Jesuit Center on Fridays 1: Prayer Beads

my hand, my prayer beads by Wayne Stratz

And so it begins: a weekly series of images and thoughts from seven days of Silence at the Jesuit Center in Wernersvile, PA

I have never taken so many photos, and while over half have been weeded away, many remain for now in my photos. Shortly before I left for my retreat, I asked friends on Facebook, "What would you take on a silent retreat?"

"Meditation Beads," came from my friend who heads up TheSpaceForGrace. So I dug about and found these collecting dust since I made them years ago.

My friend, Deborah, would agree that to go deeper into an understanding of our faith is a call made by several spiritual masters. Ignatius called people to repeat an exercise to go deeper. For two years I have been praying my seven desires, but when I used the beads and made one complete trip for each desire, the prayer went deeper. I would apply there use again and again as the silence continued.

So thanks Deborah for a fine suggestion, which led to the first photos of the retreat.

my prayer beads by Wayne Stratz

Time to examen my simple desire, jazz in my church

 

One of the seven desires I carried with me from my week of silence this summer is jazz in my church. It may have been born the night Andrea Wolper sang at my church on the evening I chose to celebrate turning 50. But what does that mean and is now the time to figure it out.

For nearly five months it has been on my lips when I pray, and though the other six desires are thriving, I am at a loss of how to proceed and where would it be that I am headed if I proceeded. What is this desire?

To have concerts. To have vespers on a Saturday evening. Or to do something else.

Why is this important? It was important enough that I felt moved to spend a weekend traveling to Cleveland to a conference on jazz and worship.

I can feel the desire to create a liturgy immersed in jazz. Yet I wonder if I really want to do it. So I have avoided prayer to avoid the confusion. Maybe it is time to venture into my chair of contemplation and examen this that and the other thing.

 

In Preparation ~ training for a week of silence part a ~ a week with John Philip Newell

I met with my spiritual director shortly before our vacation. I told her I had a plan. The problem with telling someone your intentions is that it makes those intentions more set in stone. The first part was the easier part.

Seven days. A morning prayer. An evening prayer. Each day filled with reflections on a beatitude. I was off from teaching. Lots of time. Beautiful writing calling me into Newell's hope that we can bring peace by Praying with the Earth. It will end this evening. I would like to spend another week revisiting it, but...

... tomorrow begins a 40 day retreat. Which will take me almost to the exact end of teaching this summer. Like I said, I'm in training.

 

This year's Watch ~ foiling and praying

I am not so hot with sitting still and so I entered my studio at 10:00 this morning. At that time seven pieces had been foiled. By 11:05, all were done.
Near the beginning I read a reflection by Fr. James Martin, SJ. It asked us to consider the human side of Jesus pondering a failure as he suffered. Had his ministry been for nothing? Where do we see ourselves failing? Some students came to mind. But no matter the journey they have taken this school year, I'll have hope for their future. Maybe that hope is what has allowed me to continue on as a special education teacher for 26 years.

I also took a break from the foiling to browse scripture, this passage from Matthew struck me ~

"Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners."

Ironic. Sad. To come with a message of saying sacrifice is not what God wants, then to be asked to sacrifice his life. Can we be grateful? Can we experience the joy of Easter?

And surely jazz was flowing as I prayed and foiled. A few years back a friend gave me a CD, Jazz Meets Hymns by Juju Song. Wish I could have found a video of Were You There When They Crucified My Lord, but I did find this ~

May our prayers take us into deeper places.

an apparently wise decision ~ choosing to attend the World Day of Prayer

art by Anne-Lise Hammann

For weeks I wondered, do I want to do my usual thing ~ linger after work then head off to Owen J Roberts High School to set up for a craft show and miss the annual World Day of Prayer Service.

Or ~ go to the service and wake up early on Saturday morning.

I went with the new path and it was wise.  Friday I let two students crawl under my skin and push buttons so hard that I let them annoy me.  Both ended with a plan to help things go better the next time around, but I was tired as I drove home towards worship.  So sitting in church and watching women from my local community do what women all around the world were doing, helped to soothe me.  As did seeing a fine friend for the first time since a great sadness came upon her.  As did drinking a glass of wine, with some friends at the reception.

and as I sit here 24 or so hours later, I feel blessed to have chosen to rise early this morning.  And hoping I can find a video of the tune that brought forth that community of women last night. (for info on the artist of the poster)

to experience old friends

I had just shared my intention to creatively keep the hours to the group that had gathered for spiritual direction, when a question was posed.

Why?

I spoke about being closer to God and things like that, but by the time we gathered with the remnants of the other group and.... the man brought up the question a second time... I had another thought... these are old friends.

Lectio, Imaginative prayer, Intercessory prayer, Meditation, Examen.  They are prayers that were taught to me and prayers I had taught to others.  Then neglected, some more than others.  But are they not old friends I would love to be close to, yes they are.

So why keep the hours, to visit God by visiting old friends.  And this is why I go to group spiritual direction, where old friends ask me why.

Walking with God ~ Day by Day, Creatively Keeping The Hours

as seen at my church

A week or so before I left for the retreat I began a novel that is broken into sections called such things as Matins, Lauds, Terce, Compline.  Who knew it was preparing my soul for the workshops I chose.

The first workshop was based on a book by Marney K. Makridakis would love if we could create time by viewing it not as our enemy (fill in negative phrase here... killing time, comes to mind) but as something we are immersed within as our life flows into creation.  That is my take on the book, which I have not read.   I took this workshop because I knew I would be given colors to play with.   I drew something, which I gifted so it is not to bee seen here.  

My second workshop of the weekend was on keeping the hours, which though I wanted to drum, called me a bit stronger.  I got to hear a great story in the process about how my friend came to dig Martha while she was in silence.

What I drew was my abstract take on my soul stretching out to God at six times during the day.  So now let me get creative with my time and create some hours to keep.

Awakening time... between 6 and 7:00 a.m. 

Prep period time... 10:00 a.m.

Lunch break time... Noon

Preparing for the commute home time... 3:30 p.m. or later

After Dinner time... between 6 and 7:00 p.m. 

Examen time... 9:21 p.m. 

Now how to fill those first five times.  one could be reading a Psalm, and another to be imaginative while reading Matthew since our Bible study is examining the book this fall, one to sit with the prayer chain list and see who I am led to pray for, maybe one just to be quiet and breathe with God.  

So how about the fifth... any thoughts?

Mystical Mondays: Rumi learns by watching and listening to a squirrel

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky

What appealed to me in this poem is many a thing:  it made us laugh and reminded me of my favorite prayer, the Examen.  At night when I sit down to pray, I do it as if I was starting a conversation with a good friend, because really, what other kind of relationship with God do I want to have.  Also I am thinking it would be a grand thing that a benefit to saying grace is that my dinner will taste better.

Hey

The grass beneath the tree is content
and silent.

A squirrel holds an acorn in its praying hands,
offering thanks, it looks like.

The nut tastes sweet; I bet the prayer spiced
it up somehow.

The broken shells fall on the grass,
and the grass looks up
and says,
"Hey."

And the squirrel looks down
and says,

"Hey."

I Have been saying "Hey" lately too,
to God.

Formalities just weren't
working. 

Rumi

Mystical Mondays: Admiration, All Things, Results

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky

GOD'S ADMIRATION

God's Admiration for us is infinitely greater

than anything we can conjure up

for Him.

St. Francis of Assisi

IN ALL THINGS

It was easy to love God in all that

was beautiful.

The lessons of deeper knowledge, though, instructed me

to embrace God in all

things.

St. Francis of Assisi

  THE RESULT OF PRAYER

The result of prayer is life.

Prayer irrigates the

earth and

heart.

St. Francis of Assisi

My to do list, Examen the next Day

Back in August, in the midst of silence at Wernersville, well, in the midst of the one conversation I had that particular day, my spiritual director gave me a book to read.

I may have said something like this... "even the thought of how it may be good to get ready for my 8 days of silence, did not bring me back to praying the Examen."

My spiritual director handed me a book by Jim Manney while telling me about how it had rejuvenated her passion for the Examen. So I read it. And what struck me was how I had always resisted/ignored/avoided the part of the prayer about examening the next day. So I placed it into practice, and now four and a half months since I left that hill top, almost every night I sit down and look at my expected day. I check off what I did, but also examen what did not happen. The goal for me is to list what I fully expect to do the next day: teach about momentum, plant marjoram seeds, consult with a colleague, listen to jazz, hope, continue on with the big mandala project, pierogies for dinner, e-mail this friend, lift weights, ..... As I examen my future, I ponder: which are bringing me the gladness of anticipation for the next day and which bring me reluctance to face the day...

and which have I been avoiding but keep placing on the list.

So I came home and ordered the book.  I loaned it to a friend, and now I can imagine taking it out to the Jesuit Center when I spend a night there in February, a fine time to get recharged with a second read

.

Stained Glass Memorial: a special commission

One of my best friends at work was thrown for a loop not so long ago. It was clear it had been thrown as he spoke to me about the death of a man that had been there many a time when someone needed to be there for his family.

So he asked me to make a gift, a memorial to this man. We talked some colors, but they didn't seem to be well matched for the project. That evening in my studio I remembered a piece of glass that was not needed for a specific project when Mosiac Woman and I gone shopping for commissions, but it spoke loudly to me and came home with us.

I carried that piece of glass to work the next day.

Light will flow through this tonight when I solder these pieces into a whole. Soon people, who loved this man, will experience light shining upon them.

It is not the piece that brings healing. It is the light that shines through it.

May your peace be anchor in stormy tide,
May your hope run like a river that'll never run dry,
May your burdens grow light, may your worries subside,
This is my prayer for you.

May your soul grow deep, may your joy run wild,
May your heart know the face of mercy has smiled,
May your faith come to let you believe like a child,
This is my prayer for you.

This is my prayer for you.

Julie Miller

This is my prayer for you, my friend.

Going deeper into Anna and Tobit... I desire to shine like a coneflower, like Christ.

We returned to work on Monday to get the promised, but secret if not hinted at big news... our residential program will be closing down as of June's graduation. Much talk among friends since then with more than one assuring me that my position "must be safe." Who knows? Reassurance didn't help Anna and it doesn't help me.


Monday evening I walked to my church. And spurred on by a friend, who thought it wasn't a "great" story to say the least; and a friend, who had never heard it... I let loose into story telling mode. It is my best mode by far and I laughed out loud as we explored scripture.


Before I had walked to the church, I pulled a bright orange/yellow piece of paper out of my Bible to mark a page. After the laughter, I slowed down and with some pausing read...


Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul we come
in contact with may feel your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus!
Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as you shine;
so to shine as to be a light to others; the light O Jesus,
will be all from you, none of it will be ours;
it will be you, shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by
shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching, not by words
but by our example, by the catching force, the
sympathetic influence of what we do.
The evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.
Amen


That is what was hiding in my Bible, a prayer by Cardinal John Henry Newman, which is read daily by Mother Theresa's Missionary of Charity. This prayer resonates with my belief in God. I want to shine. I have read it every day this week.


Two hours later, I sat to Examen my day and I wrote "Where are your righteous deeds?" into my journal. I decided then that I would focus on teaching science and gardening and let my job be what it is and what it will hopefully be. Basically to live with uncertainty. I decided that I would bake bread with my students the next day as they came back and heard the news. And I would sell none of it. It would all flow into my students, well, I did eat my share.


Then after examining my day, I picked up "Inviting God In" by Joyce Rupp, and the random meditation included a quote from the above prayer.


Then I went to Flickr and found someone had commented on a photo which I had posted six months ago. I looked at the title, and I had no memory as to why I called it SHINE... then I read the comments below, and I saw a Flickr friend had given name to it. I hope to one day shine like this:






peace


...

Doubt-- being of two minds

last night...

I wrote a post which I can't quite get myself to publish, maybe later.

I turned on fans, opened windows, put on my mask, and cranked up a pre-jazz era CD. I hate soldering, but maybe one day I will get better at it. for now I have to hope that my designs and my color choices will impress folk.

I took it to the bathroom sink to wash off the flux. In my studio, I held it up to the light, and I struggled to see it. It was dark outside so I couldn't hang it in a window and back up. It was inspired by a friend's grief. And until that moment it was just an idea. It is the light that brings it to life.

as I struggled to see it as a whole, this song came on.... Mary by Patty Griffin

I came down to fit some prayer time in before Mosaic Woman got home, and skipped my opening ways. The Jesuits taught me that one should start prayer by saying hi to God. So I breathe, In and Out.... Here..... I am.

I skipped to writing down blessings and it started dark... Thanks for the challenging job, turned to the sweet peppers brought in for dinner, then I wrote... "Do I want my job? what went wrong today?"

I look back now and just see it as being tired. so so many emotional fires to put out for one stoic guy to handle.

I am a man of doubt. Every Sunday I sit in church and wonder how I can believe such stuff, then it passes. A hymn touches my heart. The Eucharist touches my soul. Most days at work I wonder if I will last long at my job, then it passes as I have fun with a class. Today I ran into an amazingly bright student, who just can't get his thoughts on paper, as he gathered to go to his off campus apartment. I told him he was running out of time to prove to me he was as bright was we both thought he was. I told him I would be in my room. He showed up after making a deal with his residential staff. He knew his stuff as I asked him questions. We brainstormed ways to get him to college. Like I said he is bright and he could list several things holding him back. When I told him to head back. He rose and put out his hand to me. He frustrates me greatly at times, but I will go back tomorrow, and at some point ask the Lord, who I don't always believe in, to help me through. I will remember that hand. That gesture.

28 days of everyday life

If I had done it the quick way, then I would be nearly done, however, I have barely begun. Ignatius's spiritual exercises can be done at The Jesuit Center in Wernersville in just over 30 days. I lack the money, time, job, and understanding wife to go away for a month. Margaret graciously allows me 8 days to be in silence each summer, but 32 is pushing it.

Ignatius had annotations and the 19th states the possibility for people like myself to do the "exercises in everyday life." This means I pray for an hour 7 times a week and then meet with my spiritual director. That counts as one day. My director is not Jesuit nor Catholic, but like myself he is an anglo-catholic and he trained at Wernersville. When I met him this summer, he told me that he had no time in the evening or on weekends. So I fit him in on Thursday mornings before I go to work, after which I go to my class. It is a long day leaving the house at 6:30 and getting home around 9:30. 28 days in and I am beginning to sense what it means to be in retreat during everyday life.

Getting up early for prayer each day, exhausted me, so after two weeks I adjusted. An Hour on Thursday-- you've got to be kidding. Now, I am finding a rhythm to this retreat. I pray twice on either Saturday or Sunday. Mondays and Wednesdays there is time when I get home from work, after a short nap. Tuesday I pray when Margaret is off at choir practice. Last Friday I got up early, because we had a date planned in the evening. I am still off balance as I fit prayer around exercise, teaching, Margaret, friends, music, gardening.... you know everyday life. But a good friend said, I looked better today, and I believe her.

Yesterday I did a "consideration." It took me to a place where I could imagine loving a group of seven students where love was low. Today the class went smoothly and one student who had been convinced I was the devil (she did say that), apologized to me. The prayer the night before had placed me in a frame of mind to accept it. Well, the smile that came with the apology was amazing too. So I gave her and the other dreaded six students a freshly baked whole wheat roll which had had diced hot peppers mixed into the dough. It was a blessing. I reflected on it this afternoon as I prayed with a passage in Romans-- those who follow the spirit are adopted by God. As I prayed I thought that I needed to thank the staff member who intervened between the student and myself yesterday. That will fit into my everyday life tomorrow.

time for a friend

I am behind in grading my students work, I scramble to be prepared for teaching, my garden at home has been neglected, and I am falling further behind in my readings for the graduate class I am taking. However, I have found time to pray for an extra hour each day (by getting up early) because I have started Ignatius's spiritual exercises in everyday life. Prayer is a fine time to discern what needs to be done.

Three weeks ago I heard some sad news. Two weeks ago I walked a labyrinth and that news came into my prayer. A friend at work has gotten some rotten medical news and is at home hoping for a miracle. As I sat in the middle of the labyrinth God says, "Tell me you don't have the time to go visit the man. The man who has greeted you with kindness for ten years." What could I say to that?

His wife is an avid gardener and requested help dividing day lilies and irises which are taking over portions of her yard. She pointed out that the day lilies were a favorite of his. I e-mail her telling her I wanted to get some so that I could bring them to work and create a garden with my horticulture students.

I was well into getting myself sweaty and dirty when he came outside with his feeding tube. We sat in the middle of an amazing garden. While I drank water, we chatted. We spoke about spiritual retreats, the school we work at, the garden, his diagnosis, and Psalms. I have heard he is praying psalms every night. I tell him psalm 139 is important to me, and it turns out that we share favorite psalms. He tells me how he watches the Christmas Carol each year because of a recitation of psalm 139.

An hour or so later I was headed to the school to unload a car filled to the brim with lilies and irises. I am physically and emotionally drained. The day is near over and all of the things which I have fallen behind are still on my to do list. I do believe I discerned correctly on how I spent this day.

Tonight my prayer takes me to the idea of God creating us out of nothing each moment. I sense this is how miracles can occur. In that instant of being recreated, maybe, just maybe healing can occur.