Today, May 24, 2013, I am celebrating my completion of the spiritual direction program (two years) at the Charlotte Spirituality Center.  We marked our graduation yesterday with an inspiring and affirming retreat, sharing from the heart, receiving certificates and then a home cooked dinner (unfortunately I couldn't stay for the dinner :( )    Spiritual direction has been a quiet calling for many years as I explored it years ago with a spiritual director and in Sue Monk Kidd's book "When the Heart Waits".  My training has deepened my prayer life and enhanced my current pastoral and chaplain's ministries.  Our final assignment in our last class was to express in writing our own statement of faith and spirituality.  I included important images and metaphors in my paper.  This is where I am today...

To see myself in YOU and to find YOU in me….to see myself in you and to find you in me.

A spirituality of communion and community.

My heart and soul have been awakened by the spiritual ways/practices/wisdom of the Christian contemplative tradition.  Awakened at deep levels of desire God has made Godself known to me:  from within and from without.  In my ongoing/flowing response to God I am invited to trust God in all things. In relationship with a loving, generous God of goodness, grace and truth I am moved and free to share in the relationship, as intimately as I am able and willing until I am absorbed in a mutual, life-giving relationship of love.  As the relationship grows, with a natural waxing and waning, ebb and flow, presence and absence, I wake up to the beauty of communion with God and Jesus; becoming aware, in concrete ways, that I am one with the Holy Community that is trinity and that WE are all a part of the one Life of God in the world, the body of Christ.  It is my prayer to become more and more akin to the God who loves me; growing more and more into the image of the God I love, who loves without bounds.   To live in communion with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit is to live within the divine community that embraces all of life.  I embrace and understand that all people are in God, created by God, loved and cherished by God, uniquely marked and gifted by God.  God’s image is in each and every creature and creation.  We are God’s mirrors for one another and my life is incomplete (a fragment) without God…my life is incomplete without you. 

This poem that I wrote in 2011 speaks to my spirituality.  The Season of Christ:  Christ as God with us; God for us; God in us.

In the silence of the night a light shines.
Truth is born and we yearn for grace to receive it.
In the quiet after the birth
is the beating of our hearts; our breathing is our prayer.
Presence is confirmed.
We are not alone.
Fears are calmed. Hope is not an empty wish,
but a trustworthy practice of a trusting relationship.
I with You; You with me.
I with you; you with me.
The night breaks into dawn and brings the new day.
We wake up to the brighter light of Truth.
The Light of truth in you and in me.

There are spiritual practices that continue to open the doors of my heart and soul to communion with God and to community: prayer, reading scripture, silence, solitude, sharing myself with others and allowing others to share themselves with me, holy listening, spiritual companioning and direction, full presence, compassion, intentional being in community, service and fellowship, creating (poetry, writing, crafts, worship liturgy, design with symbols), laughter, daily tasks and living…..intentional living.    

My definition of prayer has expanded to a very simple concept that reflects a spirituality of communion and community:  prayer is desire; more specifically, for me it is the desire to share.  My ultimate prayer, desire, is to share in God and to share in God with others. 

In my work I am keenly aware that a loving relationship, to love and be loved, is the most precious gift of life.  God is Love and the fire of life in all.  Life itself does not surpass the beauty and power of love.  Components of love are truth and grace: truth refines us and the healing balm of grace sets us free to live into the “more” that God has for us and to desire that same “more” for all.  Communion with God sets us free to live and flow into community.

Two metaphors and a theological image for a spirituality of communion and community…

a mosaic:  many pieces…one work of art; this is a cross made by a friend and given to me as a gift.  It is a beautiful symbol of communion and community.

 

the labyrinth:  walking inward into and for communion -- outward into and for community

the Trinity: the Divine fellowship mirrors earthly fellowship

Scripture:  John 17:21b-23 As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

                Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind…

                            and love your neighbor as yourself.

           I believe that this is the summation of the divinely inspired wisdom of all spiritual paths.