Out of the Ashes - Revolutionary Lent - Day 4

Almost 30 years ago, my life as I knew it came to a halt.  My concentration and my memory functioned at their lowest levels. My body always felt exhausted even to the point that I went four days without taking a shower.  Nothing was enjoyable or if it felt good it did not last very long. Even food did not taste the same.  My life as a college student came to an end and I felt as if the world had ended.   All that I could see was a pile of ash, of dreams burnt into flames and plans gone awry.
Yet my God is one of  compassion and mercy, He never let me go.  Today I have both a bachelors and masters degrees, a husband of nearly fifteen years and it has been seventeen years since my last psych hospitalization.

So tonight, I received ashes as Alexander John Shaia puts it “ to continue to strengthen me and to know that Love is God’s face and my own. “ Tonight I remember the healing I have experienced and joy that comes from knowing that even though following my calling is not easy, I am healthy and alive much more so that I was for many years.  Bipolar Disorder will never stop being apart of my life. I will always be on medication and always have to monitor my sleep,diet, exercise and stress but I have been given a second chance at living.  This blog is entitled, “livingintomycalling” because that is what I know to do, to live into who I have been created to be to allow Christ to work through me and continue to transform me.

I feel called to be a spiritual director because I have gifts of listening, compassion and mercy that I want to use to help others care for their souls, discovering meaningful practices that will connect them to Christ in a deeper way.  I offer companioning and guiding for those who need a listening ear to share their stories and help them discern the spirit.  Why?  Because during my deepest depression, I realized that when your life is turned upside down, the spiritual practices that worked before may feel meaningless and seem to bring more despair when you cannot do what you did before.  Thus I want to guide others to help find practices which connect them to God that are not the traditional spend an hour with God, read scripture and pray.  I also became a spiritual director because I recognized that there is such a need for it, beyond counseling and beyond physicians, we often need spiritual support as well to bring us to healing and wholeness.  As our spirituality evolves and unfolds, we need people to journey with us as others fall away.
To learn more about my work visit, http://www.jennifertrently.org/

So this 100 days is a season of grace and of love, of a movement toward holiness with a focus on living into who I have been created to be.  I invite you to join me and offer your comments and reflections here.

Transfiguration

Merriam-Webster defines transfiguration as "a change in form or appearance."

Over the next 100 days this picture will change. In fact what is shown here is only a small part of a larger unfinished canvas. Using watercolor pencil I have begun the process of listening. 

Yesterday as the Feast of Transfiguration began, I sat down and read over Matthew 17:1-8 several times reflecting and mediating on it. The words which I kept hearing over and over again, were "Listen to Him."  In a strange twist of irony, although the Holy Spirit always has a way of aligning things up, the priest this morning kept repeating this phrase over and over again, Listen to Him. She said, when you listen God will direct you and provide instructions.  

LISTEN 

In a little over an hour from now, Central Standard Time, sundown will occur and the Feast of Transfiguration will end.  

So what's next???????????????????????????????????????????

the Great 100 days

The Great 100 days began this evening at sun down of the Feast of Transfiguration.  It lasts until the Feast of Pentecost on Sunday May 31, 2020.   I look forward to where this journey will take me as I join others in restoring a teaching of the Early Church which has been lost for the past 500 years.

Theosis:

1. We participate in God’s energies. Energeia is the Greek term, and it means an action or a working, but always of a divine sort (this is true in the classical tradition as well as in the Bible; see e.g. Col. 1:29, 2:12; Acts 4:24; I Cor. 12:10; Eph. 1:19 and elsewhere; Phil. 3:21). This participation begins with repentance and forgiveness and proceeds from there. The term energeia occurs some 30 times in the New Testament, and is never translated properly.
2. We become “godly,” to use an old Protestant term. By participating in God’s energies, we align with God’s will and purpose in the world.
3. We put into practice (praxis) the spiritual teachings of Jesus by participating in the sacramental life and ascetic practices of the church.
4. We contemplate God (theoria is the Greek term and it means “beholding” as in wonder); thus and so do we come to know what it means to be fully human. St Irenaeus, again: “the glory of God is a human being fully revealed” (Against Heresies, Book V).
5. We enter into struggle (podvig in Russian) against the temptations in order to conform to the image of Christ. A podvig is the special effort we make to align with God. It is a term that means not only effort, but a special resolve to become more attuned to God’s work in our life through ascetic practice. Not that we ever earn God’s favor by such labors; they are a gift to ourselves that enables us to focus more clearly on God’s presence in our lives.

To follow along with Dr. Alexander John Shaia's work on the 100 days visit: https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderJohnShaia/

Revolutionary Lent

Much  has changed in my life since I wrote the blogpost, https://livingintomycalling.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-different-kind-of-lent-heading.html, six years ago.  I would invite you to read that blog post and the subsequent blog posts of 2014 if you would like to know more of the story.

In the  past few days though,  I have realized how much I been broken open and transformed over the past several months.  New people and new places have come into my life.  I have found courage to take risks.   My contemplative art has been featured in a  show, I have had several workshops and now I have become a member of a co-operative office where I go everyday to work on my marketing and my writing.
Now as Lent approaches, I hear the call to be apart of a return to the ancient observance of the 100 days from Transfiguration-Easter.  It is a call not just to be faithful to my own inner journey but to join with others in the prayer, "May we all be one," Alexander John Shaia.  It is a call to love and to participate in theosis not atonement.
More thoughts on this to follow as my adventures of new marketing, being in a new office, building new relationships and participating  as the  100 days continue.

However, it is not about a new podcast or a new book or a new website but about as I read the story of Transfiguaration in Matthew this evening, I heard the words, "Listen to Him. "  I need to listen to Jesus the Christ and as the title of this blog states, live into my calling and go forward not run from it or avoid it but listen knowing that as Dr. Shaia puts it, "out of the darkness comes the new radiance."  For me that new radiance has brought my work for 2020, "Wonder", to life, I continue to be in awe of the grace and friendliness offered to me as I enter new circles and try new things.

For more about  Alexander John Shaia's work, visit http://www.quadratos.com./.