Moving toward Peace

Notice Saint Francis dancing with birds. He’s not pensively looking down into a birdbath with a dove on his shoulder and squirrels at his feet like we see so often in garden art. No, the sculptor depicts Saint Francis actively engaged with the birds, lost and found in their flock, moving with them in the direction of God. 

This special sculpture in the courtyard of the Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Bethlehem shows Saint Francis grounded and flying at the same time. As he moves toward peace within, he can’t help but become one with all of God’s creation.

What a beautiful image to depict what happens in spiritual direction. What a powerful image to contemplate as we approach a significant anniversary and a global holiday during September.

Saint Francis and Islam

Did you know that Saint Francis intentionally learned about the Islamic tradition and made efforts to be in conversation with Muslims? During a recent planning meeting for an upcoming Spiritual Directors International pilgrimage to Assisi, Franciscan Brother David Liedl talked about how Francis was an engaged contemplative who reached out for understanding across traditions. If you would like to learn more, David recommended a book by J. Hoeberichts titled Francis and Islam.

Contemplative Practice for Peace

As we reflect on the tenth anniversary of September 11 and celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the United Nations Day of Peace on September 21, how might we personally and in our communities welcome the “Other”? Like Saint Francis, how might we seek out people from other traditions to become people of peace? Not a sappy birdbath peace, but the kind of peace that responds to the call to be grounded and uplifted at the same time. Rooted in our spiritual traditions and so trusting of God’s guidance that we are swept up into a movement toward peace and understanding that makes us one with all of creation.

Moving toward Peace

Looking ahead to October, there’s another important anniversary for peace across spiritual traditions: October 27. Twenty five years ago, the late Pope John Paul II invited Jewish leaders, the Dalai Lama, Imams, and dozens of other spiritual leaders from around the world and across traditions to join him in Assisi – the home of Saint Francis – to pray for an end to violence and suffering perpetrated in the name of religion.

To commemorate that historic gathering for peace, Pope Benedict will be in Assisi on October 27 with spiritual leaders from around the world. As a way of participating prayerfully in the Assisi peace gathering and responding to the call to be people of peace,  the Coordinating Council of Spiritual Directors International will gather with people in New England, USA for an evening of contemplative practice, “Cultivating Compassion: Moving toward Peace.” Please join us near Boston on October 25 or consider creating a similar interfaith gathering for peace the week of October 27.

Reflection:

How does meeting regularly with a spiritual director move you toward peace? What contemplative practices help you respond to God’s call to be people of peace?

Religion. Spirituality. Communities of Practice.

What is sacred? Is it captured in stability and security? Or does moving toward exploration and transition describe your experience of the sacred. Stillness or motion? Or is it a community of practice? Both? And? Are their stages to understanding sacredness?

These questions are beautifully explored by Joseph McMann, who begins his article with work accomplished by Robert Wuthnow, Professor of Sociology at Princeton and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion.

The article “employs an extended metaphor of journey or passage, that is, someone goes from one place to another, chooses a route, makes discoveries on the way and arrives at a destination. The journey is the inner journey of a person seeking, looking and finding a new spiritual home. The paper provides a framework or map, to enable one to observe where the journey may be headed. After all, when travellers have a general sense of the countryside, then they are less likely to feel lost.”

Follow this link to view the article in the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue.

C. John Weborg

On July 30, North Park University honored a longtime professor of theology by naming its spiritual direction center after him: the C. John Weborg Center for Spiritual Direction. This is excerpted from the North Park News:

The current president of the Evangelical Covenant Church, Gary Walter, was in one of the first classes Weborg taught. “I realized I was in the presence of a true giant in terms of understanding the ways of God," he said. Then, as now, “there was a presumption of profundity by the students.”

North Park Theological Seminary also honored the other three members of a “gang of four” who were instrumental in steering the Seminary to make spiritual direction an integral part of all its students’ education.

Fran Anderson joined the Seminary staff in 1975 and was the school’s first female faculty member. She first brought up the idea of supporting the students’ spiritual development in a more intentional fashion. Weborg developed the first course.

Jane Koonce had a recurring dream in which she saw herself teaching at North Park Theological Seminary. She met with Dean Rob Johnston and interviewed with the faculty. She remembers Weborg saying, “Jane, you are an answer to prayer. I need a spiritual director.” Saturday was her 88th birthday, so the gathering regaled her with a well-harmonized “Happy Birthday.”

Richard Carlson previously pastored an inner-city church and served as director of field education at the Seminary for 25 years. He has taught the beginning course at the spiritual direction center since its inception.

Nicholas Wolterstorff was Weborg’s choice to give the evening’s address. A professor emeritus of philosophical theology at Yale University, Wolterstorff told the gathering that spirituality, remembrance, and justice are inter-related. Christianity is uniquely a spirituality of remembering because it is a story-telling faith, with the work of Christ being at the center of the story.

“Christian spirituality that does not remember is a truncated spirituality,” Wolterstorff said. Christian memory is not merely an interior act of the individual but also a public act that expresses itself in serving the outcast and impoverished, he added.

To read more about C. John Weborg Center for Spiritual Direction, follow this link.

Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live (on Amazon.com)

Explore ways that contemplative practices including prayer, meditation, mindfulness, and spiritual direction are transforming personal lives and society at large. Spiritual Directors International Executive Director, Liz Budd Ellmann, MDiv contributed a chapter titled,  Contemplative Practice and the Enrichment, Formation, and Training of Spiritual Directors.

You will discover several familiar Spiritual Directors International members and past educational events presenters in this book of essays including

• Mary Ann Brussat (Contemplative Practice and Online Communities);
• Rachel Cowan (The Growth of Contemplative Practice in Contemporary Jewish Life);
• Andrew Dreitcer (Contemplative Practice in Seminaries and with Clergy);
• Zia Inayat-Khan (Islamic and Islamicate Contemplative Practice in the United States);
• Richard Rohr, OFM (Action and Contemplation: A Christian Perspective);
• Donald Rothberg (Socially Engaged Buddhist Contemplative Practices: Past and Potential Future Contributions at a Time of Cultural Transition and Crisis).

For a complete list of the topics covered in the book, including the authors, follow this link.

Kudos and blessings of gratefulness to the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan for publishing the book. Fetzer sponsored an exceptional gathering of contemplative leaders in June 2010 to collaboratively learn about how contemplative practices are shaping the future. This exciting book is a compilation of the white papers presented at the gathering.

During the month of August, you might greet Muslims saying Ramadan Kareem! which means “May your Ramadan be Blessed!” Kareem translates to mean more than a personal blessing. Kareem includes the anticipation that the spiritual practices of all Muslims during Ramadan will usher in a new era of peace, hope, and generous compassion for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Al-Kareem is one of the ninety-nine most beautiful names of Allah, the Arabic word for God. Al-Kareem translates to The Generous. Another way of understanding the greeting Ramadan Kareem! would be:  May the spiritual formation of Muslims during Ramadan create a world of generosity and blessing!

As an international multifaith organization, Spiritual Directors International encourages spiritual directors of many faiths to learn about the contemplative practices of all faiths. By learning about and perhaps participating in contemplative practices from many spiritual traditions, we broaden our awareness of the human desire for inward spiritual formation and outward acts of kindness and generosity. We discover that not only in our own tradition but also other spiritual traditions, contemplative practices nourish the soul and promote generous service.

Ramadan is a contemplative practice

Our Muslim brothers and sisters around the world are praying, fasting, and reading the entire Qur’an during August in celebration of Ramadan. Why is it a celebration? Because the first verses of the Qur’an are believed to have been revealed to the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, during the ninth lunar month, which happens to be August this year. (Compared with a solar calendar, the dates of Ramadan vary each year depending on the cycle of the new moon.)

Muslims consider this lunar month to be especially promising for revelations of God to humankind. “The Islamic fast which is the union of asceticism and joy – and even pleasure in certain cases – is the most natural and most radical educational measure that has ever been put into practice. It is equally present in the king’s palace and the peasant’s hut, in a philosopher’s home and a worker’s home. Its greatest advantage is that it is really practiced,” according to Dr. Alija Izetbekovic in Islam Between East and West (p. 210). By fasting and praying globally together, Muslims redirect their worldly attention to God’s generosity.

Growing dependence on God

Little by little, according to Spiritual Directors International member Jamal Rahman, co-author of SDI book Out of Darkness into Light: Spiritual Guidance in the Qur’an with Reflections from Christian and Jewish Sources, “we begin to recognize that every person, whether friend or foe, is precious to the Creator. Clay though our feet may be, all human beings are infused with divine breath and in our essence we all bear the true name of son or daughter of God” (p. 147). From dawn to dusk during Ramadan, participating Muslims fast from drinking and eating in order to grow in humility, learn patience, and deepen a felt sense of connection with and dependence on God. 

Like the Christian practice of fasting during Lent, the Jewish practice of fasting on Yom Kippur, and Hindu and Buddhist fasting during many religious holidays, Ramadan is a contemplative practice intended to cleanse and heal the body, mind, and spirit. By slowing down to focus on inner spiritual formation, the hardened heart softens and outer actions of compassion, generosity, and peace flow more readily. 

Reflection:

In solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters, we are invited to turn our attention inward during August to connect more deeply with God, The Generous One. What are the ways that help you turn inward to foster generosity and your relationship with God? How does your deepening connection with God encourage outward acts of kindness and charity? If you are not a Muslim, how might this month be an opportunity to learn more about the contemplative practices of Islam?

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is.
In the boredom and pain of it, no less than the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it,
because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is pure grace.
    Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation

There has been much transition in the lives of my family lately. As I have moved from unemployment/stay at home parent to full-time employment as the Program and Public Relations Associate here at Spiritual Directors International, the entire household has been forced to adjust. My four year old son could sleep as late as he wanted three days a week with the added bonus of remaining in his pajamas at least through breakfast. Now I wake him at 6:45 a.m. so we can be out the door by 7:15 to drop him at daycare by 7:30 in order that I can arrive at work by 8:00. Chores such as grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning had fit in leisurely amongst trips to the zoo, to the beach, to the park. Now the grocery store, the dry cleaner, the gas station and the drug store are quick trips between picking my son up and arriving home. The leisurely pace of especially mornings and evenings has vanished.

Paradoxically, I find myself sitting in traffic more frequently, allowing me to ponder, among other thoughts, why it is called rush hour. I find myself longing for deliberate quiet moments of sitting, breathing, seeking the sacred. But, as Frederick Buechner reminds us, all of these moments are sacred; all of life is pure grace.

Yesterday was a particularly long day. Due to an appointment and a commitment to be at an ordination council, I did not arrive home until nearly 10:00 p.m. My son had experienced a somewhat traumatic afternoon combined with a lack of a nap. His poor body could not seem to shut itself down. Exhausted, but flailing, he had fallen out of bed three times. I finally asked if he wanted me to lie with him. He sobbed a yes. I placed his covers back over him and crawled in next to him. Within twenty seconds he was sound asleep. Lying, breathing, finding another moment of this sacred, grace filled life.

Religious harmony has long been a calling card for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. During his teachings this week in Washington DC, there was a delightful moment when he welcomed on stage Roman Catholic Cardinal Wuerl. Cardinal Wuerl welcomed him warmheartedly to Washington, DC, and they recounted together their first meeting in Assisi, Italy on the occasion of Pope John Paul II’s historic interfaith gathering for peace.

Christians submit themselves to God and God’s will, and work to benefit others. Buddhists understand cause and effect as fundamental aspects of reality: if you do good to others, benefits result. If you do harm, difficulties arise. Both traditions teach the value of benefitting others in our actions for the good of others and of ourselves.

His Holiness again reinforced his understanding that they are spiritual brothers in different faith traditions. At their meeting with John Paul II, some 25 years ago, a strong note was sounded that there exist common goals across faiths: the goal of peace in our world and in our own hearts. It is the responsibility of spiritual leaders today, as then, he said, to sound this note, and to promote dialogue rather than violence as the method for resolving differences.

Note: SDI Coordinating Council member, Sally Taylor, from County Down, Northern Ireland, writes from Washington, DC this week during the Kalachakra Initiation.

Lightly Cupped Hands

Jean Vanier founded worldwide L’Arche communities where people with and without disabilities live together. Jean exquisitely describes how to hold another in relationship. He demonstrates how to have lightly cupped hands as if holding a tiny, fragile bird. Not too open so the bird tumbles out, and not grasping so the bird suffocates.

Lightly cupped hands support another while allowing freedom for change and transformation. Lightly cupped hands even allow another to fly away.

With lightly cupped hands, spiritual directors welcome new spiritual directees as they arrive often after a wearying journey seeking a safe place to share the depths of their spiritual lives. By providing sacred space and a compassionate listening presence, spiritual directors offer room for their spiritual companions to attend to God’s ever-present invitation to develop inwardly and in service to our world.

Sometimes whole organizations need to be held lightly when significant change is underway. With lightly cupped hands, I invite you to hold Spiritual Directors International staff as we stretch and transform into our next structural stage of development. As we start a new fiscal year on July 1, Brother David Liedl, TOR, cycles off the Coordinating Council after giving six years of stellar service. Molly Bauthues takes a three-month sabbatical to drive the perimeter of the United States, a trip she has been planning for three years. Pegge Bernecker reclaims her maiden name Pegge Erkeneff and cuts back her contract work with Spiritual Directors International in order to pursue a full-time position with an Alaska school district..

Another change relates to the way Spiritual Directors International organizes educational programs. SDI is not renewing the part-time events contract with Sue Espinosa in order to invest more resources in future educational programming, such as webinars, pilgrimages, affinity group educational programs, and teleconferences in addition to the annual conference.

SDI is restructuring to employ full-time staff in the home office to offer educational and public relations work on behalf of the ministry and service of spiritual companionship.

With sadness, we let go of one way of connecting to enter a new way of being in relationship. It is a tender time of “praying our goodbyes,” as SDI member Joyce Rupp, OSM, beautifully writes about. With grateful hearts, we thank Brother David, Molly, Pegge, and Sue for outstanding service.

With lightly cupped hands, please hold in prayer volunteers and contractors who are in transition and the home office as we continue the hiring process. Thank you for your loving support during the restructuring.

Please add your comments.

Cultivating Compassion is nothing less, or more, than cultivating within the freedom from suffering inevitably part of our human existence.  Freedom begins with cultivating the wish for this freedom and grows into compassion, which is that increasing capacity to bring about the realization of freedom from suffering.

On the 76th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he allowed this occasion to be used by friends, far and wide, to express their gratitude and devotion to him whose life is devoted to cultivating inner freedom for , and in, all beings.

Compassion is not something he DOES.  He IS compassion.

Being in his presence inspires and encourages me, and the thousands here with me, that we too may grow the seeds of compassion in our own hearts.

Sally Taylor

at the Kalachakra Initiation, Washington DC

Note: SDI Coordinating Council member, Sally Taylor, from County Down, Northern Ireland, writes from Washington, DC this week.

"Cultivating Compassion in Community" July 2011, Vol 5.3 Listen: A Seeker's Resource for Spiritual Direction

SEEDS OF INTEREST:

Cultivating Compassion in Community --Pegge Erkeneff
Field Guide: The Fire In The Seeker --The Rev. Tilden Edwards, PhD
Field Notes: Agape Compassion --Sue Magrath, MC
Poetry: Guard Your Heart --Andrew Rudd
Art: Guard Your Heart --Claudia Campbell
Contemplative Practice
Global Resources
Ask Owl: Group Spiritual Direction

"We discover fundamental parts of ourselves in and through interacting with one another in community. When we rub up against other personalities and individuals, we learn where we are fearful, gifted, cruel, expansive, dismissive, and delightful. We discover humility in community—and radical transformation. Let me explain..." --Pegge Erkeneff

 

"The spiritual journey never ends. Contemplative tradition is very clear about that. Great mystics witness to the ongoing liberating Fire in their lives. Sometimes it warms us and we are content. Sometimes it burns hot, purging and reshaping us. Sometimes it is hidden, leaving us groping in the dark. Always it can be trusted as the ever present living Fire that, with our willingness, shapes true life in and around us." --Tilden Edwards

 

"This is our challenge and our calling—to provide such a safe place that the soul can emerge and reveal its hidden hurts, feeling confident that they will be received with gentleness, caring, and compassion." --Sue Magrath

 

"Invite your body to move into sensation. You may choose stillness, you might stand, or dance, clench and unclench your hands, move your arms, legs, belly, pelvis, shoulders, neck, hips, knees, toes. Give yourself permission to find a rhythm, and stay with it for several minutes." --Pegge Erkeneff

 

"I’m interested in spiritual direction with a group. Can you describe the difference between meeting with a group in contrast to one-on-one spiritual guidance?" --Ask Owl

Click to read, share, download, or subscribe to the FREE quarterly publication, Listen: A Seeker's Resource for Spiritual Direction, published by Spiritual Directors International.