40 Day Journey with Julian of Norwich: Day 40
Author: sunflowerseedspirituality
Diary of a Sunflower: 11 June Year 4.
The diary entries are extracts from my spiritual journey, going back about twenty years.
No, I tell you this because I was told to tell it – by what you might call ‘ a higher authority’ – and truth is, the thought of how to tell it has taxed me for so many years.
Miss Garnet’s Angel, Sally Vickers
Why am I such a difficult person to love? I don’t understand why he is on my case so often. I’m not sure if I’m very happy in this relationship anymore. I love him, I really do, but I seem to elicit this anger in him – just as I did with my ex. Maybe I’m just an impossible person to live with. Maybe the negatives are beginning to outweigh the positives. There has always been some excuse since he moved in, but maybe we can’t, really can’t live together.
I want serenity in my life, a certain peacefulness and lack of conflict, and the knowledge that God is there. I yearn for this. Yet, I recognise that yearning for romantic love and oneness too. Maybe this is my dichotomy that can’t be resolved. I can have serenity or love, but not both – maybe I have to choose. It’s not just about me, but there are certain patterns that repeat themselves. One of them relates to emotional dependence (or independence). At the weekend I needed some support, but it wasn’t forthcoming. I can be emotionally independent, but does that mean I always have to be?
The other thing is living up to expectations – being put on a pedestal. Still the anger comes when I don’t live up to it, and how can I possibly? Is it like this for all women, or is it just me? Am I so full of myself and my rights that I’m unreasonable in my expectations, regardless of what I might think? Things were so much easier when I was young and insensitive to men’s feelings. Maybe I need to be like that again: Just “This is the way it is, and if you don’t like it…” I don’t know where we go from here, but I can’t see it continuing.
Imaginative Contemplation: Jesus Cleanses a Leper
Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Here, as stated before, it is my intention to draw from the forthcoming Sunday liturgy and to offer a guided prayer on one of the pieces of scripture in the same way that we have been doing in Exploring Personal Prayer. I do not intend to offer any reflections on the scripture. My suggestion is that you follow the Ignatian structure: preparation for prayer by reading the scripture, going to your prayer place and doing the prayer itself, and then moving away to another place and doing a review of the prayer. Keeping some sort of prayer journal is good practice. Note any moments of consolation in the prayer, where you felt drawn more deeply into God, and moments of desolation, where prayer was disturbed, where you were distracted and pulled further away from God: feelings of attraction and repulsion should be noted. These points may provide areas for repetition of the prayer. Also, if you have a spiritual director or prayer partner, someone who can listen with an ear to where God is in this, it may be worth sharing your prayer with them. I am following the processes outline in the prayer cards above. You may print these onto A6 or A4 card to have in your prayer space to help you become accustomed to this way of praying, remembering it is more of a flow than a rigid structure.
Mark 1:40-45
40 A leper[a] came to him begging him, and kneeling[b] he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ 41 Moved with pity,[c] Jesus[d] stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ 42 Immediately the leprosy[e] left him, and he was made clean. 43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44 saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ 45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus[f] could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.
Background music is the album: Keith Halligan – Lifestyle Meditation, Global Journey
40 Day Journey with Julian of Norwich: Day 39
Prayer material and guided prayer
Extract from Revelations of Divine Love in the 40 Day Journey with Julian of Norwich: Day 39
Reading: John 15: 9
Psalm 36:7-9
Diary of a Sunflower: 6 June, year 4
The diary entries are extracts from my spiritual journey, going back about twenty years.
No, I tell you this because I was told to tell it – by what you might call ‘ a higher authority’ – and truth is, the thought of how to tell it has taxed me for so many years.
Miss Garnet’s Angel, Sally Vickers
I feel really sad today – melancholy and withdrawn. I woke up in a bad mood yesterday morning and it’s just carried on from there. Today I’m tired and weary and I’m not altogether sure why. It occurred to me earlier that I had a sense of loss, like grieving. Except I’m not sure what for. Two things happened the night before last: 1. I finished Phillip Pulman’s trilogy, The Amber Spyglass and 2. I started on a diet. Don’t know if either is related. Maybe it is the book that had disturbed me so much. I can dismiss Pulman’s perception of God as shallow and naïve and devoid of any significant understanding of what it is that he is attacking; I can feel superior, or even just better, that he had to denigrate God to an angel, a lesser being – even almost as one made of flesh – just so that he could kill Him off easily in his book. And that he chose to make Him old and helpless, like a baby. Maybe it’s the description of a world without God – where people have the responsibility to create a republic of heaven – maybe it’s that idea that has depressed me so much? And in what way did Mary Malone tempt Lyra? And did he really perceive that “original sin” was sex? Please! And how was Lyra like Eve? Because she could choose the right or the wrong thing? And Will’s responsibility in the choice? His concept of God was seriously lacking, but would you expect an atheist to understand God – or anything about God, for no-one can really understand God. Could you really expect anyone to have any understanding of God and still be an atheist? So, I should not really be surprised at his naivety regarding God, nor that he should have to bring Him down, so to speak, so that he can destroy Him. The concept of God even seems to be an idea that Pulman can’t get his head around. This book could only have been written by an atheist; I think.
I also wondered today if it was about my relationship with Sedation; if I’d become aware and was grieving for something this relationship would never be? I was thinking a lot about trust the other day and whether it was right or wrong to be holding something back. The conclusion I came to after talking to Sedation is that it might not be the ideal, but it is necessary. If you don’t give it all up though, it will never be a marriage, and maybe that realisation is the source of my grief. I don’t think I will ever marry him, because I don’t completely trust him. I know that I can’t. His addiction gets in the way of me doing that. So, I have to hold back; I have to protect myself and my children, and maybe it is that knowledge that has made me so weary. Sometimes I don’t like sharing my space with a man and I wish it was just me and my children. I don’t know where to go from here. Maybe just be that Samaritan woman at the well and accept that he is not my husband, nor will he be and while I love him, I should remember that he is not, and that my children are my responsibility.
Lectio Divina: Job 7
Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Here, as stated before, it is my intention to draw from the forthcoming Sunday liturgy and to offer a guided prayer on one of the pieces of scripture in the same way that we have been doing in Exploring Personal Prayer. I do not intend to offer any reflections on the scripture. My suggestion is that you follow the Ignatian structure: preparation for prayer by reading the scripture, going to your prayer place and doing the prayer itself, and then moving away to another place and doing a review of the prayer. Keeping some sort of prayer journal is good practice. Note any moments of consolation in the prayer, where you felt drawn more deeply into God, and moments of desolation, where prayer was disturbed, where you were distracted and pulled further away from God: feelings of attraction and repulsion should be noted. These points may provide areas for repetition of the prayer. Also, if you have a spiritual director or prayer partner, someone who can listen with an ear to where God is in this, it may be worth sharing your prayer with them. I am following the processes outline in the prayer cards above. You may print these onto A6 or A4 card to have in your prayer space to help you become accustomed to this way of praying, remembering it is more of a flow than a rigid structure.
Job 7: 1-4, 6-7
‘Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
and are not their days like the days of a labourer?
2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like labourers who look for their wages,
3 so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
4 When I lie down I say, “When shall I rise?”
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing until dawn.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
and come to their end without hope.[a]
7 ‘Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
Background music is the album: Keith Halligan – Lifestyle Meditation, Global Journey
40 Day Journey with Julian of Norwich: Day 38
God revealed all this most blessedly, as though to say: See, I am God. See, I am in all things. See, I do all things. See, I never remove my hands from my works, nor ever shall without end. See, I guide all things to the end that I ordain for them for, before time began, with the same power and wisdom and love with which I made them: how should anything be amiss?…In this endless love we are led and protected by God, and we shall never be lost…And just as we were to be without end, so we were treasured and hidden in God, known and loved from without beginning. I saw…in everything that before God made us He loved us, which love was never abated and never will be. And in this love He has done all His works…and in this love our life is everlasting. In our creation we had beginning, but the love with which He created us was in Him from without beginnning. In this love we have our beginning, and all this shall we see in God without end.
Reading: Isaiah 45: 8
Psalm 48:14
A Conversation Between Directors: Paula Pearce
I thought I would change the format of what I was previously calling “Ask a Spiritual Director” to more of a conversation than an interview. Feeback from my “interview” with David suggested that the more conversational sections of the video were more interesting and worked better. I also thought that repetitive questions might get a bit dull. So, here, in this talking heads conversation, I am talking to Paula Pearce who has recently moved into the Diocese of East Anglia. Enjoy.
Diary of a Sunflower: 3 June Year 4.
The diary entries are extracts from my spiritual journey, going back about twenty years.
No, I tell you this because I was told to tell it – by what you might call ‘ a higher authority’ – and truth is, the thought of how to tell it has taxed me for so many years.
Miss Garnet’s Angel, Sally Vickers
Life can be quite lonely sometimes. What do I want? Serenity, I want serenity. Do I have that with Sedation? – sometimes, in the sense of being, just being, in a quiet, tranquil sort of way but that deeper sort, knowing that JC is there, that’s more elusive. Meditation is difficult to get into, although the tai chi is doing me a lot of good.
Serenity – that’s what I want in my life. I don’t believe it’s possible all the time – and maybe that would be boring?
Positive Penance Retreat Day – Online
Last year to prepare for Lent, I led a Retreat Day for my Diocese. I would like to offer this day again, as an Online Event (Times are GMT). What I said previously still stands:
During Lent, the Church encourages us to unite ourselves to the mystery of Jesus in the desert, to act against the desire of the flesh, of the eyes and the pride in riches by fasting, giving alms and prayer. The practice of such penance may feel judicial and be difficult to maintain for the whole season of lent, perhaps because of its general sense of understanding. In “The Spiritual Excercises”, St. Ignatius writes about the practice of penance in the Tenth Addition, and the discussion is often passed over uncomfortably and put into the context of his time. My discomfort with both approaches compels me to present this retreat day.
Ignatius presents the idea of penance as a form of desire for more in our relationship with God and he makes it personal. He says:
Now since God our Lord knows our nature infinitely better, when we make changes of this kind, He often grants each one the grace to understand what is suitable for him.
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. Louis J. Puhl S.J.
My intention is to provide the time, space and stimulation for each one to notice the desires and motivations for their feelings and actions; to notice the direction of the movement in those desires, whether they are towards God (spiritual consolation) or away from God (spiritual desolation); the latter being identified as inordinate desire; and, with the grace and help of God, to choose the most pertinent of our own inordinate desires and resolve to amend it or them. The resolve to amend will form the basis of our chosen lenten practice, which will be personal in the context of our own relationship with God and drawn from the desire for more in that relationship. Fuelled by this desire, may we find sustenance to maintain our lenten observance for the duration, and allow it to impact a deeper change in our lives beyond lent.
The process will be facilitated with two short presentations, The Examen prayer, Guided Imaginative Contemplations, Personal reflection and paired and group sharing. To ensure safety, sharing should be only what you are comfortable with, and should remain confidential within the context of the person or group it is shared in.
If you want to have a sneaky preview of the material, you can find it in a previous post. And please share with anyone you think might want to do Lent positively this year, with a different approach than before perhaps. Here is the outline for the retreat:
There is no formal charge for this event and registration is not conditional on making a donation. If you would like to support me in my work however, that would be very much appreciated, and you can to that by clicking the “support me” button below.