Two Spiritual Paths

Kelsey: Two Spiritual Journeys

“There are two quite different ways of leading people on the spiritual pilgrimage, which have often been seen as opposed to each other.” — Morton Kelsey in Companions on the Inner Way, The Art of Spiritual Guidance (Crossroad 1983), pp. 7,8.

 Kelsey first describes the sacramental method of spiritual direction, where we use spiritual practices involving concrete matter, music, pictures, beads, rituals, and symbols to connect to God. Kelsey calls this method the kataphatic way from the Greek meaning “with images.” The downside is that these can lead to idolatry, worshiping the means we use to reach God instead of worshiping God. For Episcopalians, it has always been the Book of Common Prayer, as illustrated by the difficulty when our tradition tries to revise the book. As a result, droves of people leave the church. The same thing may happen in churches when the altar is moved, or we change the order of service or even the prayers.

Kelsey describes the second path based on the belief that we best connect to God by emptying ourselves of all images, remembering that there is no way to explain or represent the holy. In silence and emptiness, we connect to the God within. This is the apophatic way from the Greek meaning without images. It has been the way of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christian contemplative forms, such as Centering Prayer. Kelsey believes the downside is that this inner work can occasionally lead to a lack of reaching out to others, even though the desired result should be connecting the Christ we find within ourselves to the Christ in others.

Kelsey encourages us to practice both methods. The two are a necessary part of a well-developed and informed spirituality.

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

Our True Self and Our False Self

Sue Monk Kidd: False Selves

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked." Kahlil Gibran

I especially relate to Sue Monk Kidd's naming of our false selves, or the masks we wear that we initially put on to protect ourselves from the difficulties we encounter from our very beginnings. Still, these identities are not our true selves. These are similar, but an expanded, feminine form of Fritz Kunkel's four: Turtle, Star, Eternal Boy, and Tyrant. Kidd describes the Little Girl with a Curl (pleaser, very good), Tinsel Star (overachiever, perfectionist, performer), Rapunzel (waiting to be rescued), Little Red Hen (duty), Chicken Little (fear-based like Turtle), Tin Woodman (no heart or connection to body). Finally, she offers advice on recognizing these false selves and removing the mask with each of them.

 In When the Heart Waits, Kidd challenges us to think about who we would be if all of the roles we play were suddenly stripped away. I connect to her writing about the difficulty of letting go or diapause. I remember my difficulty in completely retiring from medicine. First, I worked four days a week, then twice a week, then twice a month, and finally, one day a month. It is hard to let go of a persona that has been ours for forty years.

Kidd describes the tension that arises when we recognize these false selves that have dominated our lives. She describes an orphanage of banished selves still crying out inside of us. What happens when we still hear the "ego logic" of the Star and the Red Hen driving us to promote ourselves, or hear the Little Girl with the Curl who feels abandoned and unloved and wants to please? What happens when the Star decides not to perform because she learns more about God's love and no longer needs to be approved by others? I remember this was my persona from an early age when my grandfather first put me up on top of a picnic table when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old to play my accordion at our family's 4th of July picnic. She has been so much a part of my life for so long.

 On the other hand, we know we are connected to our authentic self when we respond out of love rather than fear, and honesty rather than approval seeking. The Tin Man is healed by reconnecting our body to our mind, heart, and soul through creative dialoguing with our body. I am reminded of Anthony DeMello's body exercises.

Kidd believes that when we do find our true selves, Rapunzel no longer gets someone to rescue her, the Woodman recovers his heart and embraces his feelings and body, the Little Girl with the Curl finds her own voice, the Red Hen stops taking care of everyone else, and the Pleaser stops pleasing.

Sometimes, other people we live with may have difficulty when we change. This is because they no longer know how to react to us as our true selves.

Kidd calls us to hold our false selves in our hands, trace our fingers over the masks we wear, and begin to find the real person God created us to be.

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

God's Presence

God’s Presence

“Union with God is not something we acquire by a technique. Because God is the ground of our being, separation is impossible. God does not know how to be absent.”—Martin Laird, Inward Outward Daily quote, May 16, 2018.

Piper calling us to the Beach

We may feel that God is not beside us or has abandoned us, but Martin Laird reminds us that God is never absent. Never absent. Never absent. We need to remind ourselves about this every day, every moment. We are never alone. The vastness of God’s presence and love is more incredible than we can know, feel, or imagine.

My experience is that when I ask for more love from friends and family than they can give, this is a stop sign that I have become disconnected from God’s presence.

I am asking others to give more love than they can give, because I do not feel God’s love. When I talk to people in spiritual direction who feel estranged from God, I remind them of my experience.

So, how do we change? How do we feel God’s presence and God’s love, rather than God’s absence? My experience is that we have become disconnected, especially from the Christ within us. A multitude of ways can put us in a position to know and feel the love of God always present. That is the purpose of all spiritual exercises. Some make gratitude lists. Others try to be more intentional about their prayer time, spending more time with God and listening instead of talking. Some spend more time in Nature, where God’s presence and beauty are overwhelming.

We are told God is always present among the sick, the poor, the needy, and the lonely. My experience is that visiting those in need is one of the surest ways to connect with the Christ in another, who then reflects to us the Christ in ourselves that has been there all along. Working at a food pantry, visiting the sick, and sitting with someone lonely is where we find God.

The paradox is that getting out of ourselves leads us back to the God within.

Cannon beach

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