SPIRITUAL COMPASS

Spiritual Compass

“Within each one of us, there is a spiritual compass. It always points toward the good, toward what is holy. The compass is made of our values, what we believe and hold sacred. Over the years, our experience makes the compass within us even more accurate, refining our ability to seek the right direction in life, making us even more sensitive to the pull of compassion and common sense. Therefore, we do not have to be afraid that we will get lost, wandering the wilderness of this age. We only have to follow where our heart leads, and our reason points the way.”—Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook post.

Cynthia Bourgeault would agree with Steven Charleston about a spiritual compass. She calls it an inward GPS (Global Positioning System), similar to the one we use in our car to get us to the correct location. We need to know where we are—and then the address of where we want to go—and the GPS will get us there.

Sometimes, we are not confident about where we are, but we have a good idea of where we want to go. Our aim, above all, is to keep our connection to God. I love it when our ideal location is not yet on the map, and the GPS takes us as close as possible. This may also be true regarding our spiritual life.

Bourgeault calls our heart a “God Positioning System.” When it is attuned and turned on, it will allow us to achieve balance in a completely different way: perceiving by separating and differentiating things from each other, perceiving the whole, and discerning our place within the whole. For Bourgeault, becoming attuned to this spiritual GPS comes through the contemplative practice of Centering Prayer. My own GPS is writing. We are each called to find which spiritual practice best connects us to God. Also, do not be surprised that it may change from time to time.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Shape of God: Deepening the Mystery of the Trinity (CAC, 2004), disc 4.

 Cynthia Bourgeault, “How Change Happens” in Transgression (CAC, 2014), Vol. 2 No. 1, p. 86.

GPS

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

 

 

 

Buechner: Memory and the Eucharist

Buechner: Memory, Eucharist, Jesus

“There are two ways of remembering. One way is to make an excursion from the living present back into the dead past. The other way is to summon the dead past back into the living present. The young widow remembers her husband, and he is there beside her. When Jesus said, ‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ he was not prescribing a periodic slug of nostalgia.”—Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking (Harper & Row, 1973).

Buechner gives us two ways to remember: going back and bringing memories forward. Returning to past memories can allow us to relive a scene from our lives. Anthony de Mello writes that perhaps that scene was too powerful to experience the first time. As we relive it, we can participate in it again and again, each time gaining a greater sense of its meaning.

Bringing memories forward is like doing active imagination with a living friend or someone you deeply loved who has died. You imagine the person’s presence with you. My experience is that sometimes we feel that presence even without trying to imagine it.

Buechner believes that when Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24b), he was calling us to bring him back into our presence—to know and feel his love, so we might go out and bring others in to share in this love. 

Some believe Jesus is present in the Eucharist’s bread and wine. Others believe that bread and wine are messengers or symbols, reminding us of Jesus’ presence and love in our lives. Either way, the God of love is present.

Receiving the Eucharist is one of the significant liturgical sacraments many people missed during the isolation of this pandemic. Jesus is still beside us and within us, but we are learning that the symbol of this presence is more powerful and more needed than we recognized. Perhaps in our remembering, we can return to previous times or bring Jesus forward and let him know that we believe with all our hearts that he is very present within and beside us.

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

 

 

 

 

Vamping

Vamping

“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life, bringing peace, abolishing strife.”―Kahlil Gibran.

 Once a week, I played harp duets with a highly talented harpist who tolerated my missed or absent notes and tried to teach an old harpist new tricks and fingering. One year, Pam also taught me an unfamiliar word: vamping. She said, “I will vamp you in.” She plays a brief series of chords before I start my part of the piece. I definitely like the word. Vamping. It means we play a simple chord or beat, usually as we wait for someone else to start—and then perhaps keep quietly playing the background chords as the other player takes the melody.

I think this best describes a meeting with a spiritual friend. I may ask a simple question, such as, “Where did you see God in your life today?” I may then repeat the question when the subject seems to change. Often, I keep saying prayers that the Holy Spirit will guide us. These prayers are my chords.

Vamping also describes the ministry as a deacon. Deacons see needs in the world and then tell others in their congregation. We then support and lead others into that ministry, as they become passionate about it as well.

Our job is to stay connected to the beat as we listen for the rhythm and melody of the presence of the Holy Spirit in us and those we work with. We remain in the background and support and undergird the person we are with. We keep the beat going, listening and praying to hear and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, guiding and directing both of us.