What Is Your Practice? Lifelong Growth in the Spirit - Liz Forney and Norvene Vest

CHAP 1 – THE PRACTICE OF LIFELONG GROWTH IN THE SPIRIT 

• “We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. Yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability – and it may take a very long time. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”  -Teilhard de Chardin 
• “Encountering the Mystery” 
• Story between missionary and a king: Like a sparrow flying through a banquet hall, in through one door and out through another, humans appear on earth for a little while, but we know nothing of what wen before this life, nor what follows. Therefore if this new teaching can reveal any more certain knowledge, it seems only right that we should follow it. 
• We are creatures bound by birth and death: conscious about something outside, but uncertain about its nature 

• Evelyn Underhill: there is a deep instinct of human mind that there is unity, and orderly plan in the universe, and underlying vitality, and eternal becoming; intense aliveness 
• a.k.a. spiritual formation = unity with underlying vitality = unexplainable to the inexperienced = must surrender oneself to wonder 
• For many, attending church is for establishing social acceptance; but it seldom touches the deep aliveness 
• Any lifelong relationship requires attention, nurture, and mutual love 
• That I am a “work in progress” at any moment – never complete 

• Practice bridge “ought” and “is”; “I should” and “I am” 
• “Yoga” = yoke = discipline whose goal is union with the Holy 
• “Relationship with Mystery”  
• Jesus called it “Abba, father” and invited everyone to “come and see” 
• Jesus announced “the Kingdom of God is at hand” - it is not fully present as yet, but it is available 

• “realm” = “basileia” (Greek term) = commonweal = kingdom = inclusive community of relationship 
• Jesus calls for “repentance” - change of direction; turning around 
• Desire to make a commitment to a different kind of life 
• Not like the usual Christmas resolution that lasts a month, but a lifelong task 
• “Practicing Relationship with Mystery” 

• Spiritual formation is like a seed unfolding 

• The seed itself = unique potential = God created and he said “it is good” 
• The seed grows better if tended; help outside ourselves + our willingness and eagerness to be 
• Formation is the interaction between potential (God) and nurturance (us); we must seek good soil, water, sun, fertilizer as necessary 

• Through worship and study, we learn about taking on the mind of Christ and becoming the body of Christ 

• Practices build habits and enlarge our hearts, strengthen our awareness, and bring us subtle ever-present depth of joy 
• Key 

• Conviction in God’s spirit engaging fully and abundantly 
• Willingness to undertake a guided discipline  
• Affirmation that we are formidable 

• Knowing, loving, and being strengthened by Christ 

• Self-love = taking seriously the potential God places in us to become who we truly are 

• Unique and original 
• Quality of personal wholeness inside 
• To love ourselves is to give ourselves permission to live in this state of abundant, full wholeness v. as opposed to self-doubt and hate 

• Indeed, one of the most difficult practices of spiritual life 
• Peace, serenity, and passion 

• “Potential impediments”  

• From a spirituality of dwelling (centered in a stable and sacred place) to a spirituality of seeking (where one must constantly renegotiate the meaning of transient glimpses of the sacred) 
• Faith is no longer something that people inherit, but seek and find 

• Due to change in how the world is constantly moving and expanding – emphasis on consumption and entertainment 
• Future – U.S> is moving to an era of ‘thin consensus’ in which relatively few values are held in common 
• Dwelling is rigid / seeking is focused on individual gratification 

• We can learn from Jesus 

• Dwelling: he set aside time and space to meditate, pray, and worship 

• Seeking: he moved around as a missionary 
• Jesus was devoted to deepening his relationship with Abba 

• Paschal = “God-shaped vacuum” within human – part of our essence is incomplete unless in relationship with the Divine  
• God does not wait until the longing soul has said all its say, but breaks in upon the middle of its prayer, runs to meet it in all haste, and restores the weary soul, slakes it thirst, feeds it hunger, and gives it new life in a wonderful way. 
• Movement from “head knowledge” to “heart knowledge” 

• Irony – humans both desire and resist God in our lives for fear that we will lose our independence 

CHAP 2 – GRATITUDE, ATTENTION, AND AWARENESS: THE PRACTICE OF PRESENCE 

• “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” -Sarah Ban Breathnach 
• “Give thanks to the Lord, his love endures forever” = declaration, command, statement of faith, and a hymn of praise 

• “Give thanks in all things” 
• Disciplined practice of gratitude is most essential, most powerful, and most life giving 
• It takes practice to see the holy, the beautiful, and the blessed  
• Practice alter our outward vision, and expand our interior landscape with joy, humility, and praise 
• Make a list of ten things that were okay (holy, beautiful, blessed, good) 

• Gratitude brought a measure of healing 
• First encounter made leper clean; second encounter ‘gratitude and praise’ made leper “whole” 
• For a moment, he was aware something “holy” was happening = pause of awareness 
• Move with sense of presence and attention 
• “A Balanced Outlook” 

• Beloved: think about things that are true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, anything worthy of praise 
• Irony, men are drawn toward the darkness 
• “A Matter of Perspective” 
• Tight lens of cynicism, critique, and scarcity v. spacious window of abundance and appreciation 
• Gift = we get to choose how we want to view and experience this journey 

• Our lives unfold with narratives we tell ourselves 

• “look at these abundance of goodies” v. “are you kidding? This will all be gone in minutes” 

• Spiritual muscles of appreciation 
• Cultivate interior awareness 
• Loosen the poisonous grip of the illusions of scarcity 

• Posture of simple presence = cultivation of the ability to simply be with person or in a situation as it presents itself 

• Resist judgment and evaluation 
• Deepen the connection with Holy and expand our awareness of the unity and fullness  
• Free from tangles of attachment, evaluation, and unnecessary striving 

• Direct attention to Holy One who has seen us through the day and through the night 

• Mindfulness and inter-connectedness of all things 
• “Detractors to Gratitude”: Comparison and expectations 

• Poison of comparison 

• Social media = publishing the grandness of their own lives 

• Rocks of expectations and entitlement 

• For my pleasure 
• Sometimes, we need an experience of loss or dislocation to open us to gratitude 
• We release and surrender and allow God to fill us anew 
• It is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast 
• Simple and profound realization that we didn’t create this world and beauty 

• “Gratitude and Inner Stillness” 
• Within each of us, there is a pool of holiness, silence, stillness, wisdom, and grace 
• We find we have an anchor, a home, an inner sacred space  
• Ringing of bell is our anchor – if it becomes too faint, we got to row back home 
• First – notice your breathing 

• Sacred gaze – lose yourself into a greater whole – cosmos – looking up at the sky / staring into flame 
• Relaxation, relationship 

• From “I need, I ask, I want” to “I trust, I believe” 

• A sacrifice of time and attention 
• God longs for us to “be still and know” that I am God – the goodness, the provision, and the very presence of God 

CHAP 3 – SACRED NARRATIVE: THE PRACTICE OF STORYTELLING 

• Rabbi 1: Prayer; Rabbi 2: the Place; Rabbi 3: “I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was sufficient. God made people because God loves stories. -Elie Wiesel, “The Gates of the Forest” 
• “The Miracle of the Stories” 
•  People are bound by stories; deal with mystery and making sense of mystery 

•  Story often is used not for ‘truth’ but for ‘meaning’  
•  Emily Dickinson insist we tell stories ‘slant’ - glimpse 
•  The sacred reveals itself at a slant 
• Bible intends to be a love story between God and his bride, Israel 
• Episcopal Education for Ministry (same with all movie plots) 

• Creation: Beginning 
• Sin: Trouble 
• Judgment: Consequences 
• Redemption: Ultimate unfolding of unexpected new possibility 

• [I was employed at a bureaucracy, which was increasingly restless and uncomfortable] 

• We are the stories that God tells; this pattern is common to all life experience 
•  “Tradition” (perennial strategy); stories lose resilience when people are no longer actively interacting, engaging and relating (relevance) 
• Now, stories are more multiplotted, multivocal, and multimedia 
• Closed v. open stories (continuous tension between what is and what might be) 

• Evoke pity and fear; flourish in ambiguity 

• Endeavor to use our minds, hearts, intuition, devotion (well-rounded) 
• The word of God is not interpreted – it interprets  

• It involves vulnerability and a willingness to be changed by what we read  

• “Sacred Reading” 
• “lectio divina” or “reading divinely” 

• Today, much of reading is information-based; dating and comparative 
• v. The word is believed to open an actual encounter with the Holy 
• Sacred reading is an art: attitude of digging v. dwelling 

• Literal/historical 
• Allegorical sense 

• Moral or behavioral 
• Anagogical or mystical  

• Such practice gives us openness to find deep and direct meanings  
• “Stories of our lives” 
• Is our life stories fragmented? No, we have a sacred story 

• Settle into silence and reflect 
• “Reflection on life” 
• Reflection is spiritually complementary to events 
• Experiences and occurrences happen – difficult to be wholly aware 
• It is important both to increase our awareness and attention in the actual moment and to reflect and attend to them later 

• “lectio on life” - in reflection we become more deeply aware of the presence of the sacred within life experience 
• Process of reflection is cumulative as the effects usually come in periodic increments, which in time are profoundly transforming 
• Minor engagements: pleasant or unpleasant salesperson, drive, helping a stranger, talking to a friend, news, task, etc 
• Sacred story is any story that reveals the reality of God 
• Crisis brings the power to choose 

CHAP 4 – TIME AND MONEY: THE PRACTICE OF TRUSTING GOD’S SUFFICIENCY 

• Be no more than God hath made thee. Give over thine own willing, running desiring. Sink down to the seed which God sows in thy heart, and let it grow. It will lead to inheritance of life, which is God’s portion. -Isaac Pennington 
• “Abundance” 
• In Genesis, God creates all things from ‘formless void’ 

• But Genesis teaches us that even though we have everything in the world, we still want more; we still want to be like God; we reach for the tree 
• “Time” 
• Clocks broke the sacred steady flow into pieces that we could now pretend to possess, barter, and fret over 
• ‘your time has run out’ 
• ‘karoshi’ = death from overwork  

• Psalm 90:12 “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a wise heart” 
• Inviting God to direct and gently fill our days is a way forward into gracious balance 
• “Keeping Sabbath – redeeming time” 
• Honoring God by ceasing work and giving full attention  
• God tells us we will forget our names, where we are from, to whom we belong if we don’t keep sabbath to remember, rest, and give thanks 

• Our most limited and valuable commodity is our attention *** 
• We are drowning in distraction 
• Our preoccupations leave us fragmented, distracted, and exhausted 
• Sabbath is the way to wholeness, clarity to focus, and life-giving rest 

• Ceasing 

• Resting 
• Embracing 
• Feasting 

• Our self-worth shouldn’t be measured through our work and achievements 
• Enact deep trust that God takes care of what we need 

• Practice claiming goodness of creation and deepen our sense of presence of God 
• Trust that God knows what we need, and God has our best interest at heart 
• Luxurious restorative experience 
• There is no place where God is not present: refugee camps, brothels, battlefields, depths of addiction, God’s love is available and sufficient 
• “A Portion and a Pause for God” 

• Set and observed times for prayers and scripture reading 
• Intention is to allow God to enter our consciousness and to be reminded of the holiness 
• “God is the giver of all” 
• “Mine” to “His” 
• “I am just a caretaker. I didn’t grow this. God did and by God’s grace, I get to enjoy it and take care of it for a while.” 

• All things given is meant for the building up of community and the breaking down of the barriers of poverty and need 
• The understanding of restoration and reconciliation  
• Invitation to profound obedience and restoration of right relationship 
• Posture of simplicity and renunciation are doorways to the profound freedom of the spiritual life 
• How much is enough? 

• Deuteronomy: the giving of an offering is a powerful act of trust; unclenching of the grasping hand that so often clings to things that only seem life giving but in fact are entrapments; we are restating a profound trust in God’s provision for us and opening a door into a holy contentment 
• Iona Community – Scottish Island – 1938 by George MacCleod 

CHAP 5 – PRAYING: THE PRACTICE OF COMPANIONSHIP WITH GOD 

• “How I longed to do whatever it was she did there.” 

• “Companionship with Mystery” 
• Personal and communal – prayer brings growing awareness of the pervasive presence of the Holy in every place and time 
• Job 12 – in God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being 

• The world is God’s  
• I am God’s 

• God is not confined by time and space; yet human intuition is that God is present in time and space 
• “otherness”  
• How do humans find companionship with something always Other? 
• Intelligence of “moving center” and “emotional center” 
• The heart is our antenna given to us to orient us toward the divine radiance and to synchronize our being with its more subtle movements 

• You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you 
• "Beginning to pray” 

• “Help me” is the most common prayer 
• “hear me” is next 
• “thank you” 

• There is no formula for prayer – mutual trust 
• God wants to help – like when kid calls for parents 
• “The Rich Resources of Christian tradition” 
• ‘kataphatic’ look for God in time, images, experiences 
• Spiritual test of a person – fruit of the spirit 

• “Discursive prayer” 

• Thanksgiving 
• Intercession 

• Universal church 
• Nation and those in authority 

• Welfare of the world 
• Concerns of the local community 
• Those who suffer, those in trouble, and those who care for them 
• Those who are departed 

• Confession 

• Petition 
• Adoration 

• Successful outwardly, restless inwardly 
• In prayer we progress 

• Loving ourselves  

• Loving God for our own sake 
• Loving God for God’s sake 
• Loving ourselves for God’s sake, being transfused into will of God 

• Traditions  

• Prayer without ceasing 

• Walking meditation 
• Praying at hours 
• Praying with nature 
• Meditation/contemplation 

• The gift of hope 

• Today's world is full of problems 
• Technological advances bring both good and bad – intended and unintended consequences 
• Hope for things unseen and unimagined 

CHAP 6 – IMAGINATION, ART, AND PLAY: THE PRACTICE OF POSSIBILITY 

• “An ethical imagination: to ensure it liberates, animates, and enlarges our response to the other. Imagination needs to be able to laugh with the other as well as to suffer.” -Richard Kearney 
• “What if” 

• Wonderful doorway into the realm of the Holy 

• Lifelong sense of God’s abiding presence through the realm of imagination and the expansion of the sense of wonder 
• Particular pathway to the interior life 

• Jean Paul Sartre: imagination is ‘to think of what is not’; consider possibilities that we have not yet seen 
• God desires our transformation and freedom from these burdens, lovingly asks us to be allowed to enter into the deepest parts of our hearts and minds to accomplish that healing 
• Use the gifts of prayer and meditation to bring ourselves in touch with God who is the creative loving center of all reality 
• Most of us dwell in a culture of disbelief 
• We need the ability to see beyond the realm of the eyes 

• Hebrews 11:1 
• Interior holy nudge urges on 
• Soul whisper 
• Allow yourself to be drawn in closer and cross the threshold between physical and spiritual 
• But beware: is it toward God or away from God 

• 1 John 4:1 – test the spirits 

• Interior Castle: secret place, radiant sanctuary 

• Realm of the holy with vivid imagination 
• Engages sense of wonder 
• Challenges described as vipers, lizards, lions 

• Lap of the beloved who waits for us in the innermost chamber of our hearts 

• Christ was the suffering servant and triumphant lion present with me to offer wisdom and guidance usually through well timed and holy questions 
• As we surrender, God offers a replacement far superior to that which I had been clinging 
• You cannot quench the fire that God place in you 
• Ignatius of Loyola: Society of Jesus or the Jesuit order 

• Practice of prayer, imagination, and journaling 
• Seeking to make invisible visible 
• find new vocabulary to articulate a holy mystery 

• Tension between our desire to connect with God and resistances we have against such desire 
• Tension between self-control (will) and the deepening of spiritual life which is ultimately a relinquishment or self-losing experience 

• Left side of the brain interprets temporal relations, linear time, analytical, logical, and sequential thinking, speech, and math 
• Right side guides our synthesis of information, creative process, depth perception, dreams, meditation, art, and innovation 
• As such, we must bring our whole-selves to God 
• John 5: Jesus asks man by the pool ‘do you want to be made well?’ - man makes numerous excuses about his situation 

• What would it cost us to be well 

• What excuses do we have 
• Jesus says: take up the mat and walk 
• Jesus says that to us 

• Playful art-making and imagining is essential 
• Desire to serve may exhaust without joy; there must be a balance with play or even love becomes drudgery 

• Eccl 3:1-8 – there is a time for everything 

• We must remember the Sabbath 
• Rest and play are essential 

• Play create occasion for learning new ways of thinking and being in community 
• “recreation” - flow of positive experiences, anticipation, surprise, pleasure, understanding, strength, and poise 

• Play offers the opportunity to experience and survive loss and failure 

• There is always another game, another day, until we retire (die) 

• The very act of playing is an exercise in resilience 
• Play is essential for all ages 

CHAP 7 – VIRTURE: THE PRACTICE OF INTEGRITY 

• Introspection  

• narrow and somewhat cannibalistic 
• consumed in own substance within a repetitive cycle of experience 
• it increases one’s misery 

• Self-observation 

• It is watered by ancient teachings 
• Practice improvement 

• Virtue: a quality of wholeness 

• Firm self-esteem and willing self-surrender  

• Human response to the Divine 
• Virtue is both acquired and infused 

• Integrity: purity of heart 

• Opposite of being constantly pulled in many directions; efficiency and economy 
• Meaning and purpose 

• Then, virtue refers to a person’s character to act according to integrity 
• Humans have existing inner habits: blind obedience to authority and sense that their activity or work is more important than meaning and purpose 
• CS Lewis: in each choice and action, we either move toward God or away from God 

• So no moment is too small for practice; everything matters 

• Fundamental way to acquisition of virtue is through our thoughts 

• Jesus: thoughts have destructive power  

• Augustine of Hippo on sin 

• Basic impulse 
• Giving shelter to the thought – rather than letting the thought pass, we imagine how it might be – imagine “what if” away from God 
• Intention and taking pleasure and action 

• Thoughts are spiritual 

• We cannot be ignorant to what we think 
• Psychologically, repression eventually lead to harmful outburst 
• We need reformation of the undesirable thoughts 
• The work is not to eliminate personal will, but to retain it into the paths of love 

• Logosmoi = thoughts 
• Evagrius Pontus + John Cassian 
• Thomas Aquinas 
• Distorted love 

• Excessive lose (misuse of human power to desire) 

• Food, sex, greed 
• Begins from the thought, ‘what I have is insufficient’ 

• Defective love (misuse of human power to will) 

• Anger, dejection, sloth 
• Failure of will to seek God’s will 

• Powerful emotion can blind us; lose perspective, and cease to be able to see others’ points of view 
• Place of isolation 
• Dejection is expressed in random sadness, melancholy as a steady state, impatience, cynicism, and despair, hopelessness 

• Perverted love (misuse of human power of the intellect) 

• Vainglory, pride 

• Taking credit for good things: in reality, the glory is God’s 
• Pride is the problem of self-righteous; thoughts of exaggerated self-importance 

• Represent flaw in human capacity to do good 
• Jesus refused to accept victimization expressed in the power of resurrection  
• Remedies: vigilance, reconciliation, solitude, and recollection 

CHAP 8 – SOCIAL JUSTICE: THE PRACTICE OF SERVICE 

• Change the world; make it a little simpler to feed, clothe, and shelter the people; fighting for better conditions; crying out unceasingly for human rights; the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world; there is nothing we can do but love; God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend. -Dorothy Day 
• Drawing closer to God; God becoming a reality and a tangible presense; source of the Great Love 
• A holy curiosity 

• God remains holy mystery but Jesus revealed nature of God 

• God desires well-being of His creation 

• Exodus reveals the radical act of rescue and provision for the Israelites – cornerstone of identity of God’s people 

• “I did this for you. Now, you do this for them” 

• One way we draw closer to God is by serving others working for justice, peace, and reconciliation 

• Deut. 10:17-20 

• If God is partial, God is partial to the widows, orphans, homeless, weak 
• God calls us to imitate active care and provision for the fragile around us 

• Psalm 68 

• Father of orphans and protector of widows 

• Gives home to the homeless 
• Leads prisoners to prosperity 

• Grounded in gratitude 
• Micah 6 – How do we repay God? To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly 
• Encountering the suffering of others is difficult and painful 

• It is easier to sing songs, write prayers and testimonies than to rescue the orphans and the widows 

• ‘active personal caring’ 

• Isaiah 1 - ‘God have had enough burnt offerings; go rescue others’ 
• Helping others is not easy or comfortable, but it is holy 

• An astonishing sense of unity and compassion 

• No more previous construct of ‘us and them’ 
• A pervading sense of worship 

• “come and see” 
• Luke 4:18 
• Matthew 5: Jesus preaches re compassion to all who are suffering 

• Retaliation and violence are no more 
• The challenge in following Jesus is in wrestling with our self-image 
• Internal conflict, self-preservation; we resist unity and holy encounter because we know it means loss and change in the way we understand our own selves and our place in the world 
• We constantly draw near and run away from God 
• Luke 10 - “go and do likewise” 

• Jesus challenges us and Jesus expands our understanding 
• Matthew 25 - “lease of these” - we practice love for Christ when we practice caring for the lease of these 
• Charity is a gift from our abundance by which we see and respond to the needs of others 
• Justice?  

• Different types of Justice 

• Willingness to see the need that surrounds us on a daily basis 

• Choosing to be willing to be broken open in compassion is the beginning of holy transformation 
• Choosing to be willing to see the world in the eyes of God’s love 

• Do not succumb to despair 

• The swamp of sorrow and futility expand when we lose sight of God 

• Stephen Ministries - “We care, God cures” 
• “internal posture of mutuality” 
• We must urgently resist the unintentional use of the poor as objects to create a sense of accomplishment or personal righteousness 

• We must not assume that we know the needs of others 
• “When helping hurts” - the goal is not to make poor into middle class Americans. The goal is to restore people to a full expression of humanness, to being what God created us all to be, people who glorify God by living in right relationship with God, with self, with others, and with the rest of creation. 

• Matthew 13 – God is the one who will take care of the results in the end 
• Mother Terea - “love them anyway. Do good anyway. Succeed anyway. Be honest and transparent anyway. Build anyway. Help them anyway. Give the world your best anyway.”    

CHAP 9 – UNCERTAINTY AND CHANGE: THE PRACTICE OF RESILIENCE 

• From Newtonian physics to a ‘quantum world-view. Our task now is to leave those who can surf the seeming chaos to do so without restrictions and with maximum trust.  -Sr. Ishpriya 

• Jesus was fond of unsettling people – Jesus used ‘invasive’ and unconventional words and symbols – how could such be considered symbols of God’s kingdom? 
• Spiritual formation - human nature tends to grow comfortable and static unless unexpected and unsettling things happen occasionally 
• Benedictine spirituality and vows – stability, obedience, and ‘conversatio morum suorum’ (the monastic way of life or daily conversion of the heart) 
• Stability – a commitment to a specific 

• Overall sense of being grounded 

• Fundamental idea of trust in a reliable God 
• “Be what you are: Loved, a channel of light.” 
• Pause to deeply absorb a grace is central to spiritual practice 

• Daily conversion of heart – daily dying to self 

• CS Lewis - “God is the great iconoclast” the great destroyer of images 

• God is lively, not fixed 
• “I believe: help my unbelief” Mark 9 
• Reality of relationship is always dynamic 
• Orientation to disorientation to reorientation – matrix of newness 
• Painful cries can be the stimulus for an expansion of spiritual awareness 

• Practice of resilience – we bend with assaults of life, rather than rigidly hold until they break us 
• Choice to greet someone uncongenial to us with kindness and genuine interest rather than avoidance or anger 
• At the heart of daily conversion is a kind of vulnerability 

• One may respond by defense and challenging the other 
• “I am right” kind of defense 

• “Fifth order of consciousness”  
• Vulnerability is the secret to the practice of resilience 
• Discipline of unknowing what we know 

• John Van Eenwyk – similarities between healthy growth in the soul and the dynamics of chaos theory 
• Spiritual task of resilience – allowing new and more expansive and compassionate forms to emerge 

• Important role of chaos in creating space for needed new possibilities 
• Jesus’ death and resurrection 

EPILOGUE – GOAL OF PRACTICE