Spiritual exercising…

The Art of Spiritual Accompaniment

This is a course that we will begin running in September. It emerged from the course ‘Spiritual Direction - An Introductory Course’ that we ran between 1999 and 2005 but which by the end of we realised may be better split into two courses - the first part being ‘Spiritual Growth and Discipleship’ and the second being this one ASA for short. The aim of the course being to provide a context for spiritual growth in general and growth in the gifts of discerning listening in particular to enable people to develop into the ministry of Spiritual Direction or Spiritual Accompaniment (the latter being our preferred term for the former!)

Having publicised the course we are now interviewing prospective participants. Its been surprising to receive over 20 applicants. I had anticipated about a dozen so this has meanth we have needed to rethink our sense of the size of the group and therefore how we will handle the course. Its a good problem to have in many ways, but to be honest I had quite looked forward to working in a more intimate way with the smaller sized group. You can download the course leaflet at www.soulspark.org.uk click on the courses link.

Messy Spirituality

This half day event was designed for those who are in authorised lay ministry in the diocese. 11 turned up (compared to the normal 30 - 50). This revealed the messy communications in the diocese at present. Anyway, I wasn’t too bothered - I didn’t have enough clay to go around 30 people.

What we had in store for these poor folk was a sticky lump of clay. Not a bad way of engaging with messiness - illustrative of how life and spirituality is always messy - cf Paul ‘that which I don’t want to do, I do and that which I want to do, I don’t do’. Lets engage with reality rather than fantasy! Play with the clay - how do I feel about messiness - what do I want to do when things get messy… As you play with the clay do you find a longing emerging - what is it - might this be a God given longing? St Paul (again) we are earthen vessels, but there is treasure within.

Bernard of Clairvaux’s call for us to be reservoirs rather than canals provided a stimulus for reflecting on the way we live - do we receive the water of God and give of our surplus as a reservoir does, or do we try and give without taking the chance to draw upon the life giving water - simply seeking to transmit it from place to place as a canal does. I find pondering the places in life where I am more canal like and the places I am more reservoir like uncomfortably helpful - for it reveals where our inner attitude to activity is healthy and unhealthy and so where some choice is invited to find the healthier way. So we gave time to this before moving on in the afternoon and looking at other tools for discerning the life-giving creative Spirit in our life in contrast to the life-draining and destructive. I used Carrots and Sticks, Spiders and Bees (both described in Margaret Silf’s Landmarks) as well as hands - clenched, open or repelling. Offering a way of becoming aware of inner attitudes and therefore the opportunity to affirm or seek grace to change the healthy and unhealthy respectively. I often find myself getting particularly excited when working with the whole area of discernment - for two connected reasons - one I have found them amazingly helpful in my life and two, that I believe this is close to the heart of what I beleive I am called to do in life - it seems to be an aspect of what I was created to share.

Messy spirituality lives with the paradoxical tension that we are never all one or other - but mostly a complex mix - if not mess of carrots and sticks, bees and spiders, reservoirs and canals etc. - However giving ourselves space for reflection and prayer we are not stuck in this mire like a rudderless ship - we can start to recognise and make choices between the life giving and life draining.

Retreat

This weekend we have a silent Individually Guidied Retreat running with twelve participants. A bigger group than we have had in recent years, they have come to get away from it all and spend time in quiet reflection and prayer. An individually guided retreat offers space for each individual to use their time as they choose, but with the personal support of a ‘Guide’ or ‘Retreat Accompanier’. They meet with their accompanier three times over the weekend to reflect on their experience, to explore what this might be revealing to them and to look at what they may give focus to in the next part of the retreat. There is no predefined way of doing the retreat. The accompaniers simply listen, help tease out things, encourage and suggest approaches to prayer and reflection. The timetable of the retreat otherwise simply has meal times and points of gathered prayer and worship. Generally we find that this works extremely well for people. The space and the listening mean that they recognise the touch of God in their life, their prayer and their ponderings more clearly and most leave with a strong sense of the love of God for them which enables them to return to life and work after the retreat with renewed energy and clarity of direction.

We illustrated the power of retreat with a large glass vase filled with water - crystal clear - and not at all like life. Then taking a handful of soil and tossing it into the vase it was stirred up so that the water was a swirling muddy mess. Now that’s more like how life is! But what happens if we let the water settle rather than stirring it up? That is the invitaiton of retreat. To give minimum stirrings of the water, so that the confusion can settle and slowly greater clarity emerges. Some stuff is left to simply settle to the bottom, not needing to be bothered about, other stuff rises to the top because now is the time for dealing with them. So it is with these retreats - a calming environment is created that enables the still small voice of God to be noticed with less distractions than normal.

As is my practice with these sorts of retreats, we create a form of daily worship that is unique and reflective - usually taking an image or symbol and creating a form of liturgy using it. For the Saturday unusually we used the words of a hymn - Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. The planning of these things is often a groping around as ideas are explored, thoughts offered and over a glass or two of red wine, something seems to emerge that has shape form life and energy. Not a highly technical process, but one that seems often to bear good fruit - as retreatants find it helps sustain or stimulate their time. For the Sunday worship we were Eucharistic, and found ourselves drawn to the Matthew parables of the kingdom - the person who finds treasure hidden in a field, sells everything to buy the field in order to have the treasure and the parable of the man who finding a precious pearl sells everything in order to be able to buy it. We were struck by the way in which one image seems to speak of us as that which God desires so much that he sacrifices (sells) everything in order to have and the other of the call for us to give our all to have that which is most valuable and important. I had never pondered before the way these speak of God’s attitude towards us - and found it very moving personally to share some points of reflecion on this - one speaks to oneself so often in sharing insights with others.

With these sorts of retreats, the journeys of each person are unique and personal, but as people emerged from the silence of the retreat there was a strong awareness that significant and important encounters with self and God had taken place. I personally find it highly rewarding to have a part to play in this process - while one exercises the responsibility of holding the space for the retreatant, one also simply watches as they give time to God - and experience movements of God’s grace within themselves. The power of prayer is manifest in the way in which it changes people - not people elsewhere - but the person praying leading them into a greater personal knowing / experiencing of God which is transforming, healing and energising. From this there is outward movement as this inner transformation is manifest in life in more loving and compassionate relationships and in new ways of living out faith. In a very real way retreat is a gigantic step forward!

Spirituality and Generosity

Wednesday saw me joining the group of Stewardship advisors from the north of England on a two day conference at my place of work. Their job is to help churches develop the way in which their members offer their time and money to support and enable the life, ministry and mission of the church. Would I do something with them on Spirituality. I would be following my Bishop who was going to talk about the Generosity of God. So far so good, the only problem being that knowing my Bishop there was great potential for us saying the same thing twice. Knowing my Bishop he would tell some good stories, entertain and at the same time make some important theological points. I decided to work towards a more joined up afternoon by sitting in on his session – to know what he covered and to tailor my input accordingly.

As ever he was good – not only making the theological points I would have expected (God is a generous God who loves unconditionally – is gracious and we as human beings aren’t very good at receiving) and as expected I looked at what I had prepared ticking off points that didn’t need much further exploration. I had decided to complement what they were receiving to do something experiential, so given that healthy giving is a generous response to what we have received, and that we have to be vulnerable to be able to receive, I invited everyone to take off their shoes – to remove some of the protective armour we wear as part of our daily grind. That aroused interesting ripples of reaction – and then we got down to praying with the story of Jesus washing Peter’s feet aided by the wonderful picture of the scene by German artist Sieger Koder.

Picking up on the significance, not of the bare feet, but of the hands which reflect the all too human contrary movements – ‘you will never wash my feet’ and ‘not just my feet – everything’. There is nothing like encounter with the reality of God / Jesus meeting us where we are and offering us loving service to transform hearts and souls into greater love and generosity in response. Ignatius of Loyola expresses this powerfully in the whole nature of the spiritual exercises. Spiritual growth is not a head / intellectual exercise, but an inner, emotional and spiritual encounter that permeates outwards in loving response – action. So following a time of sharing on the experience we moved on to a brief exploration of how discernment is important in sifting our responses to life and faith experiences and helping to choose which of the complexity of inner reactions to focus on and respond to – using hands again as symbolic of this. How we hold – open handed, clenched fisted or pushing away – is a revealing indicator of what our inner attitude is – and once recognised can be responded to. The clenched fist or pushing hand indicative of seeking to hold onto or defend personal significance instead of the open handed trusting in a God who is bigger than our personal empires.

I love getting into this area of very practical spirituality - partly because it expresses some of the most significant personal experiences in growing into life – and partly because it is usually well received and it’s a delight to share something which is an aid to healthy living.

Companions on the Way - South Africa

Just returned last week from a two week trip to the land of my birth and upbringing - South Africa. I led a four day seminar on Spiritual Accompaniment with a wonderful set of people from the Anglican Dioceses around Johannesburg.

 The four days involved what are my key themes in spiritual growth - prayer/spiritual exercise, sharing and listening and reflecting on the dynamics of spirituality.

 It was a huge learning for me - in transferring what I have known and worked with so much in an English context to another continent and a very different and wider range of cultural and life experiences. I confessed to some uncertainty if not anxiety about how it all would transfer, but judging from the responses - pretty well.

 I left with an increased confidence of how universal the hunger for spiritual exploration and journey is, as well as the sense of a group of people who are a huge blessing to their communities.

Kicking off…

Thought this might be worth a whirl! A chance to keep track and share with others the work I am about. Blogging’s become dead trendy - but that’s never been a motivation - but when someone asks what Messy Spirituality is all about … I thought - why keep the answer private - after all about 20 people have discovered already and a dozen or two will discover on Saturday. So lets see how this goes!