Thanks for listening to the Spark My Muse podcast today. Each Friday is a conversational guest episode. Today’s episode is a Spark My Muse first–not one, but two guests–the women from the podcast Sacred Ordinary Days. Jean and Lacy have quickly grown a strong tribe as they help listeners understand the seasons and rhythms of the liturgical year. They have both launched some fascinating resources too you will want to hear more about.
LENT 2016 February 10 – March 26 (but not Sundays)
MIN 32
Season of disruption where you make space and grieving the sad things about life. It prepares you for other sorrowful times in life. And prepares us to truly celebrate the wonderful times as well. We can hold both together. There are paradoxes. Both/And
MIN 35 Being fully human.
MIN 36 “It’s all grace.”
MIN 37
The underlying season remains and we can return to it whenever we need it.
My guest is a young man who reflects the mission of this project called Spark My Muse. That mission is to be the spark of light and love I (and we) want to see the world.
If that’s a mission you can support, please spread the word about what’s happening here and contribute a little bit to help me meet the financial burden of keeping this effort going.
Usama Awan is a medical Student at Ohio State and a Ahmadiyya Muslim that escaped religious persecution in his native Pakistan with his family when he was a young boy.
Contact him here: muslimperiscope@gmail.com
On Twitter @MuslimPeriscope
Ahmadiyya muslims are a moderate minority sect in the Muslim world and they believe their messiah came already.
The Messiah of the Ahmadiyya sect was Hazrat Mirza Ghulan Ahmad. He was a teacher and he was not divine.
Ahmadiyya believe in an established Khilafat is not a physical dominion but a dominion of the heart.
The website about his sect of Islam
http://www.alislam.org
2:30
Usama addresses some misconceptions about Islam.
About his wanting to change the perception of Muslims by going live on Periscope to answer questions.
3:40
Usama’s story of leaving Pakistan because of religious persecution.
His sect believes in a Messiah of Muslims (who died in 1908) and this belief makes his sect targets for persecution from other Muslims in the Muslim world.
6:00
Current leader (the Caliph) is Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad and lives in London. He advocates for peace.
8:00
About the belief in Jesus by Muslims.
Three goals of the Muslim Messiah:
1. Revive the teachings of Islam and bring Muslims back to the true teachings of Islam
2. To spread the truth about religion and to get humankind back to its Creator
3. To unite all religions
10:30
Worshipping the one true God and Creator.
Allah means God in Arabic. Arab Christians refer to God is Allah because it is the word for God.
12:00
Some of God’s attributes.
13:00
How names summarize us poorly.
14:00
God as male?
15:00
What Islam is not:
Terrorism is forbidden.
Life is precious, no matter the faith belief of the person.
19:30
Asking Usama, “Do you think most Muslims understand the truth?”
1.6 billion Muslims in the world but most have lost the true teachings of Islam–like a body without a beating heart.
The Muslim Messiah is there to get the heart of Islam to beat again.
20:40
The Quran is (usually) misunderstood. It is written in parables and must not be taken literally in ways that it is commonly.
The Calif (leader) is the ultimate authority on the Islamic teachings and there to resolve disputes.
23:00
What is the same about people is far more than what is different.
23:30
The big curveball question:
Was Mohammad violent and in favor of killing unbelievers?
The wars of Mohammad and were they fought in self-defense?
24:00
How the wars in (pagan/polytheistic) Mecca started around 610 AD.
Mohammad moves to Medina and the faith starts to spread.
27:00
Book by Karen Armstrong the life of Mohammad as a historical figure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Armstrong
Right now, one of the most powerful and influential men in the world is undoubtably Pope Francis.
Pope Francis is the first Jesuit Pope, but too few people know the specific qualities of his Order (The Society of Jesus-Ignatian spirituality). His spirituality and training powerfully and uniquely guide his worldview, philosophy of vocation and work, and themes of his prominent, worldwide administration especially when compared with his predecessors.
Through his decisions, he influences Roman Catholics internationally (a staggering 1.1 billion people) and his ideas influence and inspire many of the 2.2 billion people who consider themselves Christian (specifically: a follower of the way of Jesus), including me.
What is most influential to Pope Francis?
His training in the Society of Jesus (the Catholic Order founded by Ignatius of Loyola 400 years ago). This is what guides how he see the world and makes all his important decisions that direct the Catholic Church and influence others worldwide.
Today, we will learn more about these teachings that often come out-of-sync with the ways and structures of established institutions of religion, politics, and power.
Spirutal Director, Jeanine Breault, formally trained in Jesuit Ignatian Spirituality
Today, you will hear from my spiritual director, Jeanine Breault, a Roman Catholic who is formally trained in the Ignatian tradition. We converse about some of the salient characteristics of the Ignatian spiritual teachings and traditions.
Thus, you will find out the manner in which Pope Francis is directed spiritually by his own spiritual director within this 400 year old spiritual tradition; learn how Ignatian spiritual directors (and the current Pope) see the world and how God works in it, and more.
SHOWNOTES: EPS 24: The (Ignatian) Spirituality of Pope Francis
MIN: 1:00
Answering: What is Ignatian Spirituality?
1:20
Finding God in all things. We are invited to notice how God is at work. More than head knowledge but an experiential knowledge.
2:30
God is always at work for the good in my life and in my world and growing in that awareness. How can I respond to God’s call?
3:30 An Intimate relationship with God SO THAT I can labor with God.
Now that there is a Pope who is a Jesuit (the first in history) how does that shift the role and the the way he see the world as the head of the church.
5:00
On Pope Francis’s new letter “The Joy of the Gospel” and the Jesuit flavorings contained within and the influence on his life.
8:50
On the massive changes at the Vatican.
9:20
Who was Ignatius of Loyola?
The story of the man who founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits)
Born in 1491 and his message continues to changes peoples lives.
His war injury and what changed his life.
11:30
The mystical experience he had.
12:30
He work in the discernment of spirits (his work called the Spiritual Exercises) and how these forces work in our lives.
13:10
Discerning and choosing between two goods.
13:30
The rules for discernment that can be applied to anyone at anytime.
14:30
The basic of the rules of discernment.
When a person is oriented to God and desires to please God, then God confirms that and gives graces of peace, joy, and comfort. The opposite feelings do not come from God (fear, anxiety, discouragement, despair, etc).
16:20
Through the Ignatian spiritual exercises, one can figure out what is of God and what is not.
17:40
People coming to direction for the first time are really grappling with a sense of God’s love for them (and not really believing it.)
19:00
Coming to a spirit-led decision and grace is involved.
19:30
Overcoming the obstacle of unworthiness.
20:00
Working at cultivating people’s awareness. Asking questions that create space for inquiry, discovery and discernment.
21:00
We forget that God loves at at some level and it’s a continual process of remembering.
21:50
Her experience with guilt in prayer because of a lack of focus. Apologizing to God about being preoccupied. And the amazing thing God seemed to say in response.
The part of affirming the goodness of God and what God is doing in that person’s life is the job of the director.
23:45
The answer won’t expect to my question: “What do you say or do when people can’t see or sense God, or they have a blindness and are unaware?” (Maybe an “image of God problem”)
24:10
The “director” is not a good word. The Spirit of God is the actual director and it’s God’s business.
25:20
The parallel with gardening and patience for growth.
26:10
“God loves that person more than you do.”
26:00
On not “fixing” things and solving problems.
27:00
Compassionate listening and getting out of the way for God to work better.
28:00
What supervision of a spiritual director looks like so that good listening can keep happening for those directed.
29:00
Finding a director that is properly prepared to direct others is crucial.
Asking Jeanine, “What happens in your mind and heart when you find yourself wanting to solve problems and rescue someone?”
30:00
Remembering the kind of ministry direction is. A prevailing ope that God is at work and in control ultimately. It’s sacred time and time to stay focused. Setting aside things when they come up.
32:40
Do people expect you to be their counselor? And what happens when that happens during direction?
35:00
Helping people know what to expect from direction and how to find someone who is properly trained.
The international listing of trained directors. sdiworld.org
Director will work with people from any tradition.
42:30
The connection of Buddhism and Christian Mysticism in practice. Seeing the goodness in other traditions.
44:00
John O’Donohue and his comments of what Buddhism can brings to Christianity and vice versa.
46:00
Noticing the “now”.
47:00
Coming to a vibrant faith where (you realize) God is working in this very moment.
48:00
Relationships are the ways we become tuned to God and working out our salvation in real life and ordinary experiences.
49:00
Resources to continue on this path.
Ronald Rollhieser The Holy Longing and Prayer: Our Deepest Longing
Carmelite nun Ruth Borrows. Guidelines for Mystic Prayer
I was a sweaty, nervous wreck on my first periscope.
It’s comical…did anyone ever see Broadcast News (the movie)?
I needed two tissues for my sympathetic nervous system.
(Some technical difficulties threw me just before broadcast and I talked SO VERY fast.)
If you didn’t get to see it here you go!
(Twitter pulled the plug on this feature – sorry everyone)
NOTES:
THE #1 Myth about the SOUL…
is that we have one.
But first….we should get on the same page…
WHAT IS A SOUL?
(what are we talking about?)
This is how I’m describing it:
Titanic-style…
In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for soul is nephesh. We might use it this way, “1,517 souls were lost in the Titanic disaster.”
SOUL ≠ dead BUGS BUNNY …like a floating ghost and that sort of stuff.
Not a faint rendering of bugs bunny leaving his body to play a harp on a cloud with Porky Pig. Not something that is ghosty and haunting a house or helping Demi Moore on a Pottery Wheel. (Patrick Swayze-style..google it, young people.)
Ancients thought of the mind and heart differently (the will and the emotions)…
Maybe these verses come to mind…but you’ve been thinking about them in your own context instead of the ancient context from which they were written.
Remember this one?
The heart is deceitful and wicked above all things JER 17:9
(Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life)
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
….The writers of these scriptures were not talking about emotions and feelings when they said “heart” (like we associate the heart today…they were talking about the HEART as one’s will and control center of a person…(the thing we now associate with the mind.)
For them, the emotions (the heart for us in our context) were associated, instead, with the bowels. Perhaps a bit gross..but there is some
MEDICAL TRUTH/correlation : anxiety and stress are closely associated with disease and problem that happen in the intestines…like….ulcerated colon, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (bloating, constipation, gas, and other fun things), digestion issues, food sensitivities and problems in that part of the body. These are extremely related to one’s emotions and levels of stress.
The GEM MODEL of the Soul (my version)
Think of the SOUL as a gem and the facets are ways to see the soul.
You can go as far as saying other things beyond these are facets:
family of origin, social economic situation, skin color (if that has been a defining factor in your life)
education, the country you live in,
Even Christianity is a facet. A worldview is a facet that we can gain a kind of look at who we are.
Grace is central to Christianity, for instance. We can look at our soul through the facet of grace.
When light is added to a stone you can see its flaws and imperfections and you can see its quality (color, cut, clarity, caret)
UGLY soul? Is that possible? what do you think?
In his book Care of Souls, David Benner writes, “We can define soul care as the support and restoration of the well-being of persons in their depth and totality, with particular concern for their inner life. Soul care is done in the context of community.”
The vantage point of Soul Care views struggle or failings not as fatal flaws or illness to be “cured”. Not therapy or self-help.
It’s a sustaining endeavor for our interior lives and our relationships, like water and food is for the body. Incidentally, caring for the body falls within the bounds of Soul Care.
Ten Signs that You Need the Renewal of Soul Care
1. Fruitlessness. Are there observable deficits in the enacted your Fruit of the Spirit? That means, is there any lack or slack in the
areas of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control? (If not, I think E.T. went home without you. Phone again. You might want to text, and retweet as well.)
2. You find yourself perceiving things others say as personally offensive, or as direct attacks.
3. You are “venting” more in person or online. 4. You feel unloved. 5.You feel increased frustration, restlessness, or desolation.
6.Your fears and anxiety are more prevalent.
7.You have increased tension in relationships.
8. You struggle with one or more of the “seven deadly
sins”: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
9. You have problems sleeping or bad dreams.
10. You’re in a creative slump.
RECAP:
THE #1 myth about the soul is that…. you have one. You don’t have a soul you are a Soul. You have a body. George MacDonald, in 1892 (C.S. Lewis quotes him and the quote is mistakenly attributed to him sometimes)
Think of the Soul as “the real you” the essence of you. contained in a body, yes, but made up of everything about you in a pure sense.
Some might say the soul gets extinguished or goes to paradise or gets absorbed into the great Life Force (God) …but in terms of what you need…you always need Soul Care, because you are a soul and that include both the visible and the invisible.
All this more and much more is available in my book. Shame-filled plug.
Here’s a resource for you that is sure to give you a boost. AND Your purchase will help me continue the show.
(Have you already read it or might you be feeling a bit more generous? Please use the donate button (in the left sidebar) to contribute to the the work here. Help me make awesome things for you each week. Thank you!)
Shownotes
Doug Jackson, Returning Guest and All-Star, Explains the 3 Stages of Spiritual Development and Dispels the Biggest Myths.
Do you know St John of the Cross?
What you don’t know could hurt you…but good news, you are now in for a treat!
Listen and get a fascinating perspective of the darkest places on the spiritual journey with your guide Professor Doug Jackson. See the show notes below!
3:00
Historic context of 16th Century Catholic Revival-Era Spanish Mystic, St John of the Cross
4:30
3 stages of spiritual development
How do we know if we are making progress and what can we expect?
St John (1542-1591) provides a roadmap for night travel.
The Beginner Stage
(The beginner loves God for the self’s sake. The beginners thinks, “What’s good for me.”)
Doug explains the Dark Night of the Soul, the important next stage of spiritual development, in keen and helpful detail.
7:00
God starts at the first stage (in a place of joy and thrill in God) and allows us delight in spiritual things and feed on “mother’s milk” spiritually.
Next, God helps us get used to our baby teeth by moving us to love God for God’s sake.
John of the Cross takes the 7 deadly sins and show how they can happen to us in a spiritual sense.
8:10
God is weening us away from nursing and from spiritual milk. Like a baby, we may misunderstand and feel unloved or unnoticed, at first.
9:00
Commodified is the Dark Night of the Soul in Amercian Evangelicalism. The phrase itself is often used inexactly.
It’s not feeling sad or a string of bad things have happened for which we feel upset and confused.
BUT—It is that without cause we feel God has abandon us.
It is not a loss of faith, nor not depression, nor a felt distance because of sin.
It was also an analysis of depression 400 years before Freud!
11:00
God withdraws sensible (sensory, felt) affects. The dark night of the senses. (first phase).
12:30
Maybe it feels like prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. Maybe it feels that songs or sermons that had made an affect no longer do. This sense of loss will be different for each person.
13:30
Essentially, the delight in God disappears.
13:00
Mistakenly, we often may try to shock people back into spiritual infancy with a method, tactic, or suggestion that seems like it might cause feeling once again. (like a book, a conference, a service, etc)
14:10
The spiritual advice from John is to not abandon your spiritual practices (like prayer, fellowship, meditation, service, etc) continue to obey God and carry on until you pass through the night. They won’t be fun, but you continue for God’s sake, not your own.
Then you can come out on the other side to the stage of the Proficient. (Though the stages are actually more porous.)
15:00
The 2nd stage is where John says most of us get and hardly proceed from.
2nd dark night, is rare, and is horrible and includes a bewilderment and even a loss of faith in God and one comes out with a much richer deeper faith and far more settled and fuller understanding of God.
John Coe using 1 John 2:12-14 explains the stages as well.
18:00
John of the Cross found this understanding through terrible suffering and imprisonment and he saw the spiritual connection.
19:30
In the Dark Night of the Soul, spiritual answers are obscured and things are hidden from view.
Walking by faith and not sight.
22:00
If you can’t find the answers it doesn’t mean that something went wrong, it’s just that you can see right now. There will be a lack of certainty.
22:30
Stick with the basics in the dark night.
23:30
In the dark night we aren’t doubting our Faith, or God, but but we are doubting our understanding of God and our Faith.
The call is to obey God and persist in our ways as before. Eventually a dawn will come.
23:00
In this stage, we jettison things that are not core, central and true and come to understand God in a better way.
BE WARNED: Others may feel anxious to get you back in to where you were.
24:00
Backsliding is not the same thing as a Dark Night experience. The Dark Night is progression.
24:30
Prophets in the OT go through the dark night times.
25:00
Using a different lens to see what is already there.
26:00
Examples:
Elijah after Mt Carmel
Apostle Paul
Job
Jesus (wilderness and Gethsemane)
Jesus “learned obedience” and the the will of God was not pleasant
We all go through these types of dark nights
28:00
John of the Cross’s work was (and is) written for [spiritual] guides (leaders) so they can recognize what is happening and to know what not to do.
30:00
Some mystical-style theologians have been hijacked and grafted into a different (sometimes New Age) model of how the reality is ( i.e. “divided self”.)
30:30
The Devil – So what about the Devil which is a prominent feature in the writings?
A CAUTION:
John takes the readers’ Christian theology for already granted. The basic Christian theology was assumed because that was the background and beliefs of his audience.
32:00
Doug answers…Devil with a Big “D” questions. How do we come to understand John and what he is saying, if it is different than our understanding of The Devil and the spiritual world?
Don’t rehabilitate [John], or superimpose our ideas on his work.
Don’t judge or put parts on trial for the embarrassing and difficult sections of St John of the Cross.
34:30
Approach the text thus: “Eat the meat of the fish not the bones”
35:00
If the language bothers you, then let it lie fallow and see what is going on in your own heart as you read.
The promise is (found in Scripture and from those who’ve gone ahead of us in the Faith) that we come out (into dawn) and see the value of what we went through.
God says to Job: I’m God and you are not.
Job says, “Now I have seen you. I spoke out of turn.”
42:00
A word of hope for those in the dark night.
1. Those in the dark night bless those around them and their pride does not effect this because of the Night itself. We are spiritual protected.
43:00
In the Dark Night we don’t get to be proud of our humility.
Be faithful know that God is using you and wait it out.
43:30
Modern example Mother Teresa. She lived most of her life with a sense of abandonment by God.
“If I ever become a Saint I will be a Saint of Darkness, facing the dark to guide souls to the light.”
44:00
People were drawn to her service and work for God even though she felt God’s silence.
45:00
On her critics who say she stopped believing in God.
Christopher Hitchens wrote slanderously about her and others in his book “The Missionary Position”. He said she did have the courage to admit publicly that she didn’t believe in God and never had.
46:00
Mother Teresa–her fruit shows otherwise (it’s sow belief and faithfulness).
Apostasy is a deliberate walking away from God which is a danger of misunderstanding the Dark Night. This is why trained and wise spiritual guides are essential.
47:00
C.S. Lewis character Screwtape urges: “Use the word “phase” to tell him he had it all wrong”
In a genuine Dark Night, we may think we have abandon God or want to and then find ourselves incapable of it.
48:00
Doubt in God is like holding a volleyball underwater with just one hand and senses all the force and then thinking there is no volleyball because it cannot be seen.
“We aren’t working without a net and we won’t fall out of the arms of God.”
49:00
If you are in the Dark Night…(it helps) remembering “it’s a thing, a documented thing”.
49:30
Walking in the footsteps of those who’ve gone before.
51:00
What to do if you are in the throes of it all. best advice.
Richard Foster’s advice in the Celebration of Discipline. The chapter on solitude.
Don’t try to explain this to people when you are in it.
(It’s like Fight Club) “The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about fight club”
Most people will not get it. It can hurt our spiritual reputation. God is drawing us into obedience and faith in the absence of feeling. We carry on
“The Spiritual Journey: Crucial Thinking and Stages of Adult Spiritual Genesis”
Henri Nouwen “The Way of the Heart”
55:00
Protestantism running thin in certain areas.
Psychology tainted some spiritual experience as pathology and than co-opted with modern Christianity.
57:00
Baptists were not systematic theologians early on because of the persecution from the Mother Church (in Rome).
58:00
Puritan writers like Jonathan Edwards take God as Physician of the Soul very seriously.
59:00
The one sermon that did in Jonathan Edwards in our time.
“The Religious Affections” To teach that the Great Awakening was just an emotional experience or demonic experience. He writes on how to understand what is of God.
60:02
On taking your time understanding the Dark Night. God is trying to bring us into greater maturity and Christ likeness.
Have you ever gone through a Dark Night of the Soul?
If you’ve reached the dawn, what was strengthen or changed in you?
Blessings in your night travels. If you aren’t in a Dark Night, it’s coming. Stay Calm and Carry on.
If you have any questions or you would like to drop me a line about what you are going through, please use the contact page. A helpful (worldwide) listing to find qualified guides is here.
29:00
