Lisa Colón DeLay | Spiritual Formation and the Way of the Desert Elders
Resources, Guidance, Products, and Services for personal growth, spiritual formation, and community connection
I’m honored to be featured at Thom Turner’s blog today!
My contribution concerns prayers of desperation and covers a bit of spiritual formation. I haven’t posted too many prayers, so if you have a moment, I’d appreciate your comments or feedback, below or over there.
Photo Credit: Martin Sharman via Compfight
Originally The Muses refer to nine goddesses in Greek mythology who control and symbolize nine types of art known to Ancient Greece. As daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory personified) Muses are associated with artistic inspiration. It’s actually a rather clever pairing The Divine & Memory…a kind of divine memory or “remembering the divine nature of being creative” perhaps. Note the word used within “amuse”, “museum”, “music”, and “musing upon” still carry a bit of this in their meanings.
What I appreciate about the idea of Muses in association with creativity and inspiration is the notion that brilliance is not sourced in us. Instead by careful listening and doing the work we join up with something transcendent as we engage in creative pursuits.
This serves as a needed inoculation from the perils of both failure and success. Creative types…and by that I mean me (and maybe you)…are notoriously melancholy and can succumb to discouragement when we assume too much responsibility for our creative endeavors. When some of the pressure is off we do better.
Have you heard from your Muse lately?
What are you most proud of creatively?
Photo Credit: Bruce Denis via Compfight
As a kid I loved cracker jacks. It wasn’t for the coated popcorn, it was for the experience of finding a surprise. I hunted down the peanuts and the toy surprise straightaway. My hands would get sticky scrounging toward the bottom of the box, but it was worth the effort–even if the humidity made the box soft and the popcorn a untied front against me. The real jackpot was when I scored some water-based sailor tattoos. An anchor or a heart that read “mom” and had an arrow shot through it.
Inspiration and Creativity have a lot to do with finding the “toy inside the moment”. Locating the surprise. We get lazy about this sometimes. We stop looking. Don’t we?
Here are 5 ways to disrupt the ordinary to find the surprise at the bottom of the box you’re in right now.
1. Eagle’s eye – worm’s eye.
What did this look like from somewhere else? Change your perspective, maybe even your actual physical perspective. If you still can’t tell, ask around.
2. Kiddie Ride it.
How might a child approach the situation in terms of curiosity, wonder, or even naiveté? You’re familiarity with your situation may be too stifling to find surprises. A breakthrough can come when we treasure hunt for wonder. And by the way, cynicism kills wonder.
3. Stew it.
Have you noticed how some things come to their fullest potential after they mull or stew for a while? This applies to more than food. Try a slow cooker approach: First write down your concerns and obstacles, and then fully set aside your situation or dilemma for 2 or 3 days. Give your unconscious mind time to simmer on things. Rest, work on something new, and absorb beauty in art or nature. Then, encounter your situation again nice and fresh. Jot out your new ideas before you get out your list, and then you’ll uncover some surprises. It’s like shaking the box to get the goodies to shift.
4. Play
When was the last time you were lost in joy? Let yourself really enjoy something for the fun of it without worry. Something simple, like when you were young and carefree. Cease the day and suck the marrow out of life. It could be the mental break you truly need to find the primo surprise.
5. Shhh
Are you pulled in a bunch of different directions? Media, relationships, obligations, work, projects, and commitments can make finding the good surprises all but impossible. Unplug. Turn down the “life noise” for several uninterrupted hours. You’ll start to feel human again, and that’s important. You can’t discover surprises in a mosh pit atmosphere, right?
What was the last thing that surprised you in a good way?
Photo Credit: Fabio Pierboni via Compfight (brothel menu)
On Sunday, I heard someone say, “Sometimes when I pray, I don’t feel anything.”
Has this happened to you? It has for me.
There’s no magic. It’s like talking to the wall.
“Blah blah blah. meh.”
Sometimes we approach prayer and other spiritual practices with certain expectations, right? We want an experience or we hope for some immediate return for our effort. It shouldn’t be dull, we think. It shouldn’t be lifeless.
In trying to connect with God we wonder if it’s really a two way street.
Maybe it’s the same thing we wonder in our other relationships. Am I doing all the rowing on this boat?
In this, I’m reminded of the lessons from my seminary professor who made a point to tell us that Yahweh switched things up on his people–most of the time. No victory was won the same way twice. Was God pushing the limits of their expectations? Probably.
I wonder if these variances happened precisely because God is personal. I wonder if God is always the same by way of consistently changing: A characteristic of a living God and ongoing relationship. Usually personal beings resist manipulation, right?
What happens when we want something to be predictable…a sure thing? A wife and a prostitute can do the same horizontal function, but there’s something about doing it for cash changes the whole thing…a lot, I assume. The latter is less a relationship and more of a phlegmatic transaction with the veneer of allure. The outcome is very predictable. Hence, relationship as a commodity has a dehumanizing (or depersonalizing) consequence. (Refer to the above image posted outside a brothel. It’s a menu.)
Isn’t it spiritually healthier for us when God shows us that he’s not coin operated or predictable, but rather relational and multifaceted? We wouldn’t want to be treated like a vending machine either, so maybe it makes sense that God would “keep things fresh”. Strangely, God risks frustrating us to foster growth.
If you’re feeling like you’re “praying to the wall” lately, realize that you are the verge of a growth-enhancing switcheroo…better named: a new movement of the divine. Be on the look out for it.
Oh, and when you spot it then it’ll change again soon.
Through this God shows us that he’s intricate and personal, not static and mechanized. He draws us into something deeper. He gives us something for an advancement of faith, sight unseen.
Where are you right now?
On the verge of change or knee-deep in a fresh one?
Thoughts or comments?
Cool cats used to say, “See you on the flipside.” Apparently when you flip a day onto its back you get another day, not the nighttime.
A cat (yes, I’m talking felines now) works the same way. If you flip a cat over it doesn’t hit its backside, but it’s flipside. The right side. The same side it should be on. A dog? Forget it. It’s a trip to animal hospital.
The flipside of a coin doesn’t work the same as a cat. The flipside of the coin is the other side. It’s the head or the tail: the opposite. Most people want money and not cats.
Is the flipside like the Kingdom of God?
I went to my first Special Olympics to cheer on my son in the swimming event. Backstroke and freestyle. I saw the flipside. The Kingdom of God is like the Special Olympics. Those who are always last in life get a chance to be first. It’s actually fierce competition, in case you’re wondering.
Athletes train for months. 70% of the swimmers would have bested me in the pool despite possessing Downs Syndrome, mental retardation, autism, and so forth. Counted out in every other point, but no more. It was a day of winning and accomplishment.
Athletes are grouped according to skill level, and sometimes, age. Poor swimming form meets with disqualification. Did you get that? You can be disqualified! I was stunned.
So, not everyone gets a medal in S.O.? Nope. Only one athlete gets first place. This makes the victory legit. A first place medal really means something. It really means #1. It really gives an athlete something to fully celebrate and gives a family something to truly cheer about.
The huge difference between the Special Olympics and the typical Olympics and most other sporting events, is that each athlete is treated like a winner. Everyone is acknowledged. No one is a loser. No one puts a mic in their face and says, “What went wrong?” If one flounders in the water…well, like a cat…one still gets a participation ribbon. Everyone is accepted no matter how they do.
This is how we can enact the Kingdom of God right now. Find someone who’s usually last. Economically, socially, culturally, mentally, and then find a way to make them first, to offer and enact true acceptance. It’s the flipside. It’s the righted way of the world as God’s wants it to be.
Will I see you on the flipside?
What are some ideas to reveal the Kingdom of God flipside?
