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In looking through papers today, I found this poem. Perhaps it found me. Either way, I was encouraged to stillness and silence. I pray you are, as well.

 

Stone

By Charles Simic

 

Go inside a stone

That would be my way.

Let somebody else become a dove

Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.

I am happy to be a stone.

 

From the outside the stone is a riddle.

No one knows how to answer it.

Yet within, it must be cool and quiet.

Even though a cow steps on it full weight,

Even though a child throws it in a river;

The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed

To the river bottom

Where the fishes come to knock on it

And listen.

 

I have seen sparks fly out

When two stones are rubbed,

So perhaps there is a moon shining

From somewhere, as though behind a hill—

Just enough light to make out

The strange writings, the star-charts

On the inner walls.

 

 

 

Just because the tide has gone out doesn’t mean there is less water.

 

In a flurry of liturgical activity, the past few days in the Church calendar have been full of feasts and commemorations. Many of these days may be unfamiliar and perhaps even disconcerting to those who have grown up without any exposure to the Church Calendar and the practice of commemorating the lives of those who have gone before us.

The commemoration of the Feast of All Souls is further problematic for Protestants, as this is a day set aside to purposefully pray for the souls of the dead. This practice is familiar to those who have grown up in the Catholic tradition, based on the text of II Maccabees and the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. This tradition holds that after death, our souls spend time in a place called Purgatory, where we do penance for the sins committed on Earth in order to be purified for our reception into eternal life in Heaven.

Whether or not you hold to Catholic tradition, though, All Souls can be a deeply meaningful time of reflecting on those in our lives who have passed before us. It can be a time of reflecting on the gifts that they have given us, or even a releasing of the pains and abuses of the past in an extension of forgiveness that unburdens us from carrying them with us in our daily lives.

I’ve also seen how All Souls can be a beautiful commemoration of those children who have gone before us, unnamed and unknown, lost to abortion or miscarriage.

Consider stepping past the aspects of All Souls that seem unusual or uncertain to you and leaning into a commemoration of both life and death. As St. Benedict suggests, we should have death daily before us. Not in a morbid or obsessive manner, but in a way that inspires us to live lives of love, joy and peace in this moment.

If you’re interested, here are a few prayers that can be prayed today. You might also think about visiting a cemetary (which isn’t as dark or frightening as it sounds—did you know the Mount of Olives where Jesus spent his last night before His Passion is a large cemetary?), or praying for those in your community who are slowly or rapidly dying without family or friends around them.

• • •

O God, the Maker and Redeemer of all believers:
Grant to the faithful departed the unsearchable benefits of the passion of your Son;
that on the day of his appearing they may be manifested as your children;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and ever. Amen

source: TEC IUSA

Merciful God,
your Son is the resurrection and the life
of all the faithful;
raise us from the death of sin
to the life of righteousness
that at the last,
with all your faithful servants,
we may come to your eternal joy;
through our Saviour Jesus Christ
[who is alive with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit
one God, now and for ever]

NZPB p.689
The above prayer is a revision of a 1549 collect for the funeral Eucharist.
Cranmer probably borrowed it from a collect in the Dirige in Bishop Hilsey’s Primer of 1539. Cf. the 1552 & 1662 final prayer in the Burial Service. Also Alternative Service Book (CofE) p834. Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. cf. ASB p612 Collect for Easter 3. NB Jn 11:25f

Father of all,
we pray to you for those we love, but see no longer.
Grant them your peace,
let light perpetual shine upon them,
and in your loving wisdom and almighty power,
work in them the good purpose of your perfect will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Book of Alternative Services (Anglican Church of Canada) p.429

 

Pilgrim: What is it that you do here? Monk: We fall, and we get up again. –Scott Cairns

I don't know what age the monsters-in-the-closet fear hits most kids, but for me, it was age 8. I'd been to see, of all things, Gremlins—my first movie theater experience. It terrified me. After that time I needed at least a night light in every room, and the door needed to stay open.

It's reassuring, I think, that this phase is a common enough phenomenon among children that Pixar created an animated film about it—the delightful Monsters, Inc.—reminding us all that the things we imagine are out to get us may be our best allies, after all.

At left, the main child character, a mostly preverbal Boo, holds up a picture of the monster that she's seen, Randall, in an effort to convince her parents that there actually is a monster in her closet and it really is out to get her, justifying her nightly descent into ear drum fracturing screams. And, in this story, Boo is right. There is a monster. He is after her.

But there are other monsters that aren't out to get her, and, along with a blue, hairy monster named Sulley, Boo's journey brings her face to face with her fears so that she can be set free from them.

Boo, like us, has to trust someone bigger than her to guide her into a place she'd really rather not go. Pretty good metaphor for the spiritual life, wouldn't you say?

Five years ago, that place for me was a looming descent into depression. I could feel it coming. The signature malaise and lack of energy. The tears. Five years before that, with the help of great counselors and much prayer, I'd stepped away from a major depression that had crippled my life. With these new signs on the horizon, I was terrified of going there one more time. 

Then, a friend of mine asked me a question that I thought was sacreligious (but later came to recognize as the very voice of God): If God asked you to step into depression, would you go?

He'd never ask me that, I said. God isn't cruel. He wouldn't do that.

That's beside the point, my friend said. Would you go?

No, I thought. No, no, no, NO.

And in that answer, I knew that I had a fear that was, to me, bigger than God. It controlled me more than God did. It dictated how I acted, and how much I would trust Him.

I won't say that I went willingly to that closet door of mine. But, after some kicking and screaming, I took God's hand and walked up to the very place that frightened me the most.

And you know what? Unlike Boo's story, there was no monster in my closet. No depression waiting to consume me from the inside out. There was release, and freedom, and a realization that perfect love really does cast out all fear.

 

 

There are many things that bring a person to spiritual direction. Sometimes it's a crisis of circumstance, unexpected suffering, a crisis of faith or a feeling of dryness in prayer. Occasionally, what causes someone to search for a director is a deep longing for more, a dedication to the person's own journey with God. 

I recently came across a blog entry by someone on the search for a new spiritual director in his area. I love how seriously he's taking this process, discerning carefully through each step of the search. 

I recommend that anyone searching for a spiritual director—whatever your faith tradition or life position—employ this kind of care and patience. The director-directee relationship really is a holy friendship, and it should be entered into only after a time of prayer and consideration.

Later this week, I'll be posting a series of questions that I recommend you ask anyone you're considering entering into a spiritual direction or spiritual friendship relationship with.

Today's Friday Favorite is a long quote from Eugene Peterson, who does an incredible job of talking about the role of spiritual direction and the language of spiritual direction in the Church. I'm working toward committing this to memory.

… Paraclesis is language used with men and women who already have received the word of preached salvation and have been instructed in the teaching of the law, but who are in need of comfort or encouragement or discernment in the muddled details of dailiness. This is a way of language commonly identified in the church’s life as “cure of souls” and “spiritual direction.”

And this is the style of language that is absolutely required in the church in the process of becoming mature, of growing up in Christ. All three ways of language—kerygmatic, didactic, and paracletic—work together in this, but the one most often slighted, at least in the American church with its fondness for the indicative (telling it like it is) and imperative (ordering people to do something about it) is the paracletic. This is the kind of language that pays attention to the way the preceding languages of preaching and teaching enter into the personal particulars of each person while in the company of brothers and sisters, strangers and neighbors. Individuality is given dignity, but always in the context of congregation. Listening, which requires silence, is a substantial element in the language of paraclesis.

Paracletic language is the language of the Holy Spirit, a language of relationship and intimacy, a way of speaking and listening that gets the words of Jesus inside us so that they become us. It is not new information. It is not explanation. It is God’s word on our side, within us, working out the details in the circumstances of our lives.

Practice Resurrection by Eugene Peterson, p. 171-176

 

When I meet someone new who is interested in learning what I do vocationally, I think carefully before offering an explanation for what I do. If the person hasn’t explicitly declared themselves as someone of faith or someone interested in spirituality (by context, association or overt statement), I often say something like, “I’m a spiritual director—sort of like a counselor for the spiritual life.” It’s an inadequate summary on many levels, but for those who are primarily engaged in social niceties, it works.

If the person I’m talking to has identified themselves as someone of faith, I usually go into a more detailed explanation of spiritual direction as the care of souls. I use the guiding image of my practice (“a midwife to the soul”), and usually field a few clarifying questions. Often enough, my conversational partner says something along the lines of “Oh, like discipleship” or “So you’re a mentor, then.”

“Not really,” I say, “but sort of.”

I wish I had a laminated handout of this chart to carry in my back pocket for these conversations. It’s one of the clearest and most useful breakdowns of the various helping disciplines in Christianity that I’ve yet found. I may laminate it, yet.

 

At a recent retreat I led, I shared the following quote from Mama Maggie Gobran:

 

To be in silence is to be full inside of yourself.  It’s not easy. 

Silence your body to listen to your words. 

Silence your tongue to listen to your thoughts. 

Silence your thoughts to listen to your heart. 

Silence your heart to listen to your spirit. 

Silence your spirit to listen to His presence.

In silence, you leave the many to be with the One.

 

So true. So worth sitting with and meditating on.

 

Where has silence been part of your life recently?