Learning to Balance My Life

Thirteen years ago I was drawn to one of the chaplains at the University of Indianapolis, Sr. Jennifer’s model of a balanced life:

·     Hospitality--welcoming to all

·     Health Boundaries--knew what she valued and kept it that way--God/community/family/friends/fun--

·     Stability--Did not immediately say yes to good events but prayerfully considered how it will work with her community

·     Prayer--the community prays together three times each day

·     God is in everything

·     Obedience to God and community. Everyone should do the work needed to make the community survive. Even washing dishes is sacred work

·     There are a lot of fun things to do that are free or low cost.

·     Each year take a week of retreat to be with God and away from the world

·     Hospitality - prayers- obedience - work - poverty - community

The balance she modeled I wanted for my life. Sr. Jennifer is a Benedictine nun and lives by the Rule of St. Benedict. 

For several years, I have been studying the Rule of St. Benedict. In 2017 I became an Oblate of Our Lady of Grace monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana. I now live a life of Benedictine spirituality. 

Have you ever noticed stacked rocks along the road, in the woods, by a creek and wondered what they were? They are called cairns. Many people stack the rocks as a spiritual practice. 

Find some rocks and try to stack them on top of each other. While you are stacking the rocks think about your life and how you can make it more balanced so that it does not fall over like the rocks will do when they are not balanced on top of each other.

“Achieving a harmonious balance” does not come easily just like balancing the rocks is not an easy task.

“Benedict was quite precise about time. Time was to be spent in prayer, in sacred reading, in work, and in community participation. In other words, it was to be spent on listening to the Word, on study, on making life better for others, and on community building. It was public as well as private; it was private as well as public. It was balanced. No one thing consumed the monastic’s life. No one thing got exaggerated out of proportion to the other dimensions of life. NO one thing absorbed the human spirit to the exclusion of every other. Life was made up of many facets and only together did they form a whole. Physical labor and mental prayer and social life and study and community concerns were all pieces of the puzzle of life. Life flowed through time, with time as its guardian.”  Sr. Joan Chittister.

“When making choices for balance in our lives we need to consider our whole self--

·     our spiritual

·     intellectual

·     physical

·     emotional

·     social

·     creative needs.”

What are some signs that your life is in harmony and balance?

What do you feel like when you are out of balance? 

How can you make a plan, a Rule of Life, that will help to keep you more in balance and in harmony?

What Fruits Are you Bearing?

My devotional this morning asked the question

“What fruits are you bearing?” 

I have been pondering that question this morning. It has brought up these questions for me to examine.

Through my words and actions

am I

bearing fruit that gives hope or despair?

bearing fruit that gives love or hate?

bearing fruit that gives light or darkness?

Bearing fruit that gives unity or division?

Instead of blaming others perhaps today you can reflect on what fruit you are bearing.

Why so Angry?

“I will take responsibility for how I allow others to treat me” is a healthy boundary I sat for myself several years ago. I knew I had to be the one to stop letting others control me by how they treated me.  

Recently while on retreat sitting at an outdoor chapel, I wrote in my journal, “Why the anger?” I was feeling so angry at the world. When I paused long enough to reflect, I heard God say, “Because you are seeking approval.” The feelings of anger were arising from my lack of taking responsibility for how I allowed others to treat me because I was always seeking their approval. Hadn’t I worked hard to find my voice?

Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend’s book, Boundaries When to Say yes How to Say No To Take Control of your Life had been a lifesaver for me. It was as though I finally had permission to say no.

After reading the book, I reflected on what boundaries I should put in place to keep me healthy. I chose the following boundaries.

·      I will take responsibility for how I allow others to treat me.

·      I know that my boundaries define what is me and what is not me. It is ok to have boundaries.

·      I will listen closely to my body and my spirit and find time to rest and keep Sabbath.

·      I will turn off my TV 15 minutes before I go to bed and reflect on my day.

I felt these boundaries would be a good start to help me heal and grow stronger. But I forgot about them until I felt the anger rising up in me and warning me about the boundary violation.

What are your healthy boundaries?

Spiritual Direction, A safe, Non-judgemental Place to Explore

Is there something I sense God is calling me to?

What are my images of God?

How do I take time to reflect on my experiences?

Who is Jesus for me?

Where am I most aware of God’s presence?

What are my deepest joys?

What questions within me keep me growing?

What are the questions that frighten me?

How am I growing spiritually?

What is my desire for God?

How do I discern the presence of God in my life?

How do I feel about my relationship with God?

What is spiritual growth and how do I foster it in my life?

What is true for me?

Who am I?

The spiritual discipline of Spiritual Direction gives one a safe, non-judgmental place to dig deep and to look closely at all the ways God is working in one’s life. It is a place to explore questions like the ones listed above.

Spiritual direction is spending time deepening one’s relationship with God. It is time set aside usually for one hour once a month. During this one hour, the person coming to a Spiritual Director referred to as “the directee” brings joys, concerns, questions, etc. to the session. The spiritual director listens closely to the directee and the Holy Spirit, asks questions, and reflects back to the directee to help the directee to discover the ways that God is present in their life. The real spiritual director is the Holy Spirit. It is not a counseling session but a safe space to explore, ask questions and ponder. It is a spiritual discipline of setting aside time to work on our relationship with God.

Spiritual direction explores a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human. Simply put, spiritual direction is helping people tell their sacred stories everyday.

—Spiritual Directors International

The Spirals of a Seashell

Have you ever paused to look closely at the spirals on a seashell?  When you get a chance to look at one, notice how the spirals begin on the outside of the shell and wind their way to the center.  

During one of my very first spiritual direction sessions my spiritual director, Annie, ran her finger along the spirals on a seashell as she talked to me about spiritual disciplines. She said, “spiritual disciplines are like the spirals on a seashell.” Continuing to move her finger around the spirals of the shell Annie pointed out that it is much harder to fall off the side of the shell the closer her finger moved towards the center and away from the edges of the shell. Annie said, “Spiritual disciplines are like the spirals on the seashell drawing us closer and closer to God.  The deeper our relationship with God becomes the easier it is to withstand the storms in our life.  When the storms of life knock us down we do not fall off the edge because we are closer to the center.”

Over time I have practiced several different spiritual disciplines. Spiritual direction, scriptural reading, and journaling have remained stable disciplines for me.  I have learned that some spiritual disciplines will work for me for a time but grow tiresome and not helpful for me in deepening my relationship with God. When that happens, I move on to something that I find more helpful at the time. 

We are all different and a spiritual discipline that works for one person might not work for another.  Take some time and try to find a spiritual discipline that will grow your relationship with God.

blessings

Cindy

https://www.facebook.com/yoursacredstorymatters

 

Love Is The Most Important Word

Love is the most important word in the English language—and the most confusing. Both secular and religious thinkers agree that love plays a central role in life.

Love has a prominent role in thousands of books, song, magazines, and movies. Numerous philosophical and theological systems

have made a prominent place for love.

              -----Gary Chapman, “The 5 Love Languages The Secret to Love That Lasts)

I first learned of the five love languages through my spiritual director, Annie.  She explained that she had learned to respect her husband more when she discovered his love language is “Acts of Service.” Her husband would often clean out her car.  She thought he was saying to her, “you are so messy and lazy that I need to clean out your car” when in fact he was showing her love through his love language “Acts of Service.”  What a difference it made for their marriage when she took the time to learn his love language and realized he was showing love, not criticism, when he cleaned out her car.

Perhaps learning your love language and the love language of others will help you. I encourage you to visit here http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/ and find out your love language.

Blessings,

Cindy

https://www.facebook.com/yoursacredstorymatters

Reflecting Back In Order to Move Forward

Sankofa comes from the ancient people in the West African nation of Ghana known as the Akan. The Sankofa bird symbolizes looking back to reclaim our past so we can move forward. The Akan knew how important it was to make a critical investigation of our past in order to move forward in life.

Reflecting on my past has helped me on my spiritual journey. It has shown me places where I missed how God was right there beside me.  It has helped me to discover my true self and take off the masks I was wearing to protect me from the hurt and suffering in my life. It gave me an idea of how much I had really grown in my faith and how God had taken the hurt and suffering and turned it around for good.

Spend some time thinking about your life. On a sheet of paper put a line down the middle then on the top half of your sheet write all the positive events that have happened in your life in the order that they have happened.  Now think about all the negative, hurtful events that have happened in your life and write those across the bottom half in the order that they happened.

Spend time reflecting on these events and how they have had an impact on your life.  Are you seeing any patterns? Is there a theme running through your story? How have the negative events turned into a time of growth? How has God used your negative life events for good? Where are you seeing God at work in your story? As you reflect on your story have you found things that have been buried in your heart?