October 16, 2024
One of the things Jung taught was that the human psyche is the mediation point for God. If God wants to speak to us, God usually speaks in words that first feel like our own thoughts. As Rohr asks, “How else could God come to us? We have to be taught how to honor and allow that, how to give it authority, and to recognize that sometimes our thoughts are God’s thoughts. Contemplation helps train such awareness in us. The dualistic or non-contemplative mind cannot imagine how both could be true at the same time. The contemplative mind sees things in wholes and not in divided parts.”
In an account written several years before his death, Jung described his early sense that ‘Nobody could rob me of the conviction that it was enjoined upon me to do what God wanted and not what I wanted. That gave me the strength to go my own way.’
As Rohr reminds us, we all must find an inner authority that we can trust that is bigger than our own. This way, we know it’s not only us thinking these thoughts. When we can trust God directly, it balances out the almost exclusive reliance on external authority (Scripture for Protestants; Tradition for Catholics). Much of what passes as religion is external to the self, top-down religion, operating from the outside in. Carl Jung wanted to teach people to honor religious symbols, but from the inside out.
October 9, 2024
“Grief and loss that are not transformed, get transmitted. We need others to walk beside us during time of loss to assist us on that journey of transforming our grief.” ~ Rabbi Edwin Friedman
On Monday of this week, after a challenging session with a patient who has experienced significant losses and is doing sacred, good grief work, I recalled the words of Rabbi Friedman in a lecture at Vanderbilt. He is correct, of course. Sometimes we need to widen the circle of care, and this can take many forms. Indeed, one need not be ordained, or a licensed clinician to sit with another in that liminal space of hospitality, compassion, and relationship. After my session on Monday, I walked into the nave of the Cathedral, sat in the sacred silence, and offered a prayer for my patient and her family. When I rose from the pew and began my trek back to the counseling center, I saw the beautiful light, refracted through the stained glass of the windows, reflected on the cathedral pillars. I was comforted by this, and reminded that the sacred can take many forms, and like the Holy Spirit who can surprise us with the gift of Her presence, sometimes is there all along. And I was reminded that we do not have to do this work alone.
Among the topics I have written about during my years as a professor is “resilience,” of which Fr. Richard Rohr has said,
October 2, 2024
Dear Friends,
On Sunday, Pentecost +19 we bade farewell to our dear friend, brother, and Chief Verger Ric Sanchez. While we are sad to see him go, we are so very grateful for his time among us, and his years of devoted service, mentoring, good humor, and faithful gifts and graces to Holy Family. Here’s the prayer we prayed together on Sunday:
O God of abundance and light, you have bound us together for a time to work for the advancement of your beloved community in this place. We give you humble and heartfelt thanks for our ministry with this, your faithful servant Ric Sanchez, with whom we have shared in these years, in this sacred space. We give thanks for his good humor, and for his wisdom in all things liturgical; for his compassionate heart; and for his steadfast commitment to this, our Holy Family parish. Especially, we thank you for the loving care that surrounds us on every side, and for the never-failing reminder that you are with us even in our leave-taking of one another, and for the deeper knowledge of you and one another which we have attained in our time together. Thank you! Now, we pray, be with our dear friend Ric as he leaves for his new life in Tampa, and also with those who remain behind, and who will so miss the gift of his presence among us. Grant that each of us, by drawing ever nearer to you,
September 25, 2024
This past Monday, during a break in my clinical schedule at the Cathedral Counseling Center, and in need of some restorative time, I walked outside the front door of the Lanier House and entered the outdoor labyrinth. I walk past it every morning when I arrive at the counseling center, and every evening as I leave for my car and the return trip to Jasper. But I don’t often take the time to walk the labyrinth, an ancient Celtic spiritual practice.
Walking the labyrinth at the Cathedral, similar to the one at Holy Family and those around the world, is a contemplative spiritual discipline. It involves prayerfully walking a marked path based on the ancient practice of pilgrimage. On a pilgrimage, a pilgrim intentionally leaves their ordinary world, journeying away from the distractions and busyness of life. Labyrinths can be used for meditation, prayer, and contemplation, or as a physical expression of a person’s spiritual journey, and are often used as a way to quiet the mind and calm anxiety. They can be used to worship and praise God, or to intercede for others. Walking the labyrinth can help persons enhance their creativity, and integrate body, mind, and spirit toward “wholeness” (or “integritas.”)
The labyrinth is one among many spiritual disciplines available to us on our journey and can be included in a Rule of Life. For many years I served as psychological health faculty for Episcopal CREDO, a wellness program for clergy designed to provide a restorative and healing experience away from the quotidian day to day life of a priest or deacon.