Stripped

http://www.dbonhoeffer.org/who-was-db2.htm

Weeping Heart

    Heart torn                  Two coasts
Gut wrench                   Slow bleed
    Of my                     Weeping heart
Always                        Something to grieve

Emotions unzipped      Thoughts perplexed
      Darlings misunderstand
               Voyage to the desert
Feel abandoned      Discarded by me

  Caught in the middle
                          Ripped in two
Forever my fate       Repercussion of love

Surviving the "not-knowingness of things"

In his new podcast, Another Name For Everything Fr. Richard Rohr attests that "the universal paths of transformation are great love and great suffering. The practice of meditation, contemplation, the prayer of quiet are to maintain and preserve what you momentarily learned or experienced in moments of great love and moments of great suffering." I am aware that the work of the Holy Trinity over the past few years has been leading me to a more robust and deeply meaningful spirituality and life with God and has undoubtedly prepared me to face the devastating losses and terrifying unknowns that define a time of "not-knowingness of things" that we have been living in for the past six months. It has and continues to be a time of great love and great suffering, even if the latter seems more pronounced at times. Indeed, I might view this time as simply an answer to my prayers, since I have for years uttered the breath prayer of "change my heart and renew my mind." What is change and renewal if not transformation, hence, the request for and requirement of suffering and love? I have read about and begun to incorporate several spiritual practices into my life, such as, lectio divina, centering prayer, breath prayer, the prayer of examen, the daily office, seeing a luminous world (Teilhard de Chardin), which have "saved" me from a crumbling world. Even so, I still need help processing thoughts and emotions that are negative, centered in fear and disappointment. It took words from a friend to give me a tangible strategy.

Our conversation began with disclosure of some of my recent thoughts, including thoughts about a recent dream. I know that I dream at night, but it is rare when I remember a dream. The only dream that I can remember lately is one in which I am searching in futility for my clothes, clearly a mirroring of the disconnected, inchoate, unstructured life we are living during this season of limbo. The anxiety of not being able to find my clothes, a metaphor for the anxiety of looming financial ruin, absence of purpose or permanent place, vacuous space stretched out in front of us, hovers in the corners of my mind. Similarly, in my day dreams, I see mastiffs of anxiety chasing me and biting at my heels. Sheer force of will keeps me grabbing for my collected spiritual practices in hopes that they will keep me grounded and keep my head above the waters of depression that fear and uncertainty can produce. I hear myself shouting for those dogs to get back as my arm waves them away. This can be exhausting and evidently counterproductive, as my friend, Karen Mahler, who is highly trained and experienced in pastoral care and spiritual direction, explained. This type of response actually empowers the negative thoughts, so I asked her for a better practice, a healthier way of dealing with the relentless fears that understandably accompany times of trouble and confusion.

What Karen gave me is a way to use my imagination in a positive way, rather than the negative conjuring of the hounds biting my heels. It requires mindfulness and the discernment of thoughts as a spiritual practice that has the power to free the soul from negativity and despair. The practice includes the following steps:

• Mindfully acknowledge the negative thought (e. g. a fear or an angry/ungrateful/selfish thought, etc.) and confess it aloud.
• Picture the negative thought as a leaf and release it into a flowing stream, watching it drop to the water and be carried away.
• Watch the leaf until it flows around a bend in the stream, out of sight.
• Consciously receive God's love and replace the thought with thanksgiving for something specific. (Consider Jesus' parable about the house swept clean but left unoccupied, Mt. 12:43-45.)
• Ask God to continue to change my heart and renew my mind.
• Slowly breathe in and out, mindful of the loving gaze of the Divine Presence.

And so, I am practicing. This way of thinking and responding to damaging thoughts works in conjunction with other spiritual practices, like the prayer of examen which invites the Holy One to comb through my day sifting out times when I turned from the Loving Face. As the Spirit reveals thoughts or actions that are inconsistent with a life of love and a sound mind, I have the opportunity to "clean house" being careful to replace each harmful thought with thanksgiving and love. 

Thanks to the following:

Another Name For Everything, "Episode 3, From the Beginning," Fr. Richard Rohr (a conversation about his new book by the same title)

See also, The Naked Now, Richard Rohr.

Image from--https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Urban_stream_in_park.jpg

Title inspired by--https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/28220/a-patient-lent?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dotMagis+%28dotMagis+-+Ignatian+Spirituality%29

Karen Mahler, Birmingham, AL