Revolutionary Lent - There and Back Again

Somehow between Sundays 3 and 4,  Nicodemus offering a voice of tradition to consider during a time and Christ offering living water for the woman at the well,  the Spirit has shifted my heart, mind and soul into a new direction. The old focus was not wrong just that this shift fits better with these strange times of the Corona Virus and social distancing. 

Ironically enough for whatever reason, instead of hearing about Nicodemus the monks Gospel reading was the Transfiguration . Once again, the Spirit spoke loudly to me to listen, listen to what you are being called to do.  I returned back home the next day in this place of listening again.  No one signed-up for my journaling workshop so I was forced to cancel.  Thus I went ahead and suspended my membership at the CO for the time being, because as much as I loved it being there, it  does not fit with my current projects.  As I made these decisions and other events cancelled, I find myself disappointed and depressed.  Yet as I arose out of this despair, I found myself knowing that this was to be a season of decluttering, of writing and of painting. 

The decluttering came first.  Papers in the living room and on my office floor that I had avoided dealing with for months began to be filed, shredded or recycled.  As the papers cleared,  I received an e-mail from a friend telling me, she had read my I guest blog post at Monk in the World, a column on the Abbey of the Arts website. A copy of this post will appear in a separate post following this one,  I had written this column months ago and had no idea it had even appeared.  My friend complimented my writing and said I need to be writing for pay,  The Spirit got my attention because this is not the first time that God has spoke through other people telling me

need to write.  However, I have failed to consistently heed this call. 

I recognized that with my space clean and my quiet at home, the time of writing has appeared.   Thus I return to my calling of listening and writing.  Listening as a spiritual director offering anyone two free sessions of spiritual direction via telephone or Zoom throughout this time of uncertainty.  As for the writing, I will be offering reflections here each day on my experience at Gethsemani and offering a related practice that can be done at home. 

I welcome your comments and reflections.  Thus here I am back at home,  heeding the Spirit's beckoning, writing and listening.  As we enter the Fifth Week of the 100 days, this Sunday's Gospel is Jesus' healing of the blind man.  Let us accept Christ's offering to make us see, healing our blindness that we may know how we are to live and serve in this world throughout this time of uncertainty.

Sacred Disruptions/Interruptions - an Epiphany

So the other day, as I drove to an appointment, I was listening to a talk on Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen.  The speaker, Dr. Michael Higgins referred to Merton and Nouwen as, "sacred disrupters."
While Dr. Higgins had something different in mind, I can definitely say that they began a sacred disruption in my life.  Reading their works began my pursuit of the contemplative.  In their writings at a time when I felt misunderstood beyond measure I found comfort.  These two men, one a priest and another monk, both already decreased by the time I opened their books, captured my heart, mind and soul.  Merton and Nouwen possessed high intelligence, wrestled with their vocations and openly declared their shortcomings.  A seed began to germinate.  A movement toward the contemplative, a desire for more silence and solitude, less noise, less television and less people.  A slow process of becoming, with its many twists and turns, of moves and losses, of bad choices and addiction, of feeling completely lost but somehow I always returned to their writings, writings that grounded me and made me feel less alone because I took great comfort in knowing that they struggled too and that they too at times had felt alone.  What are my favorites?  Thomas Merton's, New Seeds of Contemplation and Henri Nouwen's,  Road to Daybreak. Both of them wrote their journals which have been published in various forms which I am continually drawn.

Fast forward to the present day, in the last several weeks the Abbott John Eudes Bamberger, passed away.  The same John Eudes Bamberger who translated, the Pratikos and Chapters on Prayer by Evagrius Ponticus in the early 1970s which I consulted for my master's thesis, also had relationships with Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen.  I deeply regret not having e-mailed him to tell him about my thesis and how his work played a role in it.  Further still, I could have had the opportunity to meet him in person at an International Thomas Merton Society event if I had attended.  A full circle, a pursuit of vocation leading to connections between all of their writings and myself. 
Life is short so listening to those still small tuggings of the Spirit fails to be an option if I am truly a Christ-follower and do not want to miss out. 

And now to a sacred interruption which totally altered my trajectory,  a little girl, said hello to me in Starbucks as I headed out the door having already spent a long while working on m y thesis.  However, I stopped and playfully introduced myself, meeting her friend and asking their ages.  Soon her mother and I began talking.  By the end of the conversation, we recognized a kindred spirit and agreed we need to talk again.  This encounter eventually led to three different encounters which led me to take the plunge and seek out becoming a member of the CO, a place where I could go and share cooperative office space.  On February 19, 2020 I officially joined the CO, four days before Transfiguration Sunday.   And somehow in that moment I knew I could not go back, similarly to Merton as he stood on the 4th and Walnut in Downtown, Louisville,  I experienced an epiphany. I needed to participate in the 100 day festival not skirt around but claim the renewal offered by the E arth and to participate in the call to being as Merton says, "Our True Self"  journeying with others desiring the same and becoming One with them regardless of theology or dogma. 

As the third week approaches, I leave you with these words that sit on my heart, touch the depth of my soul  and occupy a space in my mind,  "Nicodemus challenges, Jesus the Christ, 'How can these things be? the Christ answers,'You are the teacher of a deep spiritual tradition and yet you do not understand these things?" -
© Alexander John Shaia, 2020

Photo of me in April, 2015 at the site of Thomas Merton's Epiphany, where many of us attending the 2015 Spiritual Directors International Meeting tied a ribbon on the pole offering up our prayer for wisdom and guidance. 

2nd Sunday in Lent, Evagrius and relationships

Today I listened to the reading of the Gospel on temptation and attended a Sunday School discussing Jesus in the wilderness being tempted.  Yet my mind kept coming back to Evagrius and listening, to relationship and imprinting not memorizing the Bible but absorbing Jesus the Christ and his words into my life. Evagrius Ponticus the fourth century monk, I wrote my thesis about, took Christ's example of responding to the Devil with scripture as how we needed to respond to temptations or rather evil thoughts.  However, Evagrius was not focused on the memorization of scripture but on the imprinting of scripture on the heart, mind and soul.  He wrote a book containing scriptures to use against the various different kinds of evil thoughts and stressed to the monks the idea of meditating on scripture throughout work and play. 

From my thesis,
"Scripture clears the mind of distracting images and representations that it may understand the mysteries of God. The Holy Spirit inhabits the mind. According to Evagrius spiritual knowledge is the only knowledge needed. As the monk contemplates the mystery, God needs no form or shape or color or symbol. David Brakke writes, “As contemplation, the reading of scripture is a dynamic and fluid process, in which the distinctions between reader and text break down and the text becomes internalized within the monk’s intellect.”[1]

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[1] Brakke, “Reading the New Testament,” 290.

Evagrius viewed immersion in scripture not as a means to an end but rather to become part of and participate in the Holy Mystery.  For after all, isn't temptation my failure to connect with God, separation by my own choosing, rather than communicating with God and living into who I am created to be.  

The bottom line is relationships. Christ is all and in all, the great physician who has compassion on us and desires us to show compassion, patience and gentleness with others. 

 Evagrius writes, " Observe how the Physician of souls here corrects our incensive power through acts of compassion, purifies the intellect through prayer, and through fasting withers desire. By means of these virtues the new Adam is formed, made again according to the image of his Creator - an Adam in whom, thanks to dispassion, there is 'neither male nor female' and, thanks to singleness of faith, there is 'neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all' (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3: 10:11)".^[1]

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[1] Ware. Kallistos, G.E.H. Palmer and Philip Sherrard, trans., The Philokalia, (Amazon, Kindle Edition, 2016), Kindle Locations 326-333, Kindle.

And the journey continues: 

 More clouds, sun and sky, more brightness and bloodiness, pain and healing, a journey towards holiness knowing that the Divine is in me and  I am being transformed.  

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./.