Faith formation and sacred conversations are the focus on the faith journey through spiritual direction, retreats, books, and other resources.
All in Abiding
A list of six books recommended for developing a life of prayer and meditation.
Meditating on art, images, nature, all that the eye can see is a doorway and into the love language of God. Visio divina is sacred seeing as we contemplate color, texture, tones, motion, and learn to see God.
Engaging the imagination in the spiritual life I believe is how God intended for us to use this amazing brain function. After all “faith” is about believing what we cannot see. And “hope” plants a longing in something we have not yet received.
How do you practice “active and engaged meditation?” One ancient spiritual practice called lectio divina is a prayerful attentive reading of scripture.
Meditation is the discipline that opens hearts and minds to transformation. It’s about a posture of open hands and heart, releasing all that we think we need to be free and unencumbered to receive all that God intends.
The gentle rhythm of slowing moving from external to internal and back out again is symbolic of the spiritual path moving ever nearer to the inner being, the abiding place of God.
If the world lived in Sabbath rest, even one day a week, what a difference it might make in realigning our perspective on the struggles and dashed expectations and our incessant battle to be heard.
I struggle the most to “abide” especially in the midst of my ordinary routines and chores — Making one more meal, washing one more dish, commuting to work one more day.
No doubt about it, church is being redefined both in the present moment of quarantined living, but also in the near-term and long-term identity of the church. I think this is a good thing.
In this season of unrest, much is being dismantled within us and around us, leaving us to wonder about new definitions, structures, and perspectives on life. Wondering and wandering are the gifts of spiritual direction.
In a world that labels self-care as selfish, or a waste of time, we have to fight the inner voices that try to convince us that we don’t deserve to spend time tending to our own soul.
Just one week prior to the murder of George Floyd on May 20th, I posted a three-part series on Active Listening. I have consolidated this message into one post for easy access to these tools in one place. Learn how to receive, reflect, and respond as a tool for peace
Do you ever wake up with words of a song stuck in your head, or more importantly, in your heart? The old hymn Abide with Me has lodged itself within me recently, asking me to pay attention to it.
A listening heart and an attentive mind is the greatest gift of hospitality anyone can offer to another person.
Bearing witness is a bit of an old fashioned phrase that asks us to attend to someone or something, be it a
circumstance, an event, or our own inner thoughts. Such a call is counter-intuitive to our western ways of progress. But this watching awareness, partnered with prayer stands at the intersection of heaven and earth.
The third element of active listening is responding our of silence, after prayerful listening, receiving and reflecting.
Reflecting as an active listening tool is much different than reacting to what someone says. Reflecting mirrors, clarifies, wonders along with the speaker.
In a highly distracted world, it takes intention to truly listen to another. Three key elements include receiving, reflecting, and responding.
There are many beautiful metaphors for spiritual direction. My new favorite is that of a musical conductor, blending all the voices, harmonies, tones, expressions of the divine score. What are your favorite metaphors?
