuaries and are not ashamed or embarrassed to talk about them.

Of course, there are the dangerous sanctuaries, food, alcohol, drugs, work, shopping, relationships which are temporary dwellings built on sand.

Joanna. Joannaeibert.com

Purchase a copy of A Daily Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter in Little Rock from me joannaseibert@me.com or from Wordsworth Books or from the publisher Earth Songs Press or on Amazon.. Proceeds from the book go for hurricane relief in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast.

Owensby: Changing our perspective, community

Owensby: Changing our perspective, community

“A gestalt shift is a visual switch of perspective. While looking at an unchanging image we see first one thing and then another. For instance, in the picture below you can see a (vase or two people.)” Jake Owensby, Looking for God in Messy Places, https://jakeowensby.com, March 3, 2018.

In his weekly blog, Looking for God in Messy Places, the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana, talks about how we make on interpretation of what we are seeing before we see it. He challenges us to look at some things we think are familiar in another way. His story is about how through Jesus he changed his ideas about God.

Gestalt shifts involve changing our mind about something.

I see Gestalt shifts in spiritual direction as well. Spiritual direction is about caring for the soul. Spiritual friends help us put on a new pair of glasses so we can see God at work in their lives at times when we did not perceive God before. Spiritual friends ask questions like, “how is your heart” instead of “how are you doing.” Spiritual friends follow a rule of life where we “bend the knee of the heart”1 and “listen with the ear of the heart.” 2 Spiritual friends help us find our own sacred space inside of each of us as well as finding sacred spaces outside of us in the world. We begin to see what Barbara Brown Taylor describes in her book, An Altar in the World.

The Gestalt shift of spiritual friends is that we look beyond the surface and see the Christ in each other, especially in the person with whom we previously were having difficulty. We begin to see them in a new light, often very wounded just like the rest of us.

1 Prayer of Manasseh, Book of Common Prayer. (Church Publishing), p. 91

2 Prologue to Rule of Benedict.

Joanna. Joannaeibert.com

Purchase a copy of A Daily Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter in Little Rock from me joannaseibert@me.com or from Wordsworth Books or from the publisher Earth Songs Press or on Amazon.. Proceeds from the book go for hurricane relief in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast.

Listening

Listening

“Be a lamp, a lifeboat or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.” Rumi (1207-1273), Daily Quotes, inwardoutward.org, May 3, 2018.

Paula Volpe

Sometimes I think if I were to redesign a program about spiritual direction that 90% of the time would be devoted to listening. My experience is that listening is one of the best tools of the Holy Spirit within us. I am talking about active listen where we clear our heads as much as possible of agendas and what is going on in our lives. We offer up the gift of time for forty-five minutes or an hour to listen to someone else’s life. For this short period of time we are given the privilege of caring for the soul of another, helping a person realize God’s never-failing presence in his or her own presence.

I sit and all these great ideas come to me as I listen. “I think she would like this book. Changing to this spiritual exercise might be helpful.”

I am learning that if I interrupt with my ideas, they often fall on deaf ears, but if I wait until there is silence and speak, the person seems to see and hear better what I might suggest. Sometimes as I wait, I later realize, “no, this was not the right book or spiritual exercise.”

I have learned a great deal about listening from my harp. Perhaps you have occasionally noticed a loud buzzing sound when some harpists play. Buzz. One of the reasons for a buzz is that you have plucked a string that is still vibrating from a recent placement of that finger or another finger on that string. You must wait for that string to stop vibrating before you play it again or this annoying sound comes out.

My buzzing harp is reminding me that I must wait for the person I am visiting with to stop talking.

I am learning how to play less buzzing notes and to talk less and listen more at the same time. My buzzing harp string has become my icon for listening.

Listening can become a “lamp, a lifeboat, and a ladder” to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our own lives as well as the lives of our spiritual friends.

Joanna. Joannaeibert.com

Purchase a copy of A Daily Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter in Little Rock from me joannaseibert@me.com or from Wordsworth Books or from the publisher Earth Songs Press or on Amazon.. Proceeds from the book go for hurricane relief in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast.