This is the second Soul School.
It’s a short episode with a few things to think about for the week. If you listen in let me know. If you have questions or suggestions, lay ’em on me.
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BANANA CART?
(Your ears are not fooling you. In Columbus, Ohio at 9:30 pm a man rides a bike around and rings a bell as he sells frozen chocolate covered bananas. Too funny. And it sounds delicious, if not suspicious. That’s why I’m featuring chocolate in the wine segment today! Enjoy it. It’s bananas, after all.)
Want to try the practice of EXAMEN?
This age old practice of reflection, mindfulness, and prayer to begin and end one’s day goes back ages in Christian History and is reflected in spirit throughout the bible. Like in David’s sentiments in the Psalms (like Psalm 119) and in Isaiah 26:9.
“My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you…”
So today I offer you my personal version of the Examen practice!
I call it “The Daily Sharpening Ritual”
–It’s the perfect way to supercharge and renew personal and spiritual awareness in your life.
It’s a simple but effective worksheet makes the practice easier to sustain. I hope you give it a try.
The practice takes just 3-5 minutes each morning and just before bed.
• You can see surprising changes in awareness in only 5 days.
(Simply print out 5 copies and follow-through for 5 days!)
Both EXAMEN-like worksheets below work like an Examen practice, but the 2nd one features prayer more fully in addition to reflection and mindfulness.
Check them out to see which one you like best. Print out both if you’d like:
• The SHARPENING Ritual (Enjoy these resources with my compliments…tipping what you can is optional.)
We are in this together. As you listen and become part of what is happening here, it will be obvious that I spend a lot of time and a bit of money doing the show: website, paying for media hosting, producing it, editing, adding music, finding and speaking with guests, more editing, more research, and all the rest to bring you something of value in the Spark My Muse podcast.
Lots of heart, sweat and occasionally tears for your enjoyment and inspiration. You get to decide what that means and what it’s worth.
So, I invite you to just listen, read, and contribute what the episode is worth to you.
• If nothing, I apologize. Please, come back and listen again soon.
• If you think it’s worth one dollar, five dollars, twenty-five dollars, six hundred billion-gazillion dollars…you see where I’m going with this…, or offer something of equal value that is not monetary, simply contribute what it has been worth to you. HERE.
(or contact me here if it’s not monetary. Be creative!)
Thank you!
With Love,
~Lisa
MINUTE 2:30
A how-to.
A chocolate and wine tasting party is so much fun.
• It’s ideal for groups of 3-12 people.
• Have each person bring some wine and provide samples of high quality chocolate and let the fun start!
It’s the acid:
One of the tasty things you can do is pair chocolate and wine. Both chocolate and wine have higher levels of acidity which makes them a naturally delicious match.
Well-paired wine and chocolate work together to make each one taste better. Delicious qualities come out in both the wine and the chocolate and even form a third taste. A careful selection is needed.
Here are some ideas of which wine to pair with which kinds of chocolate treats.
TIP 1
The most important tip to remember is to keep the wine sweeter than the treat it’s pair with.
(If you don’t it can make the wine seem less tasty and flavorful or heighten its bitterness. yucky.)
TIP 2
Make sure you have high-quality chocolate.
Many supermarketers have a premium chocolate section and you probably only need one bar of each kind or just a good quality box assortment. Baked good work as well and you can search online too.
TIP 3
Taste test the chocolate ahead of time: Pick out certain fruit flavors, determine the sweet and bitter components they have, check for nuttiness qualities and levels of acidity. If the chocolate has a creme center this will take on added complexity that might pair well with fruit-forward wines.
TIP 4
A rule of thumb is that darker wines tend to pair better which darker chocolate and should be served first: More full-bodied, (heavier feeling in the mouth) dark and drier (not a sweet style) red wine pair well with the more bitter chocolates that have a higher cocoa %.
White wines tend to pair well with milk chocolate blends and chocolates that have sweeter and fruitier flavor notes.
TIP 5
Remember TIP #1 one …keep the wine SWEETER than the chocolate!
MAKING A MATCH
Pick your wines according to the flavors you’ve tasted in the chocolate, and ask your guests to bring a specific variety of wine.
Here are some specific ideas for the kinds of wine you may want to serve, but you can feel free to experiment and see if your palate prefers something different.
Bittersweet chocolate (70% to 100%): This chocolate type enters the bitter range with deep intensity. Good choices include Bordeaux wines (merlot, cab franc, cab save), Beaujolais, Shiraz, Port, Malbec.
Dark chocolate (50% to 70%): Pair this with more robust wines, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, off-dry chamborcin and Port. A Chianti can match well with chocolate around 65 percent cocoa content.
Milk chocolate: Try Merlot, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Muscat, and dessert wines. Champagne is also a natural match for milk chocolate. The crisp, dry flavour of the bubbly contrasts perfectly with the creaminess of a simple milk chocolate tablet. Be careful of the higher sugar levels in milk chocolate, as these may cancel out any fruitiness in dry red wines, leaving them tasting bitter.
White chocolate (which is really cocoa butter) : Match with Sherry, Muscato (a.k.a. Muscat) a fruity Chardonnay (un-oaked), These wines will pick up on the buttery, slightly oilier tones of the cocoa butter. Vidal Blanc, Niagra blends, catawba blends.
Champagne or sparkling wine goes well with all chocolate types. It is a variety that compliments many kinds of wines. Many fortified dessert wines work well across the chocolate spectrum as well because they tend to be sweeter.
PARTY TIP
To keep every one sharp and feeling well, Offer your guests some bread or light fare before you begin and keep the wine samples to just an ounce.
HOW TO TASTE THE PAIR
1. Take take a small sip of wine and note the aromas and tastes. Some hosts offer guest a sheet to jot down their observations.
2. Then bite into the chocolate and note what it happening as you taste and eat it.
3. Then you sip the wine again and note the new flavor notes and changes that the chocolate brought to the wine. It’s amazing how much the taste of the wine will change according to what it is paired with.
4. Don’t rush through the pairing. 7-10 minutes per pairing is about right. Allow people to really luxuriate on the experience and talk about the flavors and taste combinations they are experiencing.
AMBIENCE TIP
This is not a consumption event, it’s a sensory group experience where enhanced awareness is key. Relax and take your time. Chocolate and wine are luxury items.
THE TAKEAWAY
It’s a great lesson for life too. The point isn’t to bulldoze through life and get it out of the way, but to really notice what is happening and take it all in deeply. Downshift to a better appreciation of encounters with others, with our surroundings, and ultimately with ourselves and to God who makes a home within us.
• Enjoy yourself and let me know of the pairings you came up with (in the comments section) and how your pairing experimenting went, or what your plans are. I’d love to know. You can post pictures at the Spark My Muse Facebook page too.
Do you have questions? Leave them here, use the voice mail feature, or use the contact page and I’ll try to answer them in future episodes.
Visit Ed’s website.
11:00
Ed talks about his upcoming Christian Writer’s Survival Guide book
12:30
The practices of prayer and writing are connected in so many ways.
12:30
and how Ed is learning more about Holy Spirit and waiting on the Lord
14:30
From my experience…”Type A” or productive person’s view of prayer is active or proactive (maybe not involving much listening to God) (Lisa)
15:00
Apophatic prayer – God is found in the silence more than I thought (Lisa)
15:30
“The Creative process and prayer require us to enter with hands open”.
16:00
For both (writing and prayer), you can’t force the outcome…
16:15
Submit to the process.
Do the work.
17:00
“[A] general principle is to create space to allow inspiration and good writing to happen.”
Maybe (it can happen) in retreats or in different ways.
19:20
My favorite podcast Krista Tippet’s show On Being Onbeing.org (Lisa)
20:15
Never a moment wasted because of technology…but at what cost?
21:00
(Ed) on not having times for his brain to slip into neutral..
21:30
Ed says walks helped clear his mind, and he had to detox and ween from media.
22:30
We have a loss of self and fear of quietness.
22:45
40 Day Ignatian retreat bringing a terrifying and alone sense after 2-weeks until she found God in the quiet.
24:00
Ed’s method for unplugging and creating space:
Relent technique-going offline after 5pm and weekends.
25:30
Leaving my phone in my car when I go for walk to eating out. (Lisa)
• I’ve experienced less anxiety (to my surprise).
27:00
(Ed’s sarcasm) College students in the 1990s would die all the time, every week, because they didn’t have cell phones. Funerals every week for the mobile phone-less.
27:30
In the 1980s my dad got collect calls from “pick me up”. (Lisa)
29:10
UK study showing that teens are more anxious because of tech and over-connectedness.
29:40
Maybe because the media (they are using) is socially consequential and not neutral: like watching tv or listening to radio. (Lisa)
32:00
From his upcoming book:
Allowing space to grow and learn. His spiritual practice of Examen.
The app he uses: Examine App
The practice helped him come up with writing topics.
33:30
The practice showed him the imbalance of his life.
35:10
Contemplative writer’s Facebook on group
37:00
37:50
The group has lots of generosity there like a support group.
39:20
How Ed keeps a balance in mood and outlook when the stories he writes about are negative and make him angry.
How he uses a generous redemptive approach and giving his anger time to dispute so he can write with redemption in mind, inspired by Richard Rhor.
40:00
God wants to redeem everyone.
40:30
…Controversy and hit pieces build a quick blog audience…but the challenge is to be redemptive and to still confront in love when necessary…
41:00
“I’d rather be an Atheist than attend the Village Church” (his angry article)
42:40
Trying to encourage others to be redemptive and holding back if he can’t do it in a redemptive way. Waiting is important.
43:30
How we change. Example: Women in Ministry and how Ed’s mind changed.
44:20
“God is all about the long game.”
(It’s not helpful to create animosity)
44:50
(Lisa) “The power of heightening Empathy (to solve problems). Sharing stories helps.
The job of a person who is called to communicate for something bigger than themselves is to ask…
‘Am I able to show people something that they haven’t seen, but then once they see they know it’s true. And they can’t unseen it’.”
“And to feel it too…what that (other) person is feeling.” -Ed
(If you’d like to have Ed back to discuss how writing can be “soul-killing” and what to do about it, please let us know and leave a comment! Was the show too long? Too short? Ed and I decided we are curious about this, so let us know.)
:)
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BREAKING NEWS:
Shane Claiborne is joining Spark My Muse as a guest this summer! WHOOP whoop !!!
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This episode is brought to you by:
-customized, guided, quiet, refreshing
Wine segment:
Involve all the senses as to wine and enjoy wine.
Take your time and build your awareness. (This makes for a great spiritual practice as well.)
Sparking your Muse:
Today’s topic:
A personal Retreat – critical for creativity, spiritual sensitivity, and well being.
The retreat center I go to.
Spiritual Thirst:
By the time you are thirsty, your kidney’s have sent an emergency signal to your brain. Now the brain tries to regain health for your body with urges to drink. It’s better to provide for the body ahead of time, of course. The same is true for a thirsty soul. Don’t let yourself get morbidly parched. It’s not healthy for you or anyone in your life. It’s terrible for your art and your creative muse, and your mission in the world. You have to be well to do right by others. You have to be well to do well. But most of all you have to properly BE.
Getting it wrong:
A retreat that’s more of a social gathering with activities…That’s a Protestant, Western, answer to a problem that misunderstands the question.
Catholic tradition with it’s long history of spiritual retreats and spiritual guides was too much spurned by Protestant protest against it in favor of being busy at work and productive, while too often letting the soul starve for want of divine tranquility and peace.
God is best found in stillness and when the boisterous yammering of our heart and mind are soothed by rest and unplugging in every way.
The real question is not how can I find a party so I can feel whole….but How do I find my whole way home?
Home is within.
You become quiet and you go inside. God is within. You won’t find a God of Sabbath rest “out there” or at a place.
3 Most Important Tips:
1. put it on the calendar. mark it off. It’s a vacation day.
Or as the British say it (better) “you need to go on holiday!”
HOLY DAY.
Holy means set apart. That’s exactly what retreat should be.
If you take take off from work for doctor’s apps, then think of it like that.
Block off 4-6 hours at minimum
8-10 is better and 24-48 is really when things get very beneficial.
AND Go away from home and people. A retreat center, a natural setting, a private room at a church or someone’s home.
2. Do all you can to minimize all distractions and obligations.
Plan ahead. Tell people you WILL be off the grid. Not able to be contacted. at all.
Leave your phone in your car. A few hours won’t kill you. If you think that it might, or that you can’t possibility be out-of-contact…or maybe that you are too important and busy to do this.
Then you have to be even more serious able doing it. Delusion has set in. You have become blind. You are starting to die a soul death. Get away RIGHT away!
(You may be afraid of what thoughts are going to come up when things get quiet. Be brave!)
3. Let the chatter die out.
If your mind is clamoring…and it will be if you have a lot to be responsible for….then you really can’t get to a place of rest.
• Jot everything down quickly and put it to the side. It will be there when you get back and you will be able to deal with it better.
A simple Worksheet that’s perfect for retreats:
• The SHARPENING Ritual
• The SHARPENING Ritual
(PRAYER-centered VERSION)
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Contemplative Practices can be some of the most life-giving and nourishing things we can do (“do” is not the best word for it, of course. ha!)
I found this graphic you see here at onbeing.org.
It includes a number of practices from different religions to show examples of each branch. The roots represent the two may intentions of the contemplative practices found worldwide: Communication and connection; and awareness. Both are essential for transformation and progressing in maturity.
The main branches include:
Your specific tradition may include examples for each branch. For me, plenty was lacking in what I knew of my tradition in its modern form. It wasn’t until I dug a lot further into history and the whole spectrum of practice, did I see the depth therein and find new opportunities to enrich my soul and increase my felt connection to God and others.
If you’re searching for something in your daily spiritual practices and want to add a new sort of richness, see what you can add from a branch you haven’t climbed yet.
( Photo by Carrie Bergman + design by Maia Duerr)
