Imagine choosing to engage in a contemplative spiritual practice of exile. A Jewish spiritual director recently taught our peer supervision group Hebrew-Yiddish phrases that may be supportive to you as you journey with your spiritual companions:  “pravis galut” means “I am practicing exile” and “pravas galut” means “we are practicing exile.” Practicing exile deepens our dependence on God, a Higher Power, or in Thomas Merton’s words, “the ultimate reality that is love.” 

Practicing exile is not – I repeat: not  – an idealized, cerebral exercise. “Exile is one of the saddest fates,” Palestinian-American Edward Said asserts. “There has always been an association between the idea of exile and the terrors of being a leper, a social and moral untouchable.” Practicing exile does not fail to recognize the experience of millions of people who live in a constant state of being cast out, without a homeland. The practice of exile, however, does allow us, paraphrasing the language of Said, “to create an intellectual and moral space which provides a place from which to refuse to give in to attempts to be co-opted into becoming an ally for power and which unsettles us as long as injustice forces homelessness and exile anywhere.” 

How do we practice exile? Kindness. Solidarity. Shake that tambourine.  

Kindness. The home office of Spiritual Directors International is blessed this week by the visit of the Venerable Panchen Ötrul Rinpoche, who like many Tibetans lives in exile. When the Dalai Lama was asked how he remains serene and cheerful in exile, amidst the intolerance of many religious people, and the tensions between China and Tibet, he responded with a smile, “My religion is kindness.” By greeting people with loving kindness, including people who are “enemies,” we learn compassion for ourselves and may be open to discover the plight of others. Rinpoche is visiting Seattle to raise money for charitable work in Mongolia.

Solidarity. Meeting regularly with a spiritual director strengthens the heart’s movement out of alienation toward community, even if the community consists of fellow exiles. As spiritual directors, we offer an embodied experience of loving solidarity and Christ-like compassion. Many seekers search for a way home to a community “out there,” yet over time, with the support of a spiritual companion, they may discover Jeremiah’s invitation to the exiles to seek peace and prosperity in the city in which they find themselves (Jer  29:7).

Shake that tambourine. Spiritual Directors International member Rev. Valerie Fons is living in exile on many levels. Not only is she living in Washington state – two thousand miles from her Wisconsin family – in a sterile hospital room, as she receives a bone marrow transplant, she also lives in exile from her former body and from the earth. She wrote about exile in her blog, “My body felt like a killing field. The doctors had told me that I would not be able to touch or sit on the dirt for a year following transplant. Following the chemo rounds, I felt as if there was no earth to touch because killing was beneath me, all around and through me.” Yet when I last visited Valerie, doctors delivered the news that she is progressing steadily, and she will soon move into temporary housing. I witnessed a weak-but-joy-filled Valerie rise up on her frail legs to sing a hymn to the doctors. And then she turned the black-plastic plate warmers into a makeshift cymbal and tambourine. Like Moses’ sister Miriam, she celebrated being one step out of exile, closer to the promised land. By pausing to be joyful and grateful, we celebrated at a deep level that God was indeed bringing Valerie out of exile. (See the painting of Miriam crossing the Red Sea, by James Tissot, Songs of Joy, at the top of the blog).

As spiritual companions, we might take up the conscious spiritual practice of “pravus galut” by meeting with kindness the people God sends us each day, by standing in solidarity with people living in actual and metaphorical exile, and by celebrating every inch out of exile into new life. By practicing exile, we join others around the world and across traditions, who like Thomas Merton, “have all known the long loneliness, and that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.” 

Please share your thoughts about how you practice exile by adding comments to the blog.