The Liesborn Prayer Wheel

The Liesborn Prayer Wheel

“Sometimes returning to ancient sources is exactly what we need to renew our spiritual lives.”—Payton Dodd, Jana Riess, and David Van Biema in “Foreword,” The Prayer Wheel: A Daily Guide to Renewing Your Faith with a Rediscovered Spiritual Practice (Convergent, 2018).

Three well-known religious writers join forces to present a meditative method using the ancient practice of the prayer wheel. The medieval Liesborn Wheel consists of four concentric bands containing the Lord’s Prayer; the Old Testament Gifts of the Spirit from Isaiah; Events in the Life of Jesus; and the Beatitudes. Each of these four texts is divided into seven stepping stones. Together, these texts comprise a complete vocabulary of faith.

The seven phrases or petitions, or stepping stones, are spiritual tools or disciplines putting us in position to connect to the God within us. The authors suggest journeying around the wheel as a daily prayer practice. The wheel can also be used topically for special needs, in times of grief, offering gratitude, or praying for others. Its use is appropriate in times of joy, discernment, or needing forgiveness. The wheel can aid prayers for healing, hope, praise, and calmness. It can also be a guide for Bible study. There are endless possibilities.

The invitation to return to this ancient source is an opportunity for all who want to learn alternative ways to experience contemplative prayer.

I will be speaking at the Arkansas Daughters of the King Fall Assembly in Little Rock, September 9 on Forgiveness and the Spirituality of Aging. Contact me for more information.

How We Love

Gerald May IV: How We Love

“In speaking of love, narcissism says, ‘I need you to love me.’ Erotic love says, ‘I need you.’ Filial love says, ‘I love you because I understand you.’ Agape—if it could speak—might say, ‘I am you in Love.’” —Gerald G. May in Will and Spirit (HarperOne, 1982), p. 167.

In Will and Spirit, Gerald May discusses types of love: narcissistic (self-love), Me-Me; erotic (romantic) love, Me-You; filial (compassionate) love, I-Thou; and agape (divine, unconditional) love. May believes erotic and filial love can act as “primary education leading to agape love.” Our confusion comes when we expect unconditional love from human beings and conditional love from God—and look for unconditional love from an image of God.

May points out that those who believe they are as holy as God commit perhaps the greatest sin. Willful self-determination is a template for human evil, just as is willful vengeance. Willfulness always leads to separateness. 

If we can move toward forgiveness for some past wrong, our fundamental capacity for love will not be injured. But if we hold on to resentment, it will become increasingly difficult to love or feel lovable. Our sense of separateness increases, and we become more afraid of anything resembling belonging, surrender, or union.

It is not so much the nature of evil forces that we experience, but our response to them, that can make a difference in our lives. When faced with a difficult situation, we must not deaden ourselves to reality, cop out, or react quickly with our own plan, while forgetting to call on the active power of God. We are called to remember the importance of a situation and the need for action, but to factor in our total dependence on the unconditional love of God. Then our hearts can be open to God working in us—and at some deep level of our awareness, we can relax and be at peace.

I will be speaking at the Arkansas Daughters of the King Fall Assembly in Little Rock, September 9 on Forgiveness and the Spirituality of Aging. Contact me if you are interested.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Friends

Gerald May III: Spiritual Friends

“At the deepest level of our hearts, we are all aching, for each other and for the same eternally loving One who calls us. It would be well, I think, if we could acknowledge this more often to one another.”—Gerald G. May in Will and Spirit (HarperOne, 1982), p. 321.

First Daughters of the King installation at St. Mark’s 2019

In Will and Spirit, Gerald May writes that we should not undertake the spiritual journey alone, regardless of our tradition. May quotes Kenneth Leech, who opens his book about spiritual direction, Soul Friend (Harper & Row, 1980), with the Celtic saying: “Anyone without a soul friend is a body without a head.” A spiritual friend or guide does not give directions, but one who points directions—someone who knows something of the terrain from having traveled some of it. Such a guide can say, “I think there may be trouble over there; perhaps try this way.”

Professional training or qualifications of a director, counselor, or friend are not nearly as important as fundamental qualities of basic positive intent, humility (not presuming to know more than one knows), and willingness (commitment to traveling a rough road and allowing the guidance to come from God rather than trying to engineer it); and responding simply and directly to the needs of others as they are presented.

May cautions us that if we expect to be spiritual friends by learning discernment techniques and using them on other people, the outcome will be nothing but a blind sales pitch or slightly pastoralized psychotherapy. He describes psychology as seeking to help a person solve the problems of living, while spiritual direction deepens the Question of life itself.

I will be speaking at the Arkansas Daughters of the King Fall Assembly in Little Rock, September 9 on Forgiveness and the Spirituality of Aging. Contact me if you are interested.

spiritual direction friends at Kanuga

Joanna.   https://www.joannaseibert.com/