Volume 24, No. 2-Summer, 2000
Table of Contents
Here and Now
by Patience Robbins
Having Tea with the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, BB King, and Reginald
by Lisa Richey
A Minute of Silence
by Gerald May
The Myth of Shalem
by Gerald May
Shimmering Pearls
by Marianne Lewis
It Doesn't Take Three for Me
by Fleur Hedden
Let's Dance
by Scott Hamilton
Holy Play
by Rose Mary Dougherty
Sacred Circles
by Tilden Edwards
Here and Now
by Patience Robbins
I have found that a big hindrance to spiritual growth is trying to be someone else and at a different point on the spiritual journey. This realization came again to me after a meeting where everyone was sharing their prayer experiences which included travel to special places, long retreats, days of prayer, visits to monasteries, and I was full of "if onlys." If only I could make a five-day retreat; if only my daughter were older; if only my parents lived closer to help with child care; if only we had more money...
It is so easy to fall into comparing myself with others and thus feeling "less than." All these spiritual experiences sound so wonderful and so right, so holy — from the other person's standpoint. But then I come back to my reality, my particular phase and point in life: I am a home schooling parent of a very active and enthusiastic seven-year-old daughter; my parents live in another state; and we have no extra money for travel. Growth for me can only happen in this place and in the here and now. The if onlys are just that: wishful thinking that takes me out of accepting who I am at this time.
The here and now is the place for me, for my growth, and indeed spiritual growth can occur without long retreat, travel, workshops, intense periods of prayer. I need to be, to live in the now and to allow my life to unfold from where it is.
Acceptance is key — accepting that this is who I am, as I am and that I am deeply loved, in this very moment. No method or experience or technique can make me holier; it is only in my receptivity, my acceptance of what is — that is the starting point for me, my growth in holiness. The challenge is to accept my life situation and grow from there, letting my unique self unfold, knowing I am the beloved of God, at this very moment of time and within all the circumstances of my life.
Patience is the director of Shalem's Personal Spiritual Deepening Program.
Having Tea with the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, BB King, and Reginald
by Lisa Richey
My mother was an English war bride. One of the many magical British traditions she brought to our family was afternoon tea time. This became the time that she and I would discuss Life, work, school and other adventures. I still see Life as an adventure and certainly still love tea time.
My father, on the other hand, was an Ohio-raised military man. While the time my mother and I shared was at about 4:15 each afternoon, my connecting time with my father was at 5 a.m. over Grape Nuts. Each morning he was home, we would sit across our avocado green kitchen counter and tell each other about the miracles we'd seen the day before. I still look for the miracles and still try to love Grape Nuts.
These two childhood memories are the foundation of my spiritual walk. Both gave me the gift of unconditional love, undivided attention and afforded me the chance to learn to pay attention. My childhood was one of those abnormally ordinary ones. I was taught that to love and to accept love exactly as it's given was all any of us could hope to do with our lives.
This foundation prepared me for the pilgrimage of love, marriage, divorce, work, death, disease: for Life. It also taught me how to pay attention. I have to admit though, sometimes I wish I didn't pay so much attention. There are times I wish I was oblivious to how I've messed-up and how I've hurt the people I love. I seem to spend a lot of energy repenting these things. Let me clarify, to me, repenting doesn't mean saying, "I did wrong." That's confessing. It doesn't mean saying, "I'm really, really, really sorry." That's apologizing. Repenting doesn't mean saying, "I'll never do that again." That's promising. It's not even just changing the appearance of what I'm doing. That's re-painting. To me, repenting is changing the way I walk, so I'm paying attention to the Path. Repenting is tough. It's Authentic.
That's where the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, B.B. King and Reginald, the guy who hangs out at the gas station come in. These are all people to whom I've paid attention and who've helped reinforce the lesson my parents taught me: Life happens, and all any of us can do is stay on the Path and love our way through it. There have been countless other people who've helped, but for me, these folks symbolize everyone with whom I've shared some time on the Path.
The Dalai Lama is there to gently point me back to the Center when I get off course. He, Thich Nhat Hanh and Lao Tzu are there to give me a new frame of reference for my cradle Episcopalian tools of coping. They've all used different words to express what I've been reading in the Book of Common Prayer for as long as I can remember.
Mother Teresa has been there to shake me into understanding that I must be willing to take the first steps of my new way of walking. She, Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich show me that, if I want a closer relationship with God, every one of my steps must be toward Him (and Her! Bless Julian's mixed pronouns!).
B.B.King: well, what can I say? Even though he may not be on the list of top ten spiritual leaders, he has helped me accept humanity more than any other musician (except maybe Eric Clapton, but that's another story). Learning to pay attention at an early age helped me love music. And not many things help me get back to God faster than a good blues guitar player.
Then there's Reginald, the guy who hangs out at the gas station. He's 92 years old. He's usually at the corner of the building with a cup of gray coffee in his right hand, a warm smile in his eyes and a new perspective on Life whenever it's asked for. The other day I asked him what's been concerning him most lately and he told me, "Hugs. We need to remember to be the last one to let go."
My recent experience with Shalem's Personal Spiritual Deepening Program (PSDP) also has supported this mission of paying attention to the Path. The PSDP has coached me through the reality that Life's lessons of walking in a new way seldom come with syllabus. However, when I'm paying attention, they do come with countless teachers and often with a great cup of tea.
Lisa is a graduate of Shalem's Personal Spiritual Deepening Program, 1999.
A Minute of Silence
by Gerald May
The legislature of the State of Virginia recently passed a law allowing a minute of silence in public schools. I haven't been very interested in the politics, but the phrase itself caught me: "a minute of silence."
I wonder what a minute of silence really means to today's kids. I look at my grandchildren and others their age, and there doesn't seem to be very much silence in their lives. There's the usual din of audio and video but, like the kids, I've become used to that. What troubles me more is the modern myth that constant sensory stimulation is supposed to be good for your IQ.
It started less than ten years ago, with some dubious research purporting to show that nerve cell connections in infant and fetal brains increased in proportion to sensory stimulation--and that these connections were somehow related to intelligence. It has long been clear that sensory deprivation can retard development, but there is serious doubt as to the validity of the stimulation studies and whether their conclusions are warranted. Still, the word got around, helped by articles in publications such as Time and the New York Times, and even a White House conference on early childhood development. Loving American parents set out to make sure their babies received sufficient stimulation. As with so many other things, they found it difficult to do without overdoing it.
The problem was compounded, more recently, when other, even more dubious studies supposedly demonstrated that listening to Mozart increases mathematical performance and general intelligence. There is now a lucrative business in infant and prenatal stimulation, sporting trade names such as "GeniusBabies," "SmartMusic," and an "Einstein Library" of videos and CD's for infants. So now I walk into a baby's room and there are noise-making mobiles hanging over the crib, a television on the multicolored wall, and Eine Kleine Nachtmusic playing in the background.
Time will tell, but I doubt that all this stimulation is a good thing. What I feel saddest about is that silence and stillness in children's lives have now come to be seen as toxic, to be avoided at all costs like asbestos and lead paint. This compounds the old destructive practice of using silence as a punishment. A "time out" of sitting in a room with no stimulation is reminiscent of the old Quaker name for solitary confinement in Pennsylvania prisons: "meditation."
I've worked in a maximum-security prison, and it was the noisiest place I've ever encountered. Inmates who were practicing spiritual disciplines would get up in the middle of the night to find a quiet space for real meditation. And there was an underground lore of non-destructive ways to get sent to solitary just to get a break from the constant noise.
Sarcastically, I now wonder if the sensory overload in our prisons is having a beneficial effect on prisoners' intelligence. Seriously, my own contemplative experience has convinced me of the importance of balance between sound and silence, between stimulation and stillness. Contrary to popular belief, contemplative presence is not necessarily quiet or passive. It can involve intense stimulation and activity. But contemplative presence needs a certain amount of quiet and solitude to secure its grounding in the reality of life. That's where balance becomes important. All of us, children and adults, have thresholds of sensory stimulation beyond which contemplative presence becomes impossible. The threshold is probably unique for each person, but once it is crossed, we can no longer accurately respond to our situation. Responsiveness gives way to coping. My concern is that in their zeal for genius, parents may be preventing young children from finding their own natural balances between stillness and stimulation.
My kids always hated it when I began a sentence with, "When I was a child," but I have to do it now. When I was a child, I had lots of silence and stillness. I am quite certain it did no more than moderately stunt my intelligence. My earliest memory goes back to before I could walk or talk. I vividly recall lying in my crib, alone, the house all quiet. Sunlight silhouetted the tree outside my window and cast leaf-shadows on the wall. I was completely at peace. It is a delicious recollection.
I believe I was stimulated enough as a child; my parents read stories to me, took me for walks outside, chatted with me. But they also allowed me the sweetness of solitude and stillness, as much as I wanted. Now my life is hectic and noisy and often I thirst for silence. Sometimes all I can do is recall those childhood moments, and the memory is almost as good as the real thing. I honestly think I'd be willing to trade a few IQ points for just one of those memories.
Like everyone, I can think of a number of things I wish my parents had done differently. But I am grateful they were not obsessed with making me intelligent. They gave me the space to find the balances I needed. If the studies are true that sensory stimulation makes children more intelligent, I wonder if the grade point average for students in Virginia schools will decrease because of their one minute of silence: one minute a day during which they are not stimulated. And I wonder if it might be worth it.
The Myth of Shalem
by Gerald May
Early this year, Shalem's dear friend Richard Rohr, O.F.M., shared some of his wisdom about organizational life with us. The timing was exactly right for the transition Shalem is currently experiencing. Among other things, he said that every organization has a "founding myth," a central notion that inspires and animates the people who make up the organization. The myth is a living thing, deep and mysterious. It cannot be reduced to words, so mission statements and policies can never capture it.
The myth is formed, instituted and embodied by the founder. Over time, the myth inevitably experiences cycles of dying and resurrection, evolving and refining itself. For the survival of the organization, however, the myth must contain a core of consistency. And it must be born afresh in the hearts of the people.
Reflecting on these ideas recently, I vaguely remembered something that Shalem's founder, Tilden Edwards, wrote over a quarter of a century ago. It took me a while to find it, but when I did, it seemed to reflect Shalem's founding myth with a wonderfully youthful passion. Tilden wrote it in support of a new American center being established by the Tibetan Lama Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, a man who had powerfully influenced Tilden's spiritual life:
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On Pondering the American Presence of Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche
Bronze man-god swooped West on iron bird
Carrier of Dharma light gleaned through silent snow
Island of pure East in a surface-strange but
bottom-known land-
What will happen here to your subtle knowing, your
in-tune movement, your sharp will, your manifold interior means-
As these are rushed through our composing rooms,
our computers and analyzers,
our grasping, breathless ways?
How will your conch meet our trumpet?
Your incense our briquettes?
Your robes our T-shirts?
Your magic our science?
Your science our magic?
Your authority our democracy?
Your silence our noise?
Your patient singleness our pressing splatter?
Your spiraling in our spiraling out?
What in you will survive in us?
What will prove the wheat and what the chaff?
What the precious gem and what the cultural dross?
What the penetrable and what the opaque?
What the true godliness and what the mere ego-man?
A house built on rock does not crumble in storm
as a house on sand,
But what will prove rock and what will prove sand
Beneath your orange-clad feet, strange-familiar man?
Charism is yours-for an impelling task-
Mysterious movement thrusts you amidst us,
Calling for our common listening for the intent-
Our attentiveness to the Karma-Grace
That brings us mind to mind-face to face.
What facet of the Dharma-Davidic Jewel can shine
through U.S. us?
What in us can live of the lotus-born? of the Spirit-born?
What spark can brighten our Cross-Star lineages?
What luster can these add to Sambhava's line?
What mutation will come?
What common Jewel then will shine through heart to heart?
Pray that a Rich Meeting will polish the Nameless
Jewel ever brighter-
Pray fervently,
for the brightest luster must it be,
to penetrate our powerful-wounded sight-
our hate-loving, violent, writhing, striving,
bloated, seething, scared-proud national "kaf."
Our hope lies in the small, growing hole of doubt and pain
amidst our cock-sureness-
In the humble-empty-dead-black space that
invites a new dawn.
May you be protected, supported, freed to show us your path to the
Light at the bottom of that space, spiritual friend-
May our host Christ-Moses lineages welcome and learn from
your way to the Light as a deep mirror of their own ways,
That our lives may be enriched
And your fragile lineage preserved-
for the sake of all sentient beings.
Samaya, rgya, rgya, rgya.
E-ma-ho!
Descendat Gratia!
Amen.
Peace
(The Rev.) Tilden H. Edwards, Jr.
July 26, 1974
Shimmering Pearls
by Marianne Lewis
I walk with a courageous and remarkably glowing woman who is a former psychotherapist. Denise has a head injury that renders her unable to work, go out to restaurants, be at a party, attend church, remember the progression of the alphabet sometimes, to have a "normal" life in numerous ways. She lives in almost unmitigated pain and, at the same time, maintains an extraordinary compassion and selflessness.
She "prays," often focused on mantra-like, intercessory or contemplative prayer; she remembers at times to trust that the Spirit prays within her; but her prayer seems as chaotic to her as her life seems. In response to my query of any experience of peace amidst her ongoing anguish, she spoke tenderly of her intimate relation with the sky. The unparalleled, clear New Mexico sky is the one palpable constant in her life and is what brought her back to live here after almost two years of diagnostic and rehabilitation efforts elsewhere.
How do we even begin to talk about psychology and the spiritual life? Is her experience of appreciating and being one with the sky a real communion with the mystery we call God? Is it a salve for her beleaguered psyche and weary body? Her experience has given rise to some beautiful artwork, given her a sense of a wider world, helped keep her sane and whole, deepened her search for God in her life.
Denise is sorting through a chaotic maze of realities, forced to give up many held aspects of her own self-image, brought face-to-face constantly with who she is in light of all her limitations. Her graced level of gratitude for the sky, calling to her faithfully and unconditionally, is one of the few responses she has that she knows is not colored or created by medication.
As Denise is being "made" continuously into a deeper "image and likeness" of God, so am I. Light and grace surround us. The evolution and unfolding of personality, our psychological development, is the way by/through which we make the journey.
Psychology deals with the mental/emotional construct, intentionally aims to make right, fix, balance, even gain the upper hand over what is problematic, thorny, out-of-kilter, within a person. It has taught us to get in touch with, live out of and pursue our needs and wants. The spiritual life centers around growing into deeper "image of God" faithfulness, living as an act of praise and thanksgiving and responding to the Divine without necessarily attempting to make right, to fix, to attain--and regardless of the equilibrium in the emotional life. It centers on offering, releasing hold of our needs and wants, and it relies on the transformative power of God's grace to infuse our life process.
The life of the spirit pervades the mind, and the imbalances of mind and emotion can affect the ability and willingness to respond to the Spirit. They are not exclusive dwelling rooms, to be sure, but are essentially different doors/approaches. The big paradox is that who I see myself to be needs to perish, to be given up, yet giving up self needs to be a healthy and conscious act.
I am a gardener and had a dream where I looked at the top of my hands, which were dirty, bony and growing a funny protrusion on one finger. Curious and distressed, I decided I would show my hands to my spiritual director, and when I turned my hands over, palms up, I was most surprised to see that both hands were filled with exquisite, luminescent, shimmering pearls.
I think this is a dream to carefully not analyze, but on reflection, my sense is that here is a lovely metaphor linking spirituality and psychology. The back of my hands are what I usually look at and see-my outer nature, self, mind, who I appear to be. The pearl, most symbolic in Scripture, contains the imprint of my very essence: my being, created in God's image and likeness. The pearl is a symbol of salvation and wisdom, of the God-self I am; the pinpoint of Light, light within Light, taking its abode in me.
My complexities as a mental, emotional, physical being pale before pearls of inestimable value, before the essence of my being a participant in Light. And yet those complexities are not separate; they are part of my essence, the raw material to work with in terms of service and continuous redemption. For Denise, too, it is the same. Many pieces of her self-image have been challenged or dropped as she steps into accepting a new identity, not one dependent on her former mental capacities and processes but an identity that allows her to be at home with her "pearlness" and allows her to experience gratitude for God revealed in the sky.
I absolutely know that God is with Denise in her walk and with me, drawing us at every turn into more simplicity of just what is, into resting and responding within our true identity. The pearl is transformed by the abrasive action of sand polishing it, just as our beings are polished by undergoing many transformations-shined up by God's grace.
Marianne is a member of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Class of 2000. This article is taken from one of her program papers.
It Doesn't Take Three for Me
by Fleur Hedden
Last fall I joined the Board of Directors, and now I serve on the Executive Committee and chair the Communications Committee. I am truly honored to be here and want to tell you a little about my experience of finding Shalem.
I left Christianity in my late teens to find the silence I longed for. Being a pretty typical child of the sixties, I turned east and was drawn to Buddhism. When I moved to the Washington area, my first clue to finding spiritual support here was reading one of Jerry May's books, loving it and noticing that he was connected to some place named Shalem. I filed this information. Next was when, in a group I was attending, someone talked about their "spiritual director." I approached the man afterwards and said, "What's that? Sounds cool...where do I get one of those?" Shalem came up again. It doesn't take three for me; I was at the Shalem open house the next week.
In one of the sessions at the open house that evening, we were led into a few moments of contemplative prayer. When it was over, the gentleman next to me leaned over and whispered, "Well, that was the strangest praying I've ever done...didn't ask for anything." Meanwhile, I was thinking, "YES! The silence I love and in my root tradition-what a discovery!"
That was it; I fell head over heels. On Monday morning, I began the immersion technique, gave Shalem's registrar all my disposable income, and signed up for every program I could. The next thing I knew I was part of the tripod that supported Shalem's 25th Anniversary. Soon after, I was approached to be on the Board.
As I reflect back over the time I've spent with Shalem to date, I realize how very important sharing our experience with one another is to increasing our connectedness. When I have a meaningful moment in my relationship with the Holy One through a Shalem program and tell that story to others, they can get a sense of the authenticity and essence that can be available as we gather to deepen our relationship with God.
As we consider the different ways in which we can offer Shalem's programs to our communities, word of mouth always seems to be the most effective: One human being sharing with another about their life in God.
When the staff and volunteers of the Communications Committee gather, we pray for the offerings of Shalem and the people who lead and receive these offerings. We reflect on what has been done and offer feedback to those who plan the programs, in hopes of contributing to the value of our collective efforts. We also explore ways to support Shalem's outreach efforts and increase our visibility to those who seek spiritual guidance in the contemplative tradition.
We are always looking for ways to pray into our actions. If you are reading this, you have been touched by Shalem in some way. How did you discover this avenue for spiritual formation? Where do you find that the name of Shalem appears in your path? Where do you imagine it might appear that it doesn't currently? Please take a few moments and consider the ways in which we can reach others such as yourself. If you're willing to take the next step, give us some feedback and guidance so we can offer the contemplative way to others.
Shalem offers me a context in which to be as real as I know how to be-and to grow that authenticity in the grace-filled light of the Holy One. Support, communi-cation, nurture, appreciation, vitality are all concepts that come to life through the people and the programs here. I have found a community that enlivens my spiritual life, and I want to tell others about it. I hope the same is true for you.
Fleur moved to the Washington area with Whole Foods Market to start their Mid-Atlantic region, now called Fresh Fields.
Let's Dance
by Scott Hamilton
The more I pondered about what to write for the Shalem newsletter, the more I realized what the whole Shalem experience was about. It was not about Scott at all but about God prompting and wooing me into something extraordinarily exciting, fresh, and new (at least to me). Then it really began to dawn on me how greatly Shalem had blessed me with awarding me a clergy scholarship.
Receiving the scholarship empowered me to participate in the Spiritual Guidance Program. Without the scholarship, I can assuredly say that I would not have been able to share in the richness of these experiences. For this opportunity, I am eternally grateful.
Exposure is the first word that comes to mind when pondering what this program means to me. Not only did the program expose me to different types of literature and spiritual experiences; it exposed me to a multitude of new people with life stories far different from mine. Encountering such people would have made the program far worth the effort; the relationships forged from the experience, however, are nothing if not priceless.
Exposure is also a great word for how I feel being involved in this program. This program prompts me to be my full and authentic self, and that brings with it exposure. The program has prompted a personal opening of myself before God that I have not ever known. I have encountered the most tender and almost raw places where I am discovering God really is for me.
The word exposed also conjures up the idea of being naked and vulnerable, and that is where I find myself these days. I hope that I am open, naked, and vulnerable before God so God might touch the most sensitive areas of my life with whatever he chooses. In doing so, perhaps, God is able to use my willingly exposed vulnerability to touch someone else's life with grace and mercy.
Then again, if I have understood all of this correctly, the privilege of spiritual direction is to be present to and with God for the sake of the other person. If this is truly so, then together, God and those with whom I share these exceptional relationships enable and empower each other in ways that are incalculable. Perhaps by doing so, God asks us to join with him in that perichoretic dance of the Spirit. Come, come and dance!
Scott is a member of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Class of 2001.
Holy Play
by Rose Mary Dougherty
Recently, I was asked to lead a group in some prayer time around the theme of "Recreation and Holy Play." I agreed to the request because I sensed there was something I too needed to learn around this theme. My first impulse was to read about the topic and then share my knowledge with the group, baptizing it with prayer by inviting people to reflect on their experience. Somehow that didn't quite fit. I decided to tuck my intention for this to be God's work into my prayer and then wait to see what showed itself as appropriate preparation. This newsletter article has grown out of the waiting. The invitation seems to be to reflect on what I am learning about play mostly from watching how I play (or do not play).
Webster's dictionary defines "holy" as "belonging to, or devoted to God." It defines play as "a brisk or free movement, amusement, free frolic." Based on these definitions, I realize how incongruous it seems for me to try to put the words "holy" and "play" together in the same phrase. It's not that I don't think play can be holy. I realize that play, as well as any activity, can be devoted to God, can be for the sake of God. It's just that when I set out to devote my play (or anything else, for that matter) to God, it begins to be another project, something I "should" do for God. I get into deciding how and when I should play; I work hard at my play. "Free frolic" is not possible.
What seems to work best for me in terms of devoting my play or any activity is simply to devote my being to God. I do this by frequently claiming my desire to live as though I believe I am in God, to be free for love. My choices are encompassed in that over-arching desire; they don't hold a separate place. They give expression to my being in God.
Play, for me, might be described as those activities that stand against my doing and producing, bringing me back to my being in God and heightening a sense of appreciation for life in general. Play is often something I'm led to or given, rather than something I pursue. Sometimes just watching a bird that has called me from my work by pecking at my window becomes play. At other times hiking with a friend, enjoying the nature around me as I sit on my back porch, even cleaning my house can be a form of play for me.
Maybe what makes an activity play for me is not so much the activity itself but the easy spirit I bring to it. When I play, I seem to have the capacity to enjoy the moment of being in the play without thinking about my productivity or long-range consequences. I may plan a time for play and perhaps an activity, but real play has more to do with what I really enjoy than what I think might be good for me.
There was a time when playing solitaire on the computer was a form of play for me. I could break the pattern of some pushy endeavor just by stopping mid-stream and turning to this game for a few minutes. I could enjoy the challenge of watching to see what cards matched and could let go easily when I didn't win a game. When I would be ready to concede defeat because I couldn't see an alternative and a card would show up to save the day, I could laughingly say to myself, "See, you don't have to manage everything." Most importantly, I could actually play solitaire for a few minutes and leave it. When I returned to my work, I was less driven. I could see what there was to see a little more clearly.
I don't often play solitaire anymore; rather, I work at it, and I notice the difference between working and playing. I feel drawn to play solitaire just for a break, to relax, but I'm compelled to work at it to prove something to myself. I play to enjoy. I try to work to accomplish, to win. I play until it seems time to move on. I work until I see results. Unlike the refreshment I feel when I've finished playing solitaire, when I've stopped working at it, I'm just as driven and blind as before. Perhaps some day I will be able to return to it just for the fun it is.
My experience with solitaire has encouraged me to ask, "What would be 'free frolic' for me now? How can I play in daily life?" The answer has come in an unexpected form of play, drawing in my Zen Sand Garden. You and I might once have known this as a very small sandbox that comes with a small rake and a few precious stones. When I first began to play in my garden, I worked very hard at arranging the stones in their own formation on one side of the garden so I didn't need to disturb them when I did my free-flowing drawing. That lasted maybe two days. Now the sand and the stones are both part of whatever design appears. I can enjoy what I see for a few minutes, then rake through it, waiting for another time when something new will show itself to me. Feeling renewed, I return to the task at hand.
Obviously I won't forever find my sandbox a form of play I enjoy. I realize the need to pause periodically to ask myself, "How would I like to play? What would be 'free frolic' for me now? What's drawing me now, in this moment?"
Free, non-productive, enjoyable, renewing-these are some of the words that describe play for me. Is it holy? Yes, I think it is. There are many places in Scripture where we read of God giving to us in sleep. I suspect the same might be said of play. When I am playing, when I am unselfconsciously enjoying life, I begin to see the holiness of all of life. I live appreciatively.
What will I offer the people who asked me to lead the session on play? I will probably offer them what the invitation to be with them has offered me: the opportunity to reflect on play and discover again the gift it might be in my life.
Sacred Circles
by Tilden Edwards
In the last two years, Shalem Board and Staff members have been meeting monthly to reflect on the steady elements of our charism, our particular spiritual lineage, over these past 26 years. "Solitude in community" is the phrase we have used to express one of these key elements. Let me give you some of my own views on why this has been so important and what it can offer to the spiritual journey and the world's well-being.
When I enter open-hearted solitude, I'm drawn into a spacious atmosphere in which I often find myself more appreciative of my desire for the Gracious One at the center of my life. I also often become more sensitive to the intimate, ever-opening gracious Presence truly pervading everything within and around me. When that Presence is most deeply sensed, I'm shown something of my deepest nature and calling-to-love in God.
Spiritual community in solitude adds the supportive atmosphere of a group of other seekers. Such spiritual community encourages me to sustain the opening of all that appears in me and the group to the Holy Spirit within and among us. That fiery Spirit variously purges, warms, heals, illumines, and calls me in its own unpredictable way and time. As others share their longings and experience, I become aware of the Spirit delicately alive in their spirits, as well as in my own. In that awareness, I sense community at a level beneath all our personality differences and conditionings, a vulnerable-to-the-Spirit-in-our-midst community that simply is. It does not have to be created, only appreciated. It is such experience that leads so many people in Shalem groups to exclaim, "I feel deeply at home here."
The community of that circle is larger than itself. In its openness to the Spirit, it is connected with seekers of the Spirit everywhere. It also widens to connect with many graced seekers who came before us. All deep religious traditions seek fellowship with spiritual forebears whose stories and writings continue to inspire them. Our spiritual pilgrimage in a way extends their pilgrimage and builds upon it. Whether or not the "communion of saints" is formally recognized in the particular religious traditions of all members in a Shalem group, I think everyone can name people who have scouted the way and left footprints to help guide us. In some traditions, those saints continue to live and pray for us.
From the beginning, Shalem staff people have held up a variety of historical saints, people who have consciously tasted God's loving union and who have been capable of communicating its qualities. We have never offered these forebears as people to imitate, because we have always believed that each journey is a unique shaping of the Spirit and no one has ever walked our exact path before. And yet we realize that it is the same creative Love that shapes us as shaped our spiritual ancestors. In all our marvelous diversity, that Love reveals our common home.
Over the years, hundreds of Shalem sacred circles have been formed. People in these circles in turn have formed hundreds of other circles around the world. They are augmented by similarly inspired contemplative circles originating outside of Shalem in and out of the church and other religious bodies. These intentional gatherings are further enlarged by more spontaneous sacred circles in our families, workplaces, friendships, and other meetings. In these special times, the Spirit inspires such qualities as a sense of spiritual longing, vulnerable presence to the larger gracious Presence, deep mutual connectedness, and freedom for compassionate and creative actions. The narrowing power of our fears and grasping are greatly lightened, as we find ourselves trustingly opened to a larger movement of life in God. I have found such spontaneous sacred circles usually short-lived, and yet they live on in my memory, haunting me with a sense of what is possible among us when there is a convergence of our receptivity with the Spirit's movements in our midst.
Sacred circles are incubators for awareness of the deep, Spirit-grounded life that the world and religious bodies so desperately need. When our motivations are purest, we enter these circles simply as a way of claiming our love and desire for life in God. We don't enter them with the expectation of any particular fruits. And yet God-given fruits often come. These fruits can be slow-growing, like pure water seeping into the hard rock of our own and the world's fears, willfulness and confusion. Over time, through grace, the rock becomes porous. Our fears become trusting reverence, our willful graspings become longing and freedom for the Love that births and overflows us, and our confusion becomes discerning light as it is needed, amidst an accepted Mystery so beyond our grasp.
My experience and learning say that this often is a slow, spiraling process of human spiritual unfolding that is hardly noticed in the often blind rush of the world, sometimes hardly noticed even by spiritually seeking people. Yet I trust that the Spirit's waters are ever at work, subverting the world's hardness and shaping porous sacred circles where those waters can be appreciated and absorbed. I have seen with wonder those waters at work in Shalem sacred circles countless times. I deeply trust that they will continue to flow there, as I trust they want to flow freely in all the circles of our lives.