Healing Redemptive Love

Healing Redemptive Love

"LOVE REDEEMS. DESPITE all the lovelessness that surrounds us, nothing has been able to block our longing for love, the intensity of our yearning.  The understanding that love redeems appears to be a resilient aspect of the heart's knowledge.  The healing power of redemptive love lures us and calls us toward the possibility of healing.  We cannot for the presence of the heart's knowledge.  Like all great mysteries, we are all mysteriously called to love no matter the conditions of our lives, the degree of our depravity or despair.  The persistence of this call gives us reason to hope.  Without hope, we cannot return to love.  Breaking our sense of isolation and opening up the window of opportunity, hope provides us with a reason to go forward.  It is a practice of positive thinking.  Being positive, living in a permanent state of hopelessness, renews the spirit.  Renewing our faith in love's promise, hope is our covenant."

                                                                      -  ALL ABOUT LOVE
                                                                         BY BELL HOOKS

Personal Reflection/Insight:
   During the week, most especially at those moments when I was not feeling well due to some physical pain, I took time to think back of my past experiences, making a quick survey how complicated and difficult those moments when I was longing and searching for possible breakthrough of hope.  Then love nestled gently like the rains of early spring in my heart's desert place.  Then and there, I was strengthened, renewed and rejuvenated by uncontainable feelings for another human being.  
   Being married and in a committed love relationship now, at times I pause and look at this person whom God has given me to share my life with.  And to be honest, I am still mesmerized my the mystery and beauty of God reflected in her, the kindness of heart, the comely appearance, the gentle voice, the hearty laughter, the healing hands.  Despite the humble situation we are in our place under the sun, we take it moment by moment to continue to share, care and love one another.  love truly makes life exciting and bearable to live, especially when you share it with the one God has chosen for you.
   The healing process and love's redeeming power comes piece by piece in the daily small gestures of thoughtfulness, understanding, concern and hope for the better promise of tomorrow.  Henri Nouwen's image of the wounder healer comes again in a poignant way.  Struck and wounded by love's error searching in the past, now we become angels of hope, friends of peace, healers of love for each other.  At the resurrection, no wonder why Jesus was so spontaneous in showing his wounded hands, feet and heart to his fearful disciples.  He witnessed to them the true courageous, brave and pure power of love.  He still loves each of them and all of us despite the pain and the death He suffered out of love.  In being apostles of love, we can also be resurrected redeemers of a world bereft of love as it is truly is.

Thou Whom we call God

thou whom we call God

   Long has been the time since I spoke with Thee,

Thou whom we call God.  Now I soften the stern

face I carry upon the street as a weapon in the struggle

for existence, and I cast out of myself the evil of the

world, all possession, all malice; and I yield up my soul,

as a flower lifts its petals in the twilight of the morning.

   Unbind me from the things of the earth, and let me

through the world like the still stars of the night.

Come Thou near me, as in olden days when I saw Thee

everywhere, in the woods and the sky, and heard Thy voice

in the silence of the fields.  Take my hand and lead me

as my earthly father when my steps were feeble.

Teach me again to love, and make soft my voice with

gentle words.  As a gardener waters his garden,

refresh Thou my soul with tenderness, and bring peace

within the troubled household of my heart.  Knock at

my door in the lonesome night; and as I have need of Thee,

send me forth to others who sit with drooping faces 

at the table of despair and see Thee not.

   This prayer is born of my need; and if indeed 

men convince that Thou are not, and that these words

are spoken but to die unheard, yet have I been answered,

and shall believe that Thou art - Thou whom we call God!

                     - Taken from The Desiderata of Faith

                        A Collection of Religious Poems

                                 Max Ehrman

Personal Reflection:

   After the famous composition of Max Ehrman, the poem Desiderata this one, thou whom we call God comes along with furious portrayal of a soul in constant need of God, of His guidance and help in the ongoing journey of finding, knowing and loving Him to be his effective instrument to assuage the plight of those, "who sit with drooping faces at the table of despair and see Thee not."  In spiritual life as in making a journey through a strange land, one's soul is longing for a home, a familiar place, a place of peace and security, an environment of love and care.  This very home, this very place is in the heart at prayer with God.  Since time immemorial, God has been the solace of those in despair, the light of those in darkness, the joy of those in sadness and sorrow.  The matrix of today's society is mostly pointed to the outward appearance of things, images and profiles of people, dreams and aspirations of greatness, wealth and knowledge.  The true children of God remain unknown, poor, quiet, ordinary, yet they live lives of humility, greatness, heroism anchored in the very strength and power of the One they call God in the recesses of their hearts.  The challenge of the 21st century men and women is to find this God as the author Max Ehrman found Him in the brightness of the stars at night, in the flower lifting up its petals in the twilight of the morning, etc.  In this true essence of the mingling of poetry and prayer is found the true spirit and art of spiritual quest, asking God, "As a gardener waters his garden, refresh Thou my soul with tenderness, and bring peace within the troubled household of my heart."

Prayer in Spiritual Direction - A Spiritual Teaching given to the participants of the Summer School for Spiritual Direction at the Pecos Benedictine Monastery, Pecos, New Mexico, USA June 2007 in my stint as Director of the School

Introduction:

"I lift up my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth...the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." (Psalm 121:1,8)

   Prayer is the beginning, the home and end of Spiritual Direction.  When I do Spiritual Direction to someone, I always start with a simple and sincere prayer invoking the help and guidance of God.  Then, during the course of the Spiritual Direction, I maintain a prayerful listening of my mind and heart to what my directee is sharing.  At the end of a Spiritual Direction session, I always ask my directee to say a closing prayer out of his or her creative expression.  In between, the Spiritual Direction session, in my own personal personal prayer, I think and pray about the person of my directee.  I thought of what transpired during the session.  What were the highlights of it and possible strategies and direction needed to be done.

1.  One of the best qualities of a good Spiritual Director is that he/she is a person deeply rooted in prayer as part of the daily discipline.  In my own personal practice of prayer, I spend one hour of Zen meditat6ion each day, another hour of Lectio Divina and another hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  Spiritual Direction  is a holy conversation seeking the will of God for the life of the directee.  A lot of inner listening is involved.  I can only be a good Spiritual Director if I am living a life of prayer.  In the movie, "Dancing with the wolves", there is a part which depicts the image of the Spiritual Director as interpreter of the language between God and the directee, when Stands with Fist bridged the gap between the Indian Chief and the American soldier.  In Spiritual Direction, how can I best interpret the language of the heart between the directee and God, if my personal life is not steeped in prayer?

2.  The Art of Prayer in the Art of Spiritual Direction

According to C.S. Lewis, "The greatest of all arts is the direction of souls."  The soul of each person is a great treasure to uncover like a pearl deeply imbedded in the oriental waters of Sulu.  The beauty of Spiritual Direction is in the adventure of a lifetime of leading forth a soul to the light of a new day, according to the design for living God has intended or planned.  If Prayer is an art of listening for example, Spiritual Direction is also an art of listening.  In Prayer, one listens to God.  In Spiritual Direction, one listens to the directee, and in the process of listening, one tries to discern the stirrings of God's Spirit, will and purpose being revealed in the story being told by the directee.  Prayer is the subtle art of being still and quiet, so is Spiritual Direction.  In an atmosphere of silence, the Spiritual Director creates the hospitality of the heart of God in the room - welcoming the directee with all love, acceptance, understanding, comfort and friendship.  Prayer is the holy corner of "Divine Milieu" to paraphrase Teilhard di Chardin, S.J. where the divine light revolves.  Spiritual Direction is also a space of light where every darkness, shadow, doubt, fear anxiety in the deepest nook and corner of the heart of the directee is despelled in the regular face to face meeting of searching and fearless inquiry into making the unknown known, of letting the truth come alive, of letting God be God.

3.  Praying for the directee outside of Spiritual Direction

In my experience and practice as a Spiritual Director, I bring to my own personal prayer, every soul that God brought into my life to direct.  In my prayer time, I try to recall the session I have with my directee.  I asked the Holy Spirit to enlighten my mind what to say next time I meet the person.  I try to put myself in every person of the directee before God, begging for some guidance and comfort in the humble atttitude that what my directee  is carrying right now I also carry as a burden in my heart, mind and soul.  This is what I call compassionate Spiritual Direction in the context of prayer, my own prayer time as a Spiritual Director.  The grandeur and beauty of Spiritual Direction is that I journey with the soul spiritually even at a distance and the time and space spent outside of a Spiritual Direction session is as much as important as the session spent together.

4.  Growth in Prayer Life as a goal in Spiritual Direction

Another experience I have as a Spiritual Director is to see to it that my directee develops a disciplined lifestyle of prayer.  One of the questions I usually ask in Spiritual Direction is - How is your life of prayer?  Here, I conceive prayer as an intimacy with God whom we know loves us, to allude to what St. Teresa of Avila said about prayer.  One of the common issues brought about in Spiritual Direction is dryness in prayer.  As a Spiritual Director I have to give reminder that this dryness in prayer is normal in such stage of life.  At times, the directee cannot even able to pray due to some experience of grief or loss.  As a Spiritual Director I have to be ready to teach a simple one liner prayer like, "Lord, I surrender", "Thy will, not mine be done!"  In some cases a directee maybe be angry with God and blames God for a painful experience in life.  Here, as a Spiritual Director I will gently encourage my directee to even express this feeling of anger in talking with God, to simply be honest before God and say and angry prayerful expression like, "Why me Lord?" or "Lord, I'm mad at you!" and then take a deep breath and be silent to hear, feel and know that no matter what, nothing is lost in the economy of God's love, that everything works out for good in the end and that more will be revealed in the realm of God's comforting love.

5.  Asking the directee to pray over me

In my experience as a Spiritual Director, it is a fact that I receive more from my directee more than I have given in the course of our sessions.  One of the things that Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity sisters discovered in giving charity to the poorest of the poor like those who are sick and elderly is that they received more than what they have given.  The same is true with Spiritual Direction.  I discovered that after I have helped a poor soul for a while and allowed the true beauty and splendor of hi/her soul to shine through, this very soul has a lot of gifts and blessings to share for the enrichment and grown of my own spiritual journey.  So, I always asked my directee to pray over me before we end our session.  I humbly kneel or bow my head and let my directee pray over me in ways and inspiration of the the Spirit of God in the heart of my directee.  There were times, depending on need that I hear praying words of healing, or encouragement in my faith journey, or even prophesy of what may come.  This brings me to a conclusion that part of the relationship between a Spiritual Director and a directee is a relationship of mutual support in the spiritual journey.  I may not be able to explicitly express to my directee my own spiritual woes or struggle at the moment, but I can experience that somehow my directee has the eyes and ears of the heart to comprehend what I am going through.  I am often amazed how my directee will pray exactly for what I need spritually at the time.

6.  Building a Fellowship of Prayer

Out of the exchange of prayers in Spiritual Direction, what is formed is a Fellowship of Prayer among those I direct with myself and among them.  A spiritual community among us is born.  We may not be seeing each other again, but we stay united in prayer wherever we are in the world.  The fruit of good Spiritual Direction is creating a family of God among souls.  I become a father or mother to my many spiritual sons and daughters, or a brother among spiritual brothers and sisters, or simply a friend among friends.  With the internet technology we can continue to keep in touch and create a spiritual network among us.

Conclusion:

Spiritual Direction is my own skillful, artistic, creative, unique and responsible way of parenting a soul to grow and mature according to God's beautiful plan, dream or purpose.  It is a full time responsibility in the matrix of prayer and direction and a co-responsibility partner in spiritual living.  A listening prayerful heart is a must in Spiritual Direction.  Care and love go with it too.  As a Spiritual Director, parenting a soul by being a friend I walk with day by day is being in tune with the dictum, "Don't walk ahead of me, I will not follow.  Don't walk behind me, I will not lead.  But just walk by my side and be my friend."

If you want to be happy

"  If you want to be happy,
     Begin where you are,
Don't wait for some rapture
     That's future and far.
Begin to be joyous, begin to be glad
     And soon you'll forget.
That you were ever were sad."  

I went to the McCloud Post Office on Saturday morning to get my mails. I saw a smiling face of an elderly man sitting on a car parked in front of the post office.  I see this man every morning when I go to work there during the week days.  He usually comes all by himself and driving his own car to get his mails.  But on this particular day, he was with two ladies, one driving the car and the other seated at the back seat.  Since we know each other by face I went nearer to say hi and greet them.  Bursting with joy, the man said to me, these are my daughters, they came to visit me.  Then I said, "   Oh, I am so happy for you, have a nice day!"    For me, moments like this are unique and rare in life.  My joy in my job today is that each morning I meet different kinds of people who live in this little old mill town. Most often I will receive a compliment like, "  This place smells so neat and clean!"   or "  You are doing a great job!"    And my heart will sing a song of joy and gratitude to God and I will celebrate another day of having done God's most perfect will, to be the best I can be as His hands and feet in the world. Happiness is being attuned to what is true, good and beautiful in life as gifts of God, the giver of life and the designer of all creation.  One needs eyes to see, ears to hear, soul to perceive the innumerable sparkles of joys that abound in the here and now.
Yesterday, I went with a group of friends for a sailing trip at Lake Almanor.  While my friends were sharing things about their family life, I took time to get some photos and to contemplate.  My memory brought me to that scene in the gospel when Jesus walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and called his first disciples.  He said, "  Come, follow me"  .  They left everything and followed Him.  And the found the real joy they were seeking for in life.  I have that same experience many many years ago when I was still a college student and I was watching the beautiful sunset at Manila Bay, Philippines.  I heard the same call and began my journey of discipleship.  When we were going home from that sailing trip, while we were driving home in the darkness of the night, I was telling my friend, Lynn E., that lake reminded me of stories in the gospel of Jesus making a trip with his disciples to the lake.  They too were busy and tired after doing the Father's business of spreading the good news.  They need to relax and be by themselves to sail, to rest, to pray.  And after they got rejuvenated they went on to spread the good news to other towns and villages. These days I am learning to be gentle with myself and to relish the simple joys of daily life as I continue to seek the face of God in the moments of each new day.  I work to earn my living and rest, relax and pray to balance my life.  I have always the greatest joy to spend quality time with my wife Marl on a daily basis as we abide to our motto:  "  Love will always find a way."  in terms of communication and other important foundations of married life.  In my apartment, I have a door post which says, "  It is better to give than to receive"   .  I keep giving myself in many ways of service to others and also treasure what life gives to me every day.  I always tell my wife, let us be contented with what we have, everything comes from God as blessings!



"  The way to be happy is to make others happy.
Helping others is the secret of all success ---
in business, in the arts and in the home."  

Tribute to Crystal - Patricia Jepsen (Chuse)

A Personal Tribute to Crystal

Sometime in July 2007 I was in Pecos Benedictine Monastery, preparing to go to Ghana, Africa for a mission assignment. I received a group of visitors one afternoon, Crystal, Elizabeth Hunt, Ann Carpenter and Fr. Joseph, a visiting priest from Ghana with them. They saw my name and my Ghana destination posted in a bulletin board of the local grocery store in town and they all decided to come and visit me. During that first meeting with Crystal, she said that while waiting for me to appear in the visiting room of the monastery she was browsing over the Retreat Schedule and took another notice of my name there. At that time I was scheduled to give a retreat on Ways of Contemplation according to classic and modern mystics. She said she was struck by that and expressed her interest to pursue further discussion with me on a personal level about my teaching on that topic. Then came the invitation to join them for dinner at the Mother's Sanctuary School in Glorieta, New Mexico. During that dinner we came to know more about each other and shared some more notes on the Higher Christ's Consciousness, focusing on the mystical traditions. After that, I received a call from her that she is going to visit me at the monastery to talk over something just between the two of us. I agreed and we found ourselves sharing deep and highly profound spiritual things as we took a walk by the Pecos River along walking pathway at the back of the monastery. That walk with Crystal by the river was a "Kyros" - a God moment for both of us. Only during this recent transition of Crystal to the much Higher Realms of the planetary dimension of the University that I am beginning to understand the significance of the holy conversation we had during that summer afternoon. Of all questions, she asked me about the mysticism of pain and suffering. I responded from my own spiritual background as Filipino missionary, Benedictine monk and a member of an ecumenical movement called Focolare Movement. The first thing I said to her was about the Dark Night of the Soul theology of St. John of the Cross, a Spanish Carmelite reformer & mystic. I told her that at one point in his poem on pain and suffering, St. John of the Cross exclaimed about the night which is not night at all but has been transformed into light, "Oh (night's) darkness which is not dark (but light!)" I also told her that each soul who seeks God has to pass through a "thicket of suffering" according to St. John of the Cross as part of the purification of the senses in order to be worthy of the "nothingness" required in meeting God face to face. Then I told her about the theology of Chiara Lubich, the Foundress of the Focolare Movement on Jesus Forsaken and the comment made by Blessed Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical for the New Millenium. I explained to her that one of the last seven words of Jesus just before he died on the cross was, "My God, my God, why have you forsakened me?"(Matthew 27:46) Chiara Lubich had a powerful experience of spiritually espousing Jesus Forsaken and dedicating her whole life towards living and loving only Jesus, who died and rose again. In view of that theology Blessed Pope John Paul II commented that the cry of Jesus, was both a human experience of total abandonment and a divine experience of total surrender. At that very moment when Jesus cried out, "My God, my God why have you forsakened me?", according to Blessed Pope John Paul II, he experienced the deepest human anguish and fear in the midst of a great suffering. At the same time, it was also a humble cry of total surrender of one's whole being to God. In other words, Jesus felt totally abandoned, yet also totally abandoning himself to God out of the last beat of total prayerful surrender to God of his heart. I told Crystal that this is always the case and experience of every pure human experience of pain and suffering. Each one has to go through the "fire" of suffering in order to be a genuine "gold" for God. I also told her that the way to experience suffering and let it become one's very way to see God is through a total surrender of oneself and everything to God. During the series of meditation teachings and classes which followed and I joined with the core group of the university from Glorieta, New Mexico and when it was relocated for a short time in Mt. Shasta, California, there were times when Crystal will point us back to that conversation I had with her by the Pecos river. Tonight, as I write this, my Inner Voice is telling me that all the way then, Crystal knew was she was about to plunge into during the final days of her life just before her transition, a real intense, quiet and totally surrendered pain and suffering. When Ann Carpenter, Crystal's nurse and companion at the university house in Kanab,Utah, told me over the phone that Crystal has been diagnosed with a cancer, I was not at all surprised. I know that a golden soul like Crystal is meant to go that way just before the "final curtain" is lowered down for her stint here with us to come to a swift close. The last time I saw Crystal was just moments before she and Ann Carpenter traveled to Kanab, Utah. I saw her sitting on a chair outside the house she rented for one year in Mt. Shasta, California. I saw her face so bright, but deep in her eyes I also saw her greatest anguish and pain. I know now, that during that last moments of Crystal, she has only one song, a song of total surrender to the next plan of God for her life. As I recalled these events and experience of Crystal as my personal tribute to her and the Universityof Melchizedek for the grace of being them all the way from Glorieta, New Mexico until their last day in Mt. Shasta, California, I cannot help but also sing my new song of praise and thanksgiving to God for earning the trust, love and care of Crystal for my soul during her last moments as Teacher and Guiding "star" for the University. Tonight, I know Crystal's star is eternally fixed and I can only glance and believe she is still very much present with us as we continue to spread the teachings of the University of Melchizedek, especially through her classic books, The God Self and Living the God Self manuscripts and making it more available and more understandable to those who seek the truth it brings and the transformation in one's life it can accomplish. My personal thanks to the Board of Directors and to Susan Hunt, Elizabeth Hun and David Chuse for taking this initiative to write a Tribute to Crystal. I hope to see and read more tribute on Crystal by those whose lives were touched and transformed by her. Then we can collate it to a book form for the continued teachings of the University. This Personal Tribute to Crystal is humbly and gratefully written and marked with the Seal of the University of Melchizedek.

 - B. Sagra