De Mello: Intercessory Prayer, The Empty Chair

De Mello: Intercessory Prayer, The Empty Chair

“It is vital that you become aware of Jesus and get in touch with him at the beginning of your intercessory prayer. Otherwise, your intercession is in danger of becoming not prayer but an exercise of remembering people. The danger is that your attention will be focused only on the people you are praying for, and not on God.”—Anthony de Mello in Sadhana: A Way to God (Image Books), p. 126.

De Mello’s book had a significant impact on my spiritual practices. The awareness exercises of my surroundings, my body, and my senses have been the most practical avenues for learning how to experience God’s presence. I was familiar with these exercises before and had tried them without success, but they have now become an essential spiritual practice for me.

One more lesson to remember: Spiritual practices that were not meaningful in the past can become important later.

De Mello suggests that rather than envisioning the face or clothes of Jesus, we might seek a sense of Jesus in the shadows, calling him by as many names as we are led to. He recommends imagining Jesus in our prayers in an empty chair beside us. This can be one of the most consistent ways to experience the presence of Christ.

These intercessory prayer exercises can change how we pray and talk about prayer with others. We remember Jesus as the great intercessor, imagining Jesus’ presence directly beside us and visualizing those we pray for with Jesus laying hands on them.

The book’s last prayers deal with turning desires and prayers over to God one at a time—praising God at all times for everything, good and bad. This can change our prayer practice and also how we live our lives.

De Mello invites us to live and pray intimately, becoming part of the grand mystery of God’s love for us and all creation in the present moment. He believes this precious now, the present moment, is where God meets us.

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

 

 

 

Tourist vs Pilgrim

 Tourist vs. Pilgrim

Guest Writer: Karen DuBert

Two Travellers

Dust we are—atoms from our world

transformed from minerals and chemicals

that swirled in the beginning

to coalesce into our radiant blue planet

our womb and home.

 

Living here—members of the same material—

separate by volition and movement:

creative spawners of cities to civilizations,

economies to technologies,

miniature images of Creation Genius

we live and move and have our being—a gift.

 

Striding or wandering

through an earth we cannot comprehend,

two paths appear.

Side by side the pilgrim and the tourist:

work, marry, breathe, grow, die

—hearts divergent.

 

The tourist walks weighty

to see, be attracted, entertained, impressed

an explorer seeking adventure and titillation,

leaving a litter-strewn wake:

debris of consumption and satiation.

 

Where tourists clump, trash and noise preside—

inhabitants mere local colour.

Selfies, rest stops, souvenirs, tickets

substitute for cooing doves,

early dawn breezes, daily rhythms.

Clattering cases on cobblestones—

spare no space for ponderous silence.

 

The pilgrim walks gently

to absorb, listen, smell, taste the awe

of each sacred place and time.

Finding the heart behind the beauty,

grieving history’s futile battles—

with bowed head

leaning into fratricide, oppression,

mountains of injustice

perpetuated by our very selves

in this our very home

on these our very sisters and brothers.

 

Seldom enhancing the economy—

a choice not to be laden with treasures

—lavishly given or discarded.

The pilgrim walks lightly, reflects deeply,

carries the essential,

guards the path, collects the litter,

brings the blessing, invites peace.

 

We leave footprints where we walk

it is our choice—

how we walk. 

This poem is inspired by living in a tourism-driven city (Granada) and seeing the difference in the impact between those who are pilgrims and those who are tourists.  Some thoughts as so many travel during the summer.

(The image is ChatGPT, not copyrighted.)

Karen DuBert

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

 

 

Buechner, Nouwen, Tillich: Ocean

Buechner, Tillich: Ocean   

“They say that whenever the theologian Paul Tillich went to the beach, he would pile up a mound of sand and sit on it gazing out at the ocean with tears running down his cheeks...Maybe what made him weep was how vast and overwhelming it was, and yet at the same time as near as the breath of it in his nostrils, as salty as his own tears.”—Frederick Buechner in Beyond Words (HarperOne, 2009).

I share Tillich’s awe whenever I visit the ocean or the Gulf. It is an experience of vastness and closeness with Nature and some Power greater than ourselves. Today, I also think about how dangerous the sea can be, as I recall past prayers for friends on the North Carolina coast who were devastated by Hurricane Florence. I recall the extensive destruction along the Gulf of Mexico following hurricanes Frederick, Ivan, Katrina, Michael, Laura, and Sally.

I also think of the pleasure the sea and the sand have brought to generations. The sound of the waves calms my soul. Watching children swim and play in the sand pulls at the heartstrings of the child within me. Watching families, lovers, and children walk along the surf is a lesson in our connectedness to one another. The dolphins, pelicans, and lone osprey constantly remind us of the variety of coexisting life with agendas that differ from ours. The “turtle people” who walk the beach in the early morning, searching for turtle tracks to secret nests, are icons of faithfulness and a caring attitude towards something other than themselves.

I see the ocean, the sea, the Gulf, and the sand as icons of something created out of love, no matter the process. Living by the sea is like being in a loving relationship with a spouse, friend, or children. Whenever we offer ourselves, our love, to another, it can be beautiful beyond words, like the sea.

hurricane laura. Joanna Campbell

Living on the Gulf, we are open to storms, sometimes as ugly and powerful as these hurricanes. But like the people I observe by the sea, we remember that the positive potential of love always overwhelms the possible hurtful negative. The lows are pale compared to the highs. So we keep picking up the mess and forgive the wind, the sea, and those we love, and hope they can forgive us for the harm we knowingly or unknowingly do to them.

Henri Nouwen calls Nature “God’s Hidden Language.”

“Nature is not a possession to be conquered, but a gift to be received with respect and gratitude. Only when we make a deep bow to the rivers, oceans, hills, and mountains that offer us a home, only then can they become transparent and reveal to us their real meaning. All of nature conceals great secrets that cannot be revealed unless we listen carefully and patiently to God’s hidden language.1”

1Henri Nouwen in Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life 

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