Volume 28, No. 3-Fall, 2004
Table of Contents
Reflections on Shalem's 1st Regional Gathering
by Wilma Wake
Contemplation & Contemplative Living
by Shalem Senior Staff
Just Showing Up
by Ann Kline
Of Death and Drones
by Gerald May
Flirting with Leadership
by Carole Crumley
We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners
by Tilden Edwards
The Stuff of Miracles
by Martha Campbell
Reflections on Shalem's 1st Regional Gathering
by Wilma Wake
What a treat it was to take a leisurely drive to a Shalem retreat about contemplative spiritual leadership. I found another participant going from Maine, and we shared the three-hour drive to Holyoke, MA. The trip went quickly with our new spiritual friendship forming en route.
I've taken two Shalem extension programs but have always traveled alone and by plane to D.C. At the residencies, I have met people from all over the world-people I came to cherish dearly but most of whom it would be hard to see again after the program because of the geographic distance dividing us. This time I was taking a five-day Shalem retreat that was being offered within a few hours drive of my home.
Our retreat was the first of a series of regional programs that Shalem will be offering around the county, thanks to a generous grant for this purpose. Shalem will be in Burlingame, CA, in January, and then on to various other regions.
I was amazed that over 60 people attended this first regional gathering and that most of the participants had never been to a Shalem program. There were many stories from participants having heard that Shalem had great programs, but the long trip to the D.C. area had been an insurmountable barrier before.
As we arrived on Monday afternoon, I was delighted to find so many old friends from around New England, as well as to have the opportunity to meet new regional contemplatives. We were called into session by a staff that included two people from our region who had previously taken Shalem programs.
By Monday evening we were divided into small groups for sharing and processing. Our groups were based on geographic location, as much as possible. My group members primarily lived in or near Maine, so maintaining personal contact after the retreat was a realistic expectation. That knowledge added to the depth of our experience.
There was a seamless flow in modes of contemplation, with large group presentations from Shalem staff about the contemplative spirituality roots of leadership. Then we were given reflection questions to consider in quiet, prior to joining our small group around a candle to share our reflections.
The highlight of the five days was 48 hours of silent retreat. We began on Tuesday evening and did not break the silence until Thursday evening. Many of us commented later on the power of being silent in community. We passed each other in the corridors and walking the grounds; we ate together. Yet we greeted each other in silence and honored the inner contemplation for each other. I cherished the silence, having grown from each one I experienced in Shalem residencies.
For many others, this was their first silent retreat and they didn't know what to expect. The staff gave careful preparation for the event, and we met in our small groups before beginning in order to support each other in prayer. In addition, the staff provided a range of optional prayer opportunities during the silent time. There were some guided meditations, some body movement prayer, walking prayer, and sculpting with clay.
I entered my silent time with a prayer of: "What shall we do together, God? This time is for you to guide me." I found myself strolling to a nearby art store to buy a sketchpad and drawing pencils. I spent most of my silent time sketching, both as prayer and as journal-keeping. God showed me that our prayer time can be drawing, and walking, and sculpting with clay. I found deeper dimensions to my Divine relationship through the silence and the resources there for us. By the end, I was reaffirmed in my union with God and energized with exciting new ways to pray on a daily basis.
We ended our silence as we had begun it-in our small groups sharing quietly around our flickering candle. Then we went into a plenary session to reconnect with everyone after our silence.
On Friday, we considered how we had grown together and discussed ways to enhance our networking in New England. Our retreat concluded with a joyous contemplative Eucharist. I did not feel as much sadness as I so often do when a Shalem program ends, because this time I shared the experience with so many who lived near me and we would be able to continue our interactions in person.
There was great thirst for more Shalem events in New England. Yet we also saw the limitations in Shalem's resources for bringing programs to the regions. We could, however, count on Shalem's help and affirmation. The staff encouraged us to network in New England and to support each other in our contemplative journeys.
I was left with a deep, abiding gratitude to Shalem. It has been a beacon of light for my spiritual growth and leadership. Although I would have loved to hear that Shalem would be in New England several times a year for programs, I was empowered by the reminder that the inner light of contemplation lies in each of us. This light guides us to the fellow contem-platives in our own area, and we can find, with them, ways to flourish and support each other on our journeys. I felt that we were walking with Shalem along the pathway to a new era in Shalem's calling: one of outreach and support to regions and regional contemplative networking.
Wilma is a graduate of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Summer Class of 2001.
Contemplation & Contemplative Living
by Shalem Senior Staff
Although the spiritual life may take many forms, it is always and foremost about love. Perhaps the most profound and pure experience of this love occurs in what the traditions refer to as contemplation. In popular usage, to contemplate something is to think about it, considering it from a variety of angles. This is not at all the understand-ing of the classical authors of spirituality. Classically, contemplation is a particular kind of experience, usually occurring in the context of prayer. It is a sheer experience of loving presence, and it comes as pure gift, given when and as God chooses.
The Latin roots of the word, cum ("with") and templum ("temple") connote the sacredness of the experience. In its original meaning, contemplation is always a gift and cannot be achieved by any method or practice. It is thus held in contrast to meditation, which includes all the practices and disciplines we may intentionally undertake in the course of our spiritual lives. Put simply, we can do meditation, but we cannot do contemplation because it only happens as a gift.
A simple definition of contemplation is "loving presence to what is." In a Christian context, because we "live and move and have our being" in God (Acts 17:28), being present to things as they are involves encountering the Christ who "fills the whole creation" (Eph. 1:23). In other words, Christian contemplation means finding God in all things and all things in God. Brother Lawrence, the 17th century Carmelite friar, called it "the loving gaze that finds God everywhere."
Because people use "contemplation" to describe especially profound qualities of prayer, we often associate it with silence and stillness- perhaps even withdrawal from the world. Classically, however, it means immediate open presence in the world, directly perceiving and lovingly responding to things as they really are. Thus contemplation is not necessarily quiet and still. It may just as well be very active and noisy.
In this sense, contemplation is an all-embracing quality of presence, including not only our own inner experience but also directly perceiving and responding to the situation and needs of the world around us. Rather than trying to balance contemplation and action, it is more accurate to see contemplation in action, undergirding and embracing everything. In this way, all our thoughts and actions can be joined together in prayerful openness and loving responsiveness. It is contemplation-or at least a contemplative attitude-that grounds our presence in the real world.
Psychologically, contemplation is traditionally seen as immediate, grounded in the here-and-now. Plans for the future and memories of the past can happen in contemplation, but they don't take one's attention away from one's desire for God or the needs of the situation at hand. Plans and memories, like thoughts, feelings and sense perceptions, are simply parts of what is happening in the moment.
In contemplation, awareness is open, not focused on one thing to the exclusion of others. Most of us have been taught to concentrate (focus attention) on one thing at a time. The contemplative experience however, shows that we function more lovingly-and can be more in touch with our desire for God's guidance-when we're more widely open to what is going on. Thus many contemplatively oriented practices involve an "unlearning" of one's habits of focusing attention. In their place, one hopes to nurture a simple willingness to be open to God's movements, leadings, and invitations--a contemplative attitude.
Contemplation is an experience that is given to us from time to time. It is usually short-lived, but it can have profound effects on us. Among other things, such experiences of contemplation encourage us to develop a contemplative attitude in the rest of life. Also called contemplative living, this attitude attempts to integrate the incomprehensible wisdom of momentary experiences of contemplation into life as a whole.
Contemplative living involves an acknowledgment that the deepest currents of our lives are "God's business," not ours. This implies a willingness to let God do the leading in our choices and decisions. Further, contempla-tive living honors the mystery of God's actions; we hope for God's guidance, but recognize that we may not understand it or have any particular knowledge of what that guidance may be.
Implicit in contemplative living is a deep and radical trust in God's presence and mercy. The trust involved in contemplative living is indeed radical. In many ways, choosing to live contemplatively is a risky undertaking. For one thing, our culture indoctrinates us to act as if we were on our own. "The Lord helps those who help themselves," we are told. We are taught to identify our goals and to know how to accomplish them. We are expected to explain why we did what we have done, and to justify what we are planning to do. None of these attitudes are compatible with contemplative living. Instead, we do not want to "help ourselves" when God stands ready and willing to give us all the help we need at any time. We often don't even have goals and strategies that we're aware of, and there is no logical way to justify or rationalize our actions, to ourselves or to anyone else.
This makes contemplative living a great challenge in the practical world. It runs counter to the prevailing cultural values-and our own habits-of self-determination and autonomous control. Attempts to talk about it or explain it often sound unacceptably passive, even irresponsible: "I'm putting this in God's hands," or "I'll pray about this and see what happens." And when some action does come, we cannot even say, "I'm doing this because I discerned that it is what God wants." Although there can be moments of bright clarity, more often we simply do not know for sure whether we are following God's desire; we can only hope and pray that we are.
This article is excerpted from a longer monograph by Shalem Senior Staff.
Just Showing Up
by Ann Kline
It is with great dismay that I realize, after eight years of studious prayer and meditation, I feel no closer to God than I ever did. This fall, at the Jewish New Year, I stood on a bridge over Rock Creek throwing my sins (in the form of bread) into the water. It was the same bridge I've stood on for many years and the sins, sad to say, were also much the same. I left with the same good intentions as I always have, and with the knowledge that I would be back again next year. After all this time, I feel I am no better a person than I ever was.
So, what is the good of all my spiritual practice? Why do I sit in silence, coaxing my wayward mind and heart toward God? Why do I strive to stir my soup, wash my dishes, and kiss the mezuzah on my door with present-centered attention if I only find myself once more getting impatient in traffic, fearful of the future or angry at what I see on the nightly news? If God's transforming love is truly at work in me, shouldn't I be better, different, holy by now?
The distractions in my life are endless. The pain and problems of this world are undiminished. Why do I bother to keep bringing my mind and heart back and back again to silence, to a point where everything is just what it is, where I sit accepting this moment as gift? A gift that, I'm afraid, the next moment will find me quite ungrateful for.
In our society we tend to diminish the value of steady, dogged, stick-to-itiveness. Either we want things to come easily and conveniently or we respect the effort only after we see the evidence of some reward. Otherwise, we are being foolish or dreamers, or both. What is the point, we want to know before we start. We naturally want to have something to show for it all.
At this moment in my life, however, I have very little to show for all those hours of sitting in silence, alone with God. I am not enlightened and I am not "better" at life or loving. I am beginning to understand that I haven't known what I was looking for. In fact, I realize, there is absolutely nothing for me to seek, nowhere to go. Persistence itself is the "point" of all my practice-the turning again and again to what is true and real, right now. There is nothing else. God is nowhere else. Persistence is not "a means to a means to a means to," to quote Randall Jarrell. Persistence is what we are about in living.
Norman Fischer, in his book "Taking Our Places," wrote that:
In the shaping of our lives, we pay a fair amount of attention to skill and effort, to intelligence, talent, good looks, technique, training, education, and so on. But it seems to me that a primary virtue is the simple ability to be persistent with what you do, to not look for quick fixes or miracle cures, to be able to go on with a good feeling come what may.
What this says to me about the beauty of persistence (and is Fischer's point) is that in the persistent turning and returning of our attention to what is true and real, this moment, we learn to trust. Much of my "trust" has come from my intelligence, my experience, my ability to figure things out. That may be a good insurance policy for living, but it is not trust. Trust is more summed up in the Zen koan "every day is a good day." It does not need to prove itself. We just show up for what is.
It is the persistence of just showing up, over and over again, that is faith. It is a faith that finds God in each precious moment of starting anew, which is there in every breath. In those silent hours of my sitting with God just as I am, I am already what I seek to be: a person who lives for God. My persistence is the gift of water upon the rough rock of my desire. It is with persistence that my desire is polished into a smooth faith, that can live each moment as it is and let it go.
That kind of faith is at best a glimmer more in God's eye than my own right now. I only know that in the turning and returning my attention back to the silence, my intention back to stirring the soup, over and over, I am all that I need to be.
Of Death and Drones
by Gerald May
I've been thinking a lot about death recently. My old lymphoma returned after nearly a decade, kicking me off the heart transplant list. My heart's in bad enough shape that it can't handle much in the way of chemotherapy, and the lymphoma will kill me without treatment. Right now we're trying an antibody treatment with very few side effects, and we're hopeful. But of course I've still been thinking a lot about death.
Death itself doesn't worry me much. I honestly don't think I'm afraid of it. What bothers me is the hassle of it, the pain of family and friends, enduring medical procedures and settling affairs: the complicated trappings of dying. And of course there's the ever present letting go. I'm convinced that we all live lives of continual letting go, but it never comes quite so clear as when your demise is in your face. But there's also pleasure in the midst of it-the sheer enjoyment of simple moments, the feel of a breeze, the blueness of sky, the eyes of my wife and kids, a smile here and there, laughter, good food, the taste of water when you're thirsty, all sorts of wonderful gifts.
Some of the gifts are more mysterious. Before I discovered my first lymphoma ten years ago, I had experienced several months of inexplicable gratitude. It wasn't gratitude for anything-just sheer thankfulness. Although it quieted down some over the years, that feeling of thanksgiving never really left me. This time around, the feeling is one of praise. Don't ask me why. I was never much into prayers of either thanksgiving or praise until I was given the gift of the actual feelings. Before, praise felt kind of humiliating, like "Oh God, Thou art so great and I am so lowly." But the actual feeling I've been given is nothing like that. I can't describe it, but I guess it's more like realizing how wonderful it is to exist and having to express it in some way. My praise is directed Godwards to be sure, yet there something strange about the way it reminds me of Narcissus gazing at the beauty of his own image.
Another wonderful gift is that I've received a way of expressing that praise. It has to do with the sound of the drone. It's yet another thing I don't really understand, but for the better part of my conscious life I've been searching for the perfect drone. There's something about a long, steadily sustained low tone underlying other sounds and music, something in that constancy that touches me more deeply than anything else I can think of. I remember playing the violin in grade school and just bowing the lowest string in the slowest way I could. It felt, and probably sounded, stupid. But it vibrated some kind of life force in me and I almost couldn't stop. Over the years I've been drawn to Celtic and Appalachian music because of the drones of bagpipes and fiddles and the low strings of dulcimers. Later, I fell in love with Hindu chant, often sung to droning harmoniums and tablas, and the deep chant of Tibetan monks who make their own drones with impossibly low vocal intonations. I tried to play the digeridoo, but could never master that cheek-squeeze outbreath you need for steady tone.
For years I searched for a way of creating that deep, low, steady sound. A harmonium, the best dronemaker in my opinion, was too big, bulky and expensive. I experimented by making outlandish single and double-stringed instruments, plucked, bowed, and strummed. I discovered that nylon weedwhacker line makes a wonderful deep tone. But I never quite found the right placement for it. I spent months in my workshop crafting a hurdy-gurdy, which sounded wonderful but took hours to tune and adjust. I tried electronic synthesizers, and discovered that the perfect drone absolutely has to be analog. Digital sampling just doesn't work.
As I say, I can't really explain my search for the perfect drone-tone. But I think there's a hint in a meditation experience I once had. It was one of those rare, deep meditations-what Teresa of Avila might call "active recollection"-where whatever you're doing to attend to your attention finally "works," and you're just really, fully, there. This time, everything became so quiet and still that I was sure my breathing had ceased and I couldn't help wondering if this is what it's like when you die. At that moment, I was treated to a wonderful little vision. I seemed to see this great cosmic flow of energy, much like an endless, shoreless river, moving always but having no beginning or end, just the movement of flow. And I "saw" this little tributary flowing into the great movement, and knew that it was me. Somewhere in the past I had emerged, separated from the great flow for a time, and was now rejoining it, merging back into the whole. As I reflected on this later, I thought maybe indeed that is what death will be like.
That experience took place many years ago, but just recently I made the connection with the drone. Reading about East Indian spiritual music, I learned that the drone starting note of a given scale must be present and steady throughout, like a great deep flow of energy, never stopping, always providing an undergirding movement to whatever other notes may be played or sung. Suddenly I realized that what I had "seen" in my meditation was the same kind of thing I hear and feel with the drone. And maybe, if I'm right about thinking of that great energy flow as Divine, then maybe the little tributary moves along with the cosmic flow as an act of praise, making its own little flight of tones and notes and rhythms, all accenting and honoring the greatness of its Source and, thereby, reverencing itself.
That comes as close to an explanation of my drone-love as anything I've encountered. I don't really need to explain it, but one of the tunes this mind of mine plays is "can we figure out something about this?" And, I must confess, the attempt is most enjoyable.
The real substantive gift came with the discovery of a little wooden box about the size of a large book. It's from India, and goes by many names: surpeti, swar pethi, sur peti, or most commonly, shruti box. It's like a mini-harmonium with the same depth of sound, but very portable and far less expensive. Like the harmonium, it's a free-reed instrument played with its own internal bellows. But instead of a keyboard, it simply has a few holes you can open and close to create the drone sound. It's perfect.
During my first lymphoma treatment, a lifelong prayer was answered: to directly experience the presence of God without mediation. This time around, a lifelong search has been satisfied: to find the perfect drone. Now I find moments where I can be alone or with a group who will chant with me, and I pump those bellows and sing the names of God or the closing mantra from the Heart Sutra or a line from a Psalm, or something that just comes. And it nourishes my soul so deeply that I feel I could live on nothing but the chanting and it would be more delicious, more fulfilling than the best food or the cleanest air.
There is no real conclusion to this account of my experience. Maybe it reveals something about thanksgiving and praise, or living and dying, but mainly it's just something I wanted to share.
Flirting with Leadership
by Carole Crumley
We were 25 women standing in a large circle, arms outstretched, only touching one another by our fingertips. In the center of the circle stood Flirt, a 1200 pound horse. It was our job to keep Flirt inside the circle. It was Flirt's job to get out.
Guess who won.
Flirt gave one little flick of her eye, glanced around the circle and simply walked out underneath one pair of outstretched arms.
This was part of an exercise that uses horses to give feedback on leadership qualities. The setting was a large exercise barn at a horse farm in the Pennsylvania countryside. The horses were teaching us which behaviors encouraged their trust and what led them to bolt and run, which actions engendered confidence and what confused them. In other words, how to lead.
Horses are the perfect animal for this kind of experiment. Since they are herd animals, they will follow a leader. They also express their feelings directly, giving immediate feedback through their actions. They run when threatened. They go their own way if a direction is not clear. They can kick, bite or shove if one hasn't established a trusting relationship with them. They are big, powerful, beautiful and sometimes scary in their unpredictability.
We tried again. We were still in a circle, only touching by fingertips, but this time we strategized that if Flirt moved towards any one of us, those on either side would lean closer. We imagined we could close any gap quickly enough to keep Flirt in.
Wrong.
Flirt was out of there even more quickly than before.
We regrouped. What had just happened? Why did Flirt choose a particular point in our circle to make her escape and not some other place? We learned that horses are exquisitely attuned to the dynamics of a group and the emotions of individuals. They easily recognize messages of doubt and unease. How had we been appearing to Flirt and to one another? Anxious or centered? Threatening or reassuring? Focused or unfocused? After considering these questions, we decided on yet another approach.
Once more Flirt came back into the center of the circle. This time we each concentrated on staying grounded, breathing deeply, being clear about our intent, non-anxious, soft-eyed. Our arms were still outstretched, fingertips still touching, and.... Flirt didn't move. We looked around, secretly not trusting, waiting for her to bolt.
No movement.
We waited some more.
No movement.
We slowly lowered our arms.
Still no movement.
We stood there, with wide open gaps between each of us, and still no movement. Flirt was as steady and immov-able as a candle in the center of one of our prayer groups.
Eventually we realized that we could have stood just like that from the very beginning, relaxed, open, no outstretched arms, no touching of fingertips, no strategy, no anxiety. Just grounded, centered, present, soft-eyed and Flirt would have stayed inside our circle forever. As long as we were communicating that all was well, that there was no threat, no need to go somewhere else, Flirt was content. Evidently horses also recognize messages of peace and well-being.
Now, months later, there seem to be endless occasions to remember Flirt. When confronted with situations where there is hurt or anger, when fear, disappointment or anxiety fill the circle of life, there is an invitation to gaze softly at the situation and to remember that, in God, all is well and all shall be well. Having others in the circle, a spiritual director or other soul friends, who share a similar prayerful intent helps. Together we can remind one another of God's faithfulness, collectively soften our gaze and turn to the larger Love that animates all of living.
When I am offering leadership and tempted to try to figure things out or make things happen, then just relaxing my stance can open my awareness in a new way. Being centered can shift my attention from my own agenda and willful striving to a prayer of surrender and a willingness for God to lead.
It is this kind of surrender that the 13th century mystical poet Rumi said gives grace a chance to "gather us up" and gives "miraculous beings" an opportunity to come "running to help." It is also this total surrender to the beauty of God's leadership, Rumi, says, that guides us towards becoming "a mighty compassion." ("A Zero Circle" translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks)
I yearn for that kind of compassionate leadership in the world and pray for its realization in my life. Then perhaps one day all humanity, along with Flirt and all creation, can stand together in a circle of friendship, at peace and unafraid.
We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners
by Tilden Edwards
We have not come to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,
But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, joy, and Light! *
I think Jesus would love these luminous heart-flashes of Daniel Ladinsky inspired by the 14th century Sufi mystic Hafiz. They connect with another of his poems:
Why just show you God's menu?
Hell, we are all starving-Let's Eat! *
Both poems point me to my gnawing, Spirit-drenched desire for a life that more fully embodies the divine attributes of courage, freedom, joy, and light: fruits of divine love.
Jesus, being the graced mystic he was, realized the good news of how intimate God's loving life in us is. He deeply realized the unique image of God in the heart of his being that Genesis declares all of us share. He showed all of those qualities that Hafiz proclaims belong to our true calling. We are invited to their graced possibility in us as we open ourselves to the radiant Love at the heart of reality, and as we are empowered to let go the deceptively securing prisons of our lives that separate us from realizing our true nature in God.
So much could be said about these rich attributes. As the second poem tells us, though, they are not meant just to be talked about. Our relationship to God is lived from the heart and commented upon by the mind. The mind's menu alone can be a helpful map of the heart's territory. But it is no substitute for "eating" the real Presence. The divine invitation is to let our hardened defenses be replaced with a childlike vulnerability so that we may be fed with heavenly food, trusting the goodness of whatever mysterious transformation may come from such a first-hand meal.
From my own experience, I feel that one meal is never enough. Each graced meal, each inspired awareness of God's opening presence, expands my capacity for courage, freedom, joy and light. I am ecstatic in such times, in the sense of transcending my normal fear, habituated responses, and dullness. I find myself more fully available and responsive to what's called for-singing the Spirit's song as it is spun in my heart. But ecstasy by its nature passes, and I return to a smaller self, although one that is haunted by what had been expanded.
This is where I find daily spiritual practice to be vital. My practice is my way of claiming, in an ongoing way, that what I have tasted in a moment's giftedness is more than a mirage, more than an empty passing experience. I am opening myself to the larger transforming Love that I believe has come near to my consciousness with burning power. In so doing, I am opening to my larger Self in God, at the heart of which is that Love. I am not trying to recapture a particular past experience. Rather, I want to be available to the divine Wellspring of that experience in whatever way it is flowing in and around me now, whether in visible ways that move me or in hidden ways that require my simple trust.
My spiritual practice invites the window of my soul to open, letting out the love that is in me to the Love that is beyond me. That is enough. More than that is gift. And yet I know how much I want the gifts that Hafiz identifies to enlarge my heart and allow me to be a more responsive vessel of those qualities in the world I touch. Our world at every level is so profoundly in need of realizing its true nature in God, with all the fruits of this realization for the way we live together as an inclusive family.
As I write this, near national election time in America, I'm particularly aware of the manipulative political and religious forces that cater to the shadow side of our cultural values and fears. These forces finally do not trust the closeness and largeness of divine Love and our calling to let go whatever there is in and among us that does not give itself to the creative way of that Love. The sterile fruits of these narrow forces will not grow the shalom they promise. The god of these forces is too small, too tribal, too limited by the projections into it of our fear, willfulness and delusion.
This country and the world desperately need more religious and political leaders who are true seekers of the ways Spirit can continually expand their horizons and open the doors to shalom, and who are willing to walk through those doors, regardless of the price. Such leadership is needed in every sphere of human living, including the ones in which you and I live every day. Let's pray that each of us will be such a leader in the ways we are called, and that we will recognize the other leaders we need to support for the world's well-being. And let's pray that all of us will be helped in such leadership by frequent empowerment of our divine courage, freedom, joy and light.
* Both poems are from Daniel Ladinsky, trans. The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master. Penguin/Arcana, 1999.
The Stuff of Miracles
by Martha Campbell
In July of this year, I became part of the full-time staff at Shalem. As Director of the Spiritual Guidance Program and senior staff member, I have been invited to participate in the leadership of this Institute during this transitional time in Shalem's history. When I hear Shalem's story, I feel a deep resonance. It is full of miracles, events that only God could have pulled off given the circumstances.
It is an awesome joy for me to be a part of Shalem, and it is also a miracle. While deep listening and bold risk-taking have seemed to be God's invitation to me personally throughout my life, I have never found this easy. In fact, I have found it impossible. Nevertheless I have come to learn that impossibility is not a deterrent for God. The God of my life is both life-giving and persistently challenging to a personal autonomy that is rooted in carefulness and fear.
When I first heard of Shalem, I was a Carmelite contemplative nun seeking to more fully respond to what seemed to be a call to spiritual direction ministry. The Spiritual Guidance Program's emphasis on spiritual deepening really spoke to me. I applied, only to learn that while I was accepted and with others awarded a half tuition scholarship, I would need to withdraw my application in keeping with my community's discernment not to expend money on this project. I was disappointed, but no big deal. It wasn't meant to be. I withdrew my application stating my reasons.
Several months passed, and I received a letter explaining that an anonymous donor had given monies to match a half tuition scholarship for someone who would be unable to attend the Spiritual Guidance Program for lack of funds. I was invited to apply for this matching scholarship, and I received it. A miracle! Later, I found out that this was the first and only time that a donation of this kind had been made to Shalem. A bigger miracle!
My first residency in the Spiritual Guidance Program was transformative. My experience of spiritual community in an ecumenical setting with participants intent on God was profoundly life-giving. I came away with an experience and with insights that played deeply into the discernment of God's next movement in my life. By my second residency, I had been living apart from my Carmelite community for almost a year, and I was discerning where God was leading me.
Confused, afraid, lost and feeling quite alone, I gathered friends to help me pray and discern my next step. What came in this gathering were words of encouragement, "Trust God," and a message of challenge, "Listen to your deepest desire and follow it."
This process of deep listening led to bold risk-taking. With little money, no savings, a seriously impaired van that had been given to me and the promise of a part-time ministry at Bon Secours Spiritual Center, I crossed the Appalachian Mountains in my trek from Indiana to Maryland. I recall my auto mechanic who, when he heard my plans, encouraged me to get a cell phone! Considering his advice, I discerned that I couldn't afford this seeming luxury. "Trust God," a major message of my Shalem experience and the message of my discernment circle took on new and concrete meaning.
I made it across the mountains. A miracle! In several months my ministry at Bon Secours became full-time . A miracle! Trusting God became more deeply my way of life. Having completed the Spiritual Guidance Program in the Fall of 2001, I was invited to become associate staff for this program. Not only was this an invitation to share what I had been given, but the stipend was just enough to help pay for my living expenses. Another miracle!
My 40-year experience as a religious community member had been so rich in so many ways and now God was doing something new. One of the powerful ways in which God broke into my life was through Shalem. As a religious woman, I had received grounding in both the Ignatian and the Carmelite spiritual traditions. Now, God saw fit to begin to build something different on this foundation. I have come to see that my education as an elementary teacher, my masters degree from an ecumenically oriented religious studies program, my doctorate in clinical psychology are simply the means by which God was preparing me to let all of this go and to find my deepest security in God. This letting go-a miracle!
I sometimes wonder how God has put all these pieces of my life together so creatively. But then I realize that this is the wrong tack. If I understood, then I would be in control, unseating the God who challenges me to trust. I am learning to listen deeply and to act boldly in partner-ship with God. Shalem and I are a miraculous and challenging fit!
In July 2004, Martha joined Shalem's office staff as director of the Spiritual Guidance Program.