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Category: Spiritual Disciplines

On The Night He Was Betrayed – From The Archives

Posted on by Tara Owens

On this Holy Thursday, this day of love, of service, of betrayal, I thought I’d repost this reflection from the blog archives. It was on a night such as this…

• • •

My jaw spasmed, clenching tight. Pain rippled through me.

Maundy Thursday. My favorite day of the year.

I had taken the driver’s seat on the way to service. We were late. I drove aggressively. Careless enough of the cares of others on the road that my jet-lagged husband mentioned it. I hate being late.

And so I speed walked my way to the chapel, trying to control the pace, refusing to reach out for my husband’s hand, he who I had been without for nearly two weeks, who I professed to missing more than anything in the world. I needed to be on time. I need to be in the right.

But we weren’t late. Not really. I had read the time wrong, and we were half an hour early, there for rehearsals, instead. It was then the first pain shot through my jaw. I rubbed at it absently and went to help fill the tubs for the foot washing with hot, hot water. Hot was we could stand. It would cool as the service progressed.

Continue reading “On The Night He Was Betrayed – From The Archives”

Slouching Toward Lent

Posted on by Tara Owens

Epiphany has been good to me this year. Despite the darkness of winter, my world has been cloaked white and bright. The Scriptures have shimmered with the play of light and dark, and I’ve watched that Light caress its way through each reading, each page, the Presence of God so present and real that the darkness is no barrier to Him. I’ve been pondering the mysteries of light and dark in Genesis 1, and doing so with a beautiful, messy rag-tag bunch of believers in a way that feeds my soul.

I’ve been waking up with Psalm 23 on my lips: Yahweh is my shepherd; I will experience nothing as missing.

So, I’ll admit, the awareness Lent, which starts in a mere month on Wednesday, March 5 (Ash Wednesday), is still a reluctant one in my soul. I can see her—with her radiant melancholy, her holy beauty, the chains of oppression and addiction and affluenza broken around her feet, clanking like castanets as she dances—out of the corner of my eye. I’m not ready to turn my head. Not yet.

At the same time, it’s good to heed her dancing presence. It’s good to prepare, even though I’m not yet ready (when am I ever ready?) Lent is, in many ways, another season of light. It’s the light that exposes, the light that shows us ourselves truly, the light that helps us live in reality before God and others, the light that shows us our places of brokenness and leads us gently on the path to shalom.

And that’s a path I can’t walk alone—none of us can. Wholeness, shalom, is never accomplished in isolation. We need one another on this stumbling journey of faith, we need the companions who talk with us on the road, who witness with us when the stranger who spoke so wisely among us turns out to be Jesus—and vanishes, somehow, once more. Just when we thought we had a hold of Him.

In that light (see what I did there?), I thought I’d share a few Lenten resources and suggestions with you. You still have time to order most of them in time for them to arrive before March 5. If you do, I encourage you to grab a friend and go through whatever resource you’ve chosen together. Talk about it along the road. Consider what’s happening in you. Interact, chew, pontificate with others on this Calvary journey. And if you have other helps for the journey that you would like to suggest, share them with us in the comments.

god-for-us-rediscovering-the-meaning-of-lent-and-easter-7

God For Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter

If you’ve been around here awhile, you know how much I love God With Us, a guided set of readings and art for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. This year, the publishers have come out with a similar resource for Lent, with readings from authors like Lauren Winner, Richard Rohr, Kathleen Norris, Luci Shaw and others. I’m looking forward to walking through this book this year myself, and if there’s enough interest, might host a few book club type discussions of it on the blog.

Beloved: An Online Journey Into Lent & Easter

Jan Richardson is a gifted artist and writer, and I’ve taken both her online Advent and Lent retreats, much to the enrichment of my soul. Her online retreat costs $90, and includes a daily email reflection (Monday-Friday), as well as an optional (and very active) online forum if you want to interact in community with others during the retreat. Jan’s art and words are just the type of gift that make this season so very rich.

7 Books for Lent

Last year, I talked about a number of other books that are also good companions along the journey. Those recommendations still hold, so surf on over to read about resources from Richard Rohr, the Irish Jesuits and Thomas Merton, among others.

What To Give Up

I’ve also talked before about what you might consider giving up for Lent, in 13 Things To Give Up For Lent and Six Weird Things to Give Up For Lent. I’ll be writing more about that later this month, but if you want some early inspiration, click on over there.

Be: Life and the Rest of It

Finally, I’m co-leading one week of an eCourse on Lent, curated by Brandy Walker of Brandy Glows. This retreat isn’t for the super spiritual, or even for the professing Christian (although I, and many of the co-leaders, do love and profess Christ). This retreat is for the tired, the burned out, those that aren’t sure about religion any more (or ever). The focus of the time will be rest (per the title), and incorporating life-giving spiritual practices into your regular routine, accompanied by recipes and lots of self-care. The early bird cost is $87, so if your soul shouted “YES!” when you read the word “rest”, hop on over and register. I’m leading the week of Holy Week, and will be talking about spiritual direction and holy listening, among other things.

Other Stuff

Oh, and if you want to visit some of my other thoughts on Lent, you’re welcome to here and here and here.

So, what about you? Do you have a favorite Lenten resource or practice? Are you ready for Lent, or just watching her out of the corner of your eye, like me?

Nesting & Saying No

Posted on by Tara Owens

So, a few weeks ago I shared some exciting news with you. And it’s still exciting news—the agent, the writing, the long-held dreams coming to fruition, it’s all happening.

But.

But.

After that post a number of interesting things happened.

First, I turned my heart slowly and gently toward what God might have for me in 2014. It’s been nearly eight years now that I’ve spent time in prayer and solitude before Jesus either in December or at the turn of the new year, asking for a word, phrase, Scripture or image to guide the year. It’s not a way of limiting God, but instead asking for His way of approaching my days, asking Him for the things to be looking for, places to look and the kingdom themes to be attending to. It’s not a formula, but like anything, it can become one, a ritualistic way of summoning God to speak the way we want Him to speak. I’m aware of that temptation, and hesitate to prescribe it to others. If it draws you closer to Christ, go for it. If you find it artifical, or you find yourself straining to do it “right”, let it go. (Which is, incidentally, my advice for any spiritual discipline ever suggested to you, from fasting to observing the Church calendar to praying in tongues to missions.)

This year, as soon my heart posture turned toward God’s word for me in 2014 it appeared. Present, insistent, personal and near, there wasn’t any doubt about what the Father’s desire was for me.

nest

 

At first, I didn’t like it. This is usually an indication that this is, in fact, my word. I’m a stubborn one, for sure. But both the word and actual physical nests kept showing up in the next few days and weeks, confirming and affirming what I’d heard. There were pillows, pins, and nests in bare trees. I’d even forgotten about a nest that fell out of a tree in our front yard a few years ago, that ended up on a side table in our living area.

I got very sick over Christmas, at a time when my husband and I had returned back to native land, the family “nest.”

And then a spiritual mentor of mine articulated the essence of what this word means for me this year, as both verb and noun:

creating space for the sacred

to come forth and be nurtured

That is my hope and my heart for this year, in so many ways. It’s what my spiritual direction practice is, it’s what I want to do as a writer and a speaker (more about that in a little bit). I don’t want to be put up on a pedestal, I don’t want to be the one in the spotlight. My heart is to create space for the sacred to come forth in the hearts and lives of those around me, as well as in my own life.

When I explain my spiritual direction practice to others, when I sit with a new directee and talk about what guides me as a director, I often use the term midwife to the soul. This is what I believe I’m called to do, to come alongside others as God in Christ births new life in them. My assumption is that whoever walks into my office is pregnant with new life in Christ. They may not know it, but God is intent on bringing forth the sacred in and through them. My job isn’t to grow that life, or to make that life happen, nor is my job to labor for that person (male or female). My role is to be alongside, to hold, listen, comfort, exhort. I create space for questions and struggles, for dialogue with the Holy, for healing, and, always, the cherishing of the new life that has come forth. And the cycle continues, as it always does, God birthing new things, multiple things, through His beloved again and again, because each man and woman is meant to bring forth the image of God that is theirs alone to bear into the world.

So, nest, it seems, makes sense.

Even as a few of my directees celebrated the news with me, they asked quiet, anxious questions about whether or not I’d still be practicing direction, whether or not there was still room for them.

Of course, and always, I said. Of course.

I am a writer, yes. 2013 was a year of recovering my creative rhythms and practicing, of finding my voice again in so many ways. But that was all grounded in my calling and work as a spiritual director, all springing forth out of this ground of intimacy with Christ and the holy work of tending souls.

If I ever forget that, I told my companions, I will know that it’s time to stop writing, stop speaking, because the writing and speaking will have become about me, about my goals, about my popularity.

And just as quick as that, God asked me to put my words into practice. With a revision deadline on the book looming and an eCourse on Advent, Christmas and Epiphany in full swing, the holiday sickness laid me low. In the midst of this, I got an email asking me to get slides in for the speaking engagement I’d agreed to, something I was excited and terrified about, something I’d clearly felt God ask me to say ‘yes’ to, even in the face of my quiet, contemplative nature.

Now, I knew, He was asking me to say ‘no.’

No, because to force myself forward was to commit soul violence. To force myself forward, even into doing something good, something I wanted to do, was to place platform over wholeness, notoriety over healing, being known over being present.

And you know what? It was hard saying no.

I could tell you I’m a Four on the Enneagram, and I struggle deeply with envy and the fear of missing out, and that’s true. Or I could tell you that I grew up in a performance culture, needing to be the smart one, the good one, the strong one, in order to be loved. Those things are true, sure.

But the truest thing is it’s hard to lay down your life, to create space, to welcome emptiness when we’re not guaranteed either control of the process or the results that we desire.

It was hard saying no to Christianity21, but it was the right choice. I didn’t feel it at the time, which is the way of things in the Kingdom, I think. I only felt it after I’d taken the risk, let go of control, chosen for love over my own life. I knew because of the peace I felt, the wholeness, the shalom in making the decision. I knew because it released me into a little more freedom, a little more life, and stripped me just that much more of the need to be known and seen. And I knew, later, because of the way God’s timing confirmed things, because of things that happened, stories that came forth, the sacred that was nurtured, because I was able to create space.

Nest.

So what about you, beloved? Do you have a word for 2014? Or have you been asked to say ‘no’ to something that would have been so much easier to say ‘yes’ to?

(Oh, and if you’d like to read about powerful post on saying no and staying rooted, hop on over to Jen Hatmaker’s place here.)

A Different Kind of Advent Story

Posted on by Tara Owens

Ex. 24:12-18

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.”

13 So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. 14 And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Indeed, Aaron and Hur are with you. If any man has a difficulty, let him go to them.” 15 Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain.

16 Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 17 The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. 18 So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Ex. 32:1

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

There are so many stories that we tell of waiting, stories of the Simeons and the Annas, the Zechariahs and the Elizabeths that we lean into during the Advent season. There are stories of consummation and stories of hope deferred. There are stories of those days to come when every tear will be wiped from our eyes, when we will see it all clearly and know the goodness of God in the land of the living.

It’s a wonder to me in all this waiting that we don’t tell the story of Moses on the mountain, that we don’t tell the story of Exodus 24.

I suppose it’s because, for the most part, we see this as a story of failed waiting.

And, in some ways, that’s what it is. The Hebrew people, alone in the desert, need something to worship, something that they can see and touch and, here’s the real part, control. You’ve probably heard that talked about, taught, preached on. There’s no need to point out the idols, the golden calves, that we all have. We’ve had them pointed out enough, haven’t we? And even if we haven’t, we know, with just a cursory glance over our lives, we know what they are.

For me, though, the story of Moses and the children of Israel at Mount Sinai is an Advent passage not because of what happens in Exodus 32, but because of what happens in Exodus 24. Only four chapters earlier, the people told Moses that they were afraid to speak to God directly, that they wanted him to speak to the Lord and bring back His words. They’d seen lightning and fire, felt the shaking of the earth and the power of God’s presence.

Now, in Exodus 24, Moses is going up the mountain again, being beckoned there by God. “Wait here for us until we come back to you,” says Moses.

Wait.

With these words, Moses, their leader, the one who has calmed them, spoken for them, encouraged them and explained things to them leaves. To climb Mount Sinai (which, incidentally, is the very same mountain, Mount Horeb, where Moses met God at the burning bush—God does have a penchant for renaming things, you’ll notice).

Wait, says Moses.

He doesn’t tell them how long he’ll be gone, or what to do while he’s chatting with the Almighty. He doesn’t give them any further elaboration on the Ten Words (the most accurate translation from the Hebrew of what we call in English the Ten Commandments), or tell them to take up basket weaving while he’s gone. Just, wait.

So hard to do at the best of times.

And if I were the people of Israel, with the one that I trusted my life to throwing a few words over his shoulder as he trekked toward the One I’d seen turn the Nile into blood, I might just feel a little, well, abandoned.

It’s all of those pieces, I think, that contribute to the great contradiction that’s found in verses 16, 17 and 18.

Do you see it?

Take a moment. Scroll up and read it again.

Here’s Moses, at the top of Mount Sinai. Covered in cloud. If you’ve ever been in a thick, thick fog, where you couldn’t see your own outstretched hand, it was probably a little like that. White, muffled, still. And, like fog, the cloud would have softened the edges of everything, making the world seem porous. Moving around would have been a bit dangerous, so it’s possible that Moses was hanging out just in one place. It must’ve been something, hearing God’s voice from the midst of that white, wet wonderland. I would have wanted to stay, with the voice of the One who loves me reverberating off of all those suspended drops of water, like being inside the world’s womb.

It’s odd, then, what comes next. The words matter, and not just because they strike hard against the picture painted in verse 16. At the bottom of the mountain, what the people of Israel see, what the white, gentle, resonant cloud is to them, is a consuming fire. Not just burning—destroying, ravaging. The word consuming here has the same root as the word for that which they were commanded not to do in the Garden—eat. The image is stark, and as one who has watched wildfires consume great tracts of land, I get it. Consuming fire is terrifying, and nothing survives it.

So Moses went into the midst, says verse 18, but we’re back at the top of the mountain once more, and it isn’t fire, not really, it’s cloud.

The Scriptures are clear, here, that what is actually happening at the top of this mountain is different than what the nation of Israel is seeing when they look at the mountain.

Standing at the foot of Sinai, it looks like there’s no way Moses will ever survive forty minutes, let alone forty days, in this raging inferno. Standing at the top of the mountain, Moses is surrounded by grace.

What we see tells us a whole lot about where we are.

Wait, says Moses, the word echoing down the centuries into our Advent here and now.

Wait, even when it looks like God is a fire. Wait, even when everything your eyes see is destruction. Wait, because everything that seems like consumption and death will be revealed as something else all along.

Wait, because your eyes have been shaped by the narrow place, by Egypt, and it hasn’t been so long since you’ve left that place where you couldn’t be you, couldn’t worship freely, behind. Wait, because those eyes aren’t the eyes of Moses, shaped by decades in the wilderness, eyes that saw the bush wasn’t consumed after all.

Wait, because you’ve been trained to see as a slave, live as a slave, seek leaders who will treat you as a slave. Wait, though your slave-eyes see fire, because the God who called you out into this wilderness, waiting place is coming to transform you.

Wait, oh, just wait, beloved, when you feel abandoned, because maybe, just maybe, you too, will be called up this mountain. Maybe, just maybe, you too, will see that this place that was fire is truly cloud and the voice of the Lord will call to you from within it, calling out all of who you are and all of who you are meant to be.

Now that’s an Advent story, wouldn’t you say?

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Statistics Free Zone

Posted on by Tara Owens

Some blogs don’t allow comments. Others eschew advertisements. Still others don’t link to outside sources, preferring to keep the reader focused (or as focused as one can be, online.)

Here’s what I don’t have: stats.

I heard a few bloggers just gasp reading that. A few agents shook their heads. Some publishers cringed. An author or two who writes about platform thought seriously about smacking their foreheads against a hard surface.

And I get that, I really do.

I’m not sharing this because I believe the way I do things to be the correct, best or (worse) only path. I’m not saying that I’m better or holier than anyone else, nor am I saying my choice should be your choice. I’m sharing it as a confession—and as an affirmation. You see, I don’t have stats on my blog for two important reasons:

1. I’m a recovering performance addict.

2. You are the only you in the whole universe and that really, truly matters to me.

That first point is one of my besetting sins—something that keeps me humble and at work tending my own soul on a regular basis. If I’m too busy, too frazzled, too far from God, my need to be affirmed rises from the grave I’ve buried it in one more time. And one of the nails that I use to keep the affirmation monster inside of me pinned to the Cross is the inability to track what’s going on here at AnamCara.com.

I know how valuable statistics on blogs can be—I use various tools for my work at Conversations Journal and to tend the Anam Cara Facebook community. I believe that statistics tracking can help make a website more responsive, an online space flourish, important connections possible.

I also know that when it comes to things close to my heart, words that I whisper because they are so sacred or ones that I am called by God to shout as loud as I can, I can get too caught up in the response. Did people hear me? Did they like what I had to say? Too easily, I choose for numbers and trends to affirm the value of my words, rather than leaning back into the reality that I am the beloved of God, valued well beyond words. I get sucked into the social imperative to reach more eyeballs, get more clicks, as if those things denote success or meaning.

As an act of obedience in this space, I’ve chosen to keep Anam Cara statistics free. This is first a valuing of my own soul and my walk with God. It’s saying no to the crazy-making and yes to who God says I am.

It’s also an affirmation of who God says you are. Yes, you. The person whose very real hands navigated to this post. Whose very real eyes are reading the syllables on this screen.

You have a world behind those eyes. More story than I could imagine. We could sit together for days, weeks, months, years, and I would only ever begin to plumb the depths of what makes you you. Unique. Individual. An irreplaceable image of God.

It’s the same reason that I struggle when people ask me how many directees I have in my spiritual direction practice. It’s a simple question, I know. But the people that I journey with aren’t numbers. They are specific people with specific names and beautiful, varied stories. When asked that question, I come back with a fuzzy answer, not because I’m being sly but because I can’t think of those I journey with as object to be counted. It hurts my soul—it hurts theirs—to be thought of this way.

If I had statistics tracking this blog, it would be easy, must too easy, to think of you (yes, you) as a number. And you’re not.

If there’s one thing I want to get across in writing this, it’s that you (yes, you) are not a number to me. You’re not a commodity to be sold, you’re not a set of actions to be tracked. You’re not an object, able to be used and manipulated to my (or anyone else’s) ends.

To me, you are a gift.

You are a one who has come to this place, as a regular visitor or a one-time guest. You are welcome. You are valued.

You can be as seen as you want to be.

I don’t have statistics so that you can tell me your story, in your time. I’m not monitoring what country you’re in, not looking at how long you stay in this place. I’m not tracking where you go when you’re here, or what it is that you seem most interested in.

Instead, you can come here invisibly, view what you want, and stay as long as you desire. You don’t have to interact with me, and you’re not doing so on some invisible level that you’re not even aware of. Which means that each comment you make (yes, you) I cherish. Each comment is someone dropping a prayer card into a box in the sanctuary. It’s a reaching out to take my hand. It’s a real interaction with a real person—a real person who God loves deeply.

So, thank you.

Thank you for being here, and for reading.

Thank you (yes, you) for visiting here with me for a while. Know that you are valued, just as you are, for who you are, in this place.

Spiritual Friendship For Children

Posted on by Tara Owens

“In human life nothing holier can be desired, nothing more useful sought after, nothing is harder to find, nothing sweeter to experience, nothing more fruitful to possess than friendship. For it bears fruit both in this life and the next, showing forth all virtues in its sweetness and in its strength destroying vice. It softens the blows of adversity and moderates elation in prosperity.

Without friendship there can be hardly any happiness among humans; they may well be compared to animals if they have no one to rejoice with them in good fortune or sympathize with them in sorrow, no one to whom they can unburden themselves in time of trouble, or with whom they can share some especially uplifting or inspiring insight.

Alas for anyone who is alone and has no one to lift him up when he falls. Without a friend one is indeed alone. But what joy it is, what security, what a delight to have someone to whom you dare to speak as to another self; to whom you are not afraid to admit that you have done something wrong, or shy of revealing some spiritual progress you have made; someone to whom you can entrust all the secrets of your heart and with whom you can share your plans.”

St. Aelred of Rievaulx

This quote is part of an essay I contributed to a project that I’m really excited to see born. It’s called “Wild Goslings,” and my small part was a piece on how we can encourage our children toward spiritual friendship and true listening.

If you’d like to learn more, you can watch the trailer below. (Gentle caution for those who are sensitive, there is a little “language”.) I think you’ll be as excited as I am.

Wild Goslings from Brandy Walker on Vimeo.

From Brandy: I believe that the younger we are, the more we intuitively understand the unfettered wildness of God. I believe that in some ways we have much more to learn from our daughters and our sons than they could ever learn from us.

For the past several years, I have been dreaming of putting together a massive resource for teachers and parents to help change the way we look at teaching our kids about God and spirituality. When I first started my blog, I was using imaginative prayer and reading to help my daughter, who was six or seven at the time, feel closer to God. She loved it. She used to request special exercises in which she would imagine she was with Jesus in her favorite places in the world. And I envisioned creating a book of spiritual disciplines for kids.