De Mello: Ignatian Exercises

De Mello: Ignatian Exercises and More

“This is the spirit in which we embark upon Ignatian contemplations. Through the simple childlike use of our fantasy, we attain a truth far beyond fantasy, the truth of mystery, the truth of the mystics.”—Anthony de Mello in Sadhana: A Way to God (Image Books, 1978).

De Mello offers many awareness exercises that enable us to know and feel the presence of Christ, especially in prayer. In one exercise, we imagine Jesus sitting in an empty chair beside us. He reminds us that we can start our prayer in our heads. But our prayers will become stale and dry if we do not move to our senses and heart—out of a place of thinking and talking into a place of feeling, sensing, loving, and intuiting.

De Mello suggests Ignatian contemplation to help us become part of a scene from Christ’s life, to enhance our reading of Scripture and our prayer life. He reminds us of others who experienced God using Ignatian contemplation. Francis of Assisi, in contemplation, took Jesus down from the cross and knew his Lord was no longer dead. Teresa of Avila felt closest to Christ when she was with him, as he agonized in the garden. Ignatius of Loyola became a servant, accompanying Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.

Learning how to enter into the truth of these mystics can transform our own experience of living in God’s presence.

We give thanks for spiritual guides who knew what we would need in today’s world of strife and illness so many years ago.

Whyte: Spirituality at the Workplace

 Whyte: Spirituality at the Workplace

“The first step to preserving the soul in our individual lives is to admit that the world also has a soul and somehow participates with us in our work and destiny. That there is a sacred otherness to the world that is breathtakingly helpful simply because it is not us.”— David Whyte in The Heart Aroused, Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America (Crown Business, New York 2002), p. 280.

team I worked with at Children’s Hospital

In his book, The Heart Aroused, poet David Whyte writes about taking our spirituality to the workplace, where it is so desperately needed by ourselves and others. He believes preserving the soul means giving up our desire in the scheduled workplace not to have unscheduled meetings. My experience is that God drops into my life with interruptions that are not on my agenda.

Whyte believes we must relinquish a belief that the world owes us a place on a divinely ordained career ladder. We have a place in the world, but it is constantly shape-shifting. Our profound struggles can be our most significant spiritual and creative assets and the doors to creativity.

The Greeks said that if the gods wanted to punish someone, they granted them everything they wanted. Likewise, the soul’s ability to experience joy in the workplace is commensurate with our ability to feel grief. We walk into corporate offices looking like full-grown adults, but many parts of us are still playing emotional catch-up from the suffering and traumas of childhood, which unconsciously refuse to grow any older until the trauma is resolved.  

The most dangerous time for a male is around nine o’clock on Monday morning, and then later the few months following his retirement when more injuries and illnesses occur. One is a death caused by carrying the burden, and the other is the ability to live without the burden. Work almost always becomes a platform for self-righteous moralizing. Hurrying from one workstation to another, we hope the rushing itself can grant us the importance we seek. Whyte suggests that by slowing for a moment, we might open up to the emptiness at the center.

Whyte reminds us how astonishing it is to see how we shrink from the things nourishing our souls and take on every possible experience to quit it. I did this for dream-work, as I became too busy with my “church work” to go to my long-time dream group. I also see this continually in spiritual direction, where I have difficulty fitting my spiritual director into my “busy schedule.” I called her yesterday on her birthday, and we are meeting soon. Not soon enough!

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

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.

 If I were redesigning a program about spiritual direction, 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 listening, where we clear our heads of agendas and what is going on in our lives as much as possible.

We offer the gift of time for forty-five minutes or an hour to listen to someone else’s life. For this short time, we are given the privilege of caring for the soul of another, helping a person realize God’s never-failing presence in their own presence.

I sit, and all these great ideas come to me as I listen. “I think they 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 we have plucked a string still vibrating from a recent finger placement on that string. We must wait for that string to stop vibrating before we play it again, or this annoying sound will declare itself.

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

I am learning to play fewer buzzing notes as I talk less and listen more. As a result, my buzzing harp string has become my icon for listening.

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

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/