Spiritual growth – Page 2 – God of the Sparrow 🌱 By Kathy Manis Findley

Contemplation, Life Journeys, peace, Prayer, Spiritual growth, Transformation

Transformation: The Spiritual Journey

February 8, 2017 Rev Kathy

The labyrinth is a walking meditation, a path of prayer where psyche meets Spirit. It has only one path that leads from the outer edge in a circuitous way to the center. There are no dead ends. Unlike a maze where you can lose your way, the labyrinth is a spiritual tool that can help you find your way.

The life quest of drawing closer to God is best described as a spiritual journey. But it is a journey of our own choosing. We are not forced to take it. God does not coerce us to travel such a path. Each of us must choose it, and in a spirit of prayer embark on an unknown journey.

We cannot predict its path. We can only give ourselves to its gentle turns with confidence that, along the way, we will discover and learn and grow in our faith. It can be transformational. Wendell Berry describes this journey with the words arduous, humbling and joyful, an apt description. Most importantly he describes “arriving at the ground at our own feet” and there learning to be at home. Here’s what he writes:

The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.

– Wendell Berry

Taking the journey leads us home, a place of peace and comfort, a place where we are comfortable in our own skin, a place where our heart meets God’s heart. The journey can bring transformation within us.

The danger is that we can shrink in fear from transformation because we cannot control the process. Giving up control is always a challenge for humans, but refusing the spiritual journey means that we will wander aimlessly, always searching and never finding our deepest spiritual self.

Contemplation, Prayer, Spiritual growth

Washing the Spirit Clean

October 29, 2016 Rev Kathy

It is a worthy intention, to wash my spirit clean. How freeing it would be to move all the messy stuff from my soul and to feel cleansed. The Psalmist prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

How do I even begin? A good start would be prayer, contemplation, reading prayers in Scripture, walking in the forest, making some time for silence. For me, singing hymns cleanses my soul and nurtures my heart. The writing of John Muir also suggests a path to soul cleansing. John Muir, also known as “John of the Mountains”, was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. Millions of people have read his letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California. These are his words.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

Keep close to Nature’s heart . . . break clear away once in awhile..climb a mountain..spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

― John Muir, The Mountains of California

It’s a continuous effort, washing the spirit clean. It’s a necessary spiritual discipline. It opens us up to a life renewed and refreshed.

Spiritual growth, Uncategorized

Dust or Clouds

October 14, 2016 Rev Kathy

It’s not always easy to nurture one’s spirituality. Things keep getting in the way, mundane things like cleaning and cooking, shopping and organizing drawers. But the question is, “what activities are spiritual?” Praying? Reading the Bible? Meditating?

Of course, those are the activities we consider to be spiritual, but those who are most acquainted with spirituality would tell us that we can find the spiritual in the ordinary. They would tell us that being mindful of every moment can be a spiritual act, no matter what we’re doing. I like the way Bishop Steven Charleston expresses it.

“Following a spiritual path is walking through the dust more than flying through the clouds.”

Here’s what else he says on the subject.

Sometimes we like to think of the spiritual as something very esoteric or mystical, and sometimes it is. But far more often, the spiritual is the common. It is the everyday. Following a spiritual path is walking through the dust more than flying through the clouds. It is less about what we discover alone on the mountaintop and more about what we share down in the valley. The spiritual is the now. The here. The next choice we make. It is how we behave, how we work, how we take responsibility. What is spiritual is what we practice with reverence and intention. It is what we do in order to become what we want to be.

Darkness, Hope, Spiritual growth

Wounds and Light

October 3, 2016 Rev Kathy

The dark night of the soul is a journey into light, a journey from your darkness into the strength and hidden resources of your soul.

– Caroline Myss

Lately I have been thinking a lot about darkness. It’s not a very good place to be, but it’s my current reality. Melancholy has edged in on my usually bright being through memories that I would rather forget. Perhaps this is a reflection time for me, giving me a chance to revisit some wounded places and apply additional healing balm to them. Perhaps God wants to speak clearer to me in the darkness, at a vulnerable time.

The darkness doesn’t feel good to me, though. Each day, I dread nightfall in fear that its darkness will punctuate the darkness of my spirit. I am recalling dark, long nights when I was in the hospital. I am remembering some of the wounds of my spirit that happened so long ago. I am examining those wounds with a boat load of anxiety.

In this, perhaps God has a purpose. Perhaps I need to more fully develop a spirituality that prevails even in darkness. Perhaps, as Barbara Brown Taylor suggests, I need to learn about walking in the dark. Perhaps I am being called to explore what I might gain by embracing the darkness. Perhaps I need to lean into Taylor’s encouragement to “turn out the lights and embrace the spiritual darkness, for it is in the dark that one can truly see.” (Learning to Walk in the Dark, 2014) Is it not true that the time when we most closely draw near to God is during a dark night of the soul?

Yet I long for brightness to return. I miss the days just a few weeks ago when all felt well in my world. Still, I am making the best of it, knowing that this phase will eventually pass. I am stretching to reach the light and bring it near. I am holding on tightly to God, who represents for me all that is light.

Sometimes, just a thought, a word, a memory can bring a little light and hope into my spirit. I ran across this quote by Rumi just yesterday. It lifts up hope in me.

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
― Rumi

Life pathways, Spiritual growth, Transformation

In Every Change

September 16, 2016 Rev Kathy

When leaves change their colors as the seasons pass, they do it effortlessly. Not so with human beings. We resist change most of the time. But changes happen. Life takes its toll on all of us. Because of life events — good and bad — we evolve and change. And I like to think we become closer to the persons we are meant to be. In every change, there is growth. There are lessons to be learned. There are challenges to our thoughts and beliefs. There are nudges to the soul. In every change, we change. Sometimes we are transformed.

As life changes happen to us, I often think of the words from the hymn “Be Still, My Soul.”

In every change, he faithful will remain.

What an encouraging promise about the faithfulness of God! While we may resist change because of fear, God stays close to comfort us, to encourage us, to guide us, to renew our faith.

Frederick Buechner shares with us the best news of all with these words:

There is something deep within us, in everybody, that gets buried and distorted and confused and corrupted by what happens to us. But it is there as a source of insight and healing and strength.

Thanks be to God for our seasons of change.

Contemplation, Life pathways, Spiritual growth

What I Miss

August 21, 2016 Rev Kathy

There is still ministry in me. There are sermons still in me, and prayers yet unprayed. That is the most difficult part of being a retired minister. When colleagues laid their hands on me in ordination, that was a calling I took seriously. It was a lifelong calling, one that began with a still, small voice urging me to say “yes.”

I still live under that call to ministry, even though I am not actively serving. So I struggle to find my place. I long to once again be buried in acts of ministry. And I wonder what God has in mind for my retirement. Sometimes I even wonder if God remembers my call to ministry.

What does one do when the phone stops ringing? What does one do when invitations to preach or teach stop? These are questions I cannot adequately answer. But I do find solace in the truth that God is still present with me. I find comfort that God still places words in me and that I can share them in my writing.

Still, I envy my colleagues who are immersed in ministry positions. I miss them. I miss the work. I miss the way God worked within me to reach out to persons who needed to hear the Good News. I miss the hymns of praise and the prayers of confession. I miss the aroma of candlelit sanctuaries and the hum of a worshipping congregation.

And so my prayer for this day is “God, teach me how to be retired.”

Life storms, Spiritual growth

Storms

August 13, 2016 Rev Kathy

My garden was wilting. Some plants had already died in spite of my faithful watering. But on one day last week, my flowers were literally pelted with rain. Huge raindrops fell hard and long. I wondered if my tender impatiens would survive the storm. They did. The next morning, in fact, they were standing stronger and taller than ever. Once wilted by endless days of scorching sun, the blooms were now full and healthy.

It took a rainstorm to shock them to life. It’s that way for us, too. We have thrived after life storms we thought we simply would not survive. We took the pelting and emerged stronger, full of fresh new life.

The lesson for us is to face life storms without fear, knowing that storms pass and the sun always comes back brightly. If we’re lucky, we might even see a rainbow, a sign of promise and new hope. So let it storm. Let the pelting rain hit us as a refreshing shower, cleansing away the old and making all things new.

Courage, healing, Life storms, Spiritual growth

Scars of the Spirit

July 14, 2016 Rev Kathy

I have my fair share of what I call scars of the spirit. They remain with me, reminding me that I survived my deepest wounds. They also remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has left me stronger and more resilient.

No one escapes the woundedness of a life well lived. No one can claim to be free of scars. But every person — flawed, scarred and wounded — can use the hurt of the past to be stronger in the present and more resilient for the future.

It seems that I have two choices. Either I can look at my past and hold on to the kind of bitterness that destroys a contented life. Or I can own my past, with all of its wounds, and become stronger because of it. In The Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan writes, “The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”

I am grateful to know that when strong winds blew through my life, I bent with the wind. I moved forward stronger than I was before. With me, I brought wounds and scars. But they remind me that I survived.

Spiritual growth

Being Born

July 5, 2016July 5, 2016 Rev Kathy

Most of us celebrate being born once a year on our birthdays. Perhaps we should celebrate much more often than once a year. After all, isn’t life full of rebirths. Aren’t we born again with every new discovery, every life lesson, every new dream? There is a kind of mystery to being born. Sometimes we resist it, looking fearfully at change. But mostly we embrace it and accept it as one of life’s gifts to us. Steven Charleston wrote these words:

I have had my fair share of doubts and spent my time in the long night of unknowing. I have enough scars to find someone to blame and have many memories I keep in the attic of my heart. But I count none of this as the measure of my life and spend as little time as I can rereading its sad story. For even from the deepest soil a new shoot emerges, a stubborn little plant called life, reaching up and out to find the waiting sun, drawing energy from the core of the very earth from which it was made. I am a light, not a shadow. I am being born, not dying.

I am grateful for that stubborn little plant we call life. I’m thankful that it persists, digging its roots deeper and deeper into the ground and reaching up toward the sunlight in a new day. How glad I am that I am not dying, but being born!

Creating, Inspiration, Spiritual growth

Lessons

July 2, 2016 Rev Kathy

I don’t throw too much of my art into the trash can, but my painting on the day before yesterday was an abysmal creative failure. I love the serenity of Louisiana bayous, but I cannot paint them. I’ve tried before and it simply does not come out serenely, nowhere near it.

It makes me wonder how one might capture serenity on paper or canvas. It takes creative giftedness to be sure. I’ve seen it captured before by great artists. Which begs the question, why would I continue to paint knowing beyond any doubt that I am not one of those gifted artists?

I think the answer is that, though I cannot create works of genius, I can definitely engage in reflection and expression. Art is one of the ways I relax, refresh, and even worship. Trying too hard to create a worthy piece of art just spoils the experience.

There are some lessons here about not turning self-expression into the creation of a product.

1. Don’t worry about the final art. Instead relish in the creation of art.

2. Know that anytime a brush strokes paper, you are expressing a part of yourself.

3. Let your art come from within, a soulful gift you give yourself.

There are probably many other lessons, but this is a good start. The same lesson probably holds true for any creative endeavor, teaching us once again that the important thing is the journey, not the destination.

And all this emerged from a painting disaster destined for the trash. That’s a lesson in itself!

Contemplation, Inspiration, Prayer, Spiritual growth, Transformation

Hear Deeply

June 3, 2016 Rev Kathy

I try to practice deep listening. It’s a time for prayer and contemplation, but also a time set aside to really listen to God, to deeply listen to God. It is a quiet time and a tranquil space, not always easy to find. But it’s so cleansing and refreshing to listen to God from the depths of your soul.

Does God speak audibly? Does God communicate with us in a way we can literally hear? Probably not. It’s more about hearing with your soul and discerning with your heart. It can take time and personal discipline. Mostly it takes a desire to truly hear the message God wants to send.

Theron lies the problem. Perhaps I hear nothing because I am afraid of what God would ask of me. Perhaps I am afraid of what God might show me about myself. Perhaps I fear the truth of God’s message to me.

My desire is to get past that fear, to open my heart to God fully and completely, to listen with the ears of my soul. I will search for the sacred space I need, the quiet, alone place that is so important. I will figure out how to find the place that nourishes my soul, the place that enables me to hear deeply. Doing that brings transformation.

Courage, Faith, healing, Spiritual growth

Wounds of the Soul

May 30, 2016 Rev Kathy

The past and its memories can be harsh. Especially for those who have experienced great hurt. I call such hurts wounds of the soul.

After the injury ceases its pain, after the scars heal, the wounds of the soul remain. They remain forever as a reminder, not only that I was hurt, but also that I survived. I have learned not to be enslaved by my wounds. They remind me that I was stronger than the thing or the person that tried to hurt me.

How does one heal the wounds of the soul? You don’t heal them. They never go away. They remain on the soul as badges of courage and reminders of strength and perseverance. They happened in the past, of course, but they make me more mindful of the glories of the present moment.

“When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.”

– Thich Nhat Hanh
In spite of the soul’s wounds, I am filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love. There is a part of me that is grateful for the wounds that stay with me. They make me stronger. They make me resilient. They make me wise enough to not be hurt again. I want to always remember that the soul is able to endure the wounds. The soul’s memories will always mark the time of the hurt and hold it for safekeeping. The soul will bear its wounds with grace, thankful that they make us the person we are meant to be.

I often ask myself the question “Who would you be without the wounds?”

Creating, Inspiration, Self care, Spiritual growth

I Am Creating Me

May 27, 2016 Rev Kathy

As a fledgling artist, the metaphors in this quote by Bishop Steven Charleston resonate with my experience.

You and I are artists of time. We bend and shape, color and texture, make and form what is to come by what we do now. Now is our tool, our brush, our chisel, with which we work diligently to create something new. We use all of the materials we have at hand, our experience, our memories, our dreams, and seek to put all of those into a finished piece both recognizable and beautiful. Our work never stops. We are born to this art. It is our vocation, our passion. Time is our medium, life our creation, reality our gallery, tomorrow our masterpiece.

What a lovely way to say that we are the creators of our lives, that our experiences, our memories and our dreams fill our canvasses with untold beauty. We are each unique, artists in our own right. We work incessantly, through wake time and sleep time, through every season, to create this art. Indeed, it is our masterpiece.

The reality is that I am in the holy process of creating me, and no one else gets to add to the masterpiece.

We create our darkest tones in difficult times. Brighter days call for the most vibrant and bright colors. Melancholy blues . . . joy-filled yellows . . . greens that hint of growth and change. Our palettes are endless as we swirl and mix the colors of our lives.

So we must never let another person disparage what we are creating. We must take our inspiration, not from other individuals, but from our own souls and from our Creator. This gives a whole new meaning to the declaration we should imprint on our hearts, “I am beautiful!”

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