Spiritual Direction, Chapter 2

The art of sculpture is, first of all, the art of seeing; and discipline is the way to make visible what has been seen.

This reminds me of the definition of imagination from Redeemed Lives (as modified by my selective memory): the human faculty for perceiving the unseen real. Perhaps this the reason my life is going nowhere: I have no vision. Thus, nothing compels me to pursue and persevere in discipline. In the absence of a vision, discipline is of limited value.

We may feel unfulfilled and wonder if being busy but bored, involved yet lonely, is a symptom of the absurd life: the life in which we no longer hear the voice of the One who created us and who calls us to a new life. This absurd life is extremely painful, because it makes us feel as if we are living in exile, cut off from the vital source of our existence.

This is pregnant with highly accurate descriptions of my experience of life: bored, lonely, living in exile. I need a home, a set of arms to which to return, a paternal embrace. Daddy, where are you?

We suffer from a fear of empty space. We are so concerned with being useful, effective, and in control that a useless, ineffective, and uncontrollable moment scares us and drives us right back to the security of having something valuable to do.

 Do you feel the tension between this and "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is" (Eph. 5:15-17). I just live in guilt that I am wasting my life, yet I really have no idea how to remedy this. Perhaps the possibility of wasting my life should "drive me deeper", yet I do not even know which direction deeper is. I feel so discouraged.

Spiritual Direction, Chapter 1

I am reading Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen and wanted to record some of the good quotes I found:

I started explaining all my problems and difficulties--trying to convince her of how complicated it all was! When, after ten minutes of elaborate explanation, I finally became quiet, Mother Teresa looked at me and quietly said: "Well, when  you spend one hour a day adoring your Lord and never do anything which you know is wrong ... you will be fine!

That was really good. Perhaps my emotional challenges are really complicated; I at least convince myself that they are. But if I could remove the focus from off of myself and my badness and brokenness to the beauty and glory of Jesus, even if it did not resolve the challenges, it would at least put them into a different perspective.

By creating sacred space, you reserve a part of yourself and prevent your life from completely being filled up, occupied, or preoccupied. Spiritual direction provides an "address" on the house of your life so that you can be "addressed" by God in prayer.

My sacred space is dysfunctional. I have something like a devotional time so that is an allocation of time for sacred engagement. However, being silent before God is very scary, so I fill it up with readings and petitions. Maybe I should allocate a portion of my time for silence.

In our world we are constantly pulled away from our innermost self and encouraged to look for answers outside of ourselves. If you are a lonely person, you have no inner rest to ask, wait, and listen. You crave people in the hope that another will bring you answers. You want them here and now. But by first embracing solitude in God's presence, you can pay attention to your inner, clamoring self before looking to others for community and accountability.

 I have been in "accountability" relationships before. They did not bear much fruit. Perhaps it was because I sought accountability before I sought solitude. I am ambivalent toward solitude: It theoretically seems a good thing, but my positive experience of it is so limited that I have trouble believing in it enough to give me the courage to practice it.

Frequently, we are restlessly looking for answers, going from door to door, from book to book, or from church to church, without having really listened carefully and attentively to the questions within.

 My book-buying compulsion testifies to the noisiness of my soul. My soul is really in a lot of pain, and I look for a way to end the pain by reading. I mindlessly read because it at least can distract me from the pain I feel. And I can justify it because book-reading is looked upon as a ok thing to do--even a good thing. And I only choose content books, so on the outside it looks like I am doing a good thing. Really, I am, as Luke Wong said, abusing my mental/spiritual appetite for real nourishment.

In the past I went from conference to conference, deliverance worker to deliverance worker, or even liturgy to liturgy looking for an answer to the pain. What does it mean to listen to the question within?