I cannot believe it has been 18 days since my last freewrite. My writing side comes out more in a balanced life. I haven't necessarily been totally out of wack and unbalanced, but I have not been manifesting my more creative side lately. In this stream of consciousness kind of writing (see HERE for a definition of a freewrite) I realize how "grounded" writing the Bible Book Club from 2008-2013 kept me! I wrote EVERY DAY. Sometimes those posts would take 2-3 hours to write, but I loved it! Although it did make me unbalanced in my body as I sat WAY more than your average bear. So I don't write as much now because I am intentional about bodywork by teaching my Pilates class for four hours every week. I loved those times, and I still have all those pages of writing (3000+ in MS Word).
Today, I loved the application in the Lent Retreat on Pray as You Go:
The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday can feel like empty space, but it is precisely in this empty space that the miracle of transformation happens and new energy is released, like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Try bringing any places of emptiness in your own life consciously into the light of the Holy Spirit. These places are your Holy Saturdays where transformation begins.
Make a note in your journal of any moments this week when you have glimpsed the power of resurrection. As you look into the mirror of prayer, try expressing what you see, either in words or pictures. Notice especially anything that takes you by surprise or overturns your expectations.
This week we might ask for the grace to see our circumstances through the eyes of love, to recognize the light of resurrection already dawning in our lives and our world, and to have the courage to cross the other side of the boat and be open to God's surprised where we least expect them.
I loved this devotional written by Margaret Silf, and I hope to add it to my manual through the Spiritual Exercises. I have her book Inner Compass, and it is on my "to read" list.
Speaking of "to read" lists. I am finishing up the last book for the Book Babes. It took me a long time to get into, but I have liked it in the long run as it is through the eyes of a clinical psychologist, and I find many parallels to my own practice of spiritual direction. I realize that spiritual direction is NOT therapy, but they do overlap in terms of listening and reflecting, etc. So, it has been insightful for me in many ways. I am on the last 55 pages. I am not sure I will continue with the Babes. It is a tremendous outlay of time to read 10 books every year. I gave myself the freedom not to read three of them because they held no interest for me when they were selected, and I just do not have the time to read books I know will not be interesting to me. I did give one of them that I thought I would not like, and I did not. So I am going with my first gut instinct. All that to say is that most of the ones I read were not ones that inspired anything in my life. I want books that inspire me toward growth rather than just feed me with more information. So, I am considering being even more ruthless in which ones I will read next year. I am glad I have cleared my plate of this list so I can read books like Silf's. Formation books are more of what I crave. I also crave classics because they feed my formation.
Today is:
6:30 Morning Watch with OMS
7-8 24-7 Prayer
9-10 Directee
10-2 Work on my Spiritual Formation Timeline for Imago Christi Discovery
2-4 Pilates I and II teaching
4:30-5:30 Directee
The timer has gone off. TTFN.
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