God s Love in my Life Story

Transcription

1 Transformation Intensive Week 1 Part 1 God s Love in my Life Story The graces we are seeking: The grace to welcome the Holy Spirit into my memories The grace to see God s love in the storyline of my life The first two weeks of the Transformation Intensive are critically important. We are invited to remember and ponder the experiences that are foundational to our personal relationship with God. It is not meant to be an introspective, self-led stroll down memory lane. Instead, we will ask the Holy Spirit to illumine our memories and bring past experiences of God s love into our awareness in the present moment. The prayer exercises for the next two weeks are designed to help us to establish a base line of what God s love feels like to us personally. For the next two weeks, the pattern for each day has two parts: Part 1: (15-20 minutes) Quiet your mind and body, then pray with one of the assigned passages of scripture. Savor these passages of scripture, especially where you find consolation. Part 2: (10-30 minutes) Read the Surprised by Joy Prayer Exercise. Then use the prompts on the worksheet to ponder one or two memories at time. Scripture for this week: o Psalm 139:1-4 o Psalm 139:5-12 o Psalm 139:13-18 o Isaiah 43:1-4 o Luke 11:1-13 o Luke 12:22-34 o Review / repeat / prepare for sharing with your small group End of the day: Return to the place you have set aside for prayer and spend 5-15 minutes praying with the Gratitude Examen. Prayer resources for this week: Praying with Scripture Gratitude Examen Anima Christi prayer, traditional, and contemporary paraphrase by David Fleming O Gracious Light, Book of Common Prayer

2 2

3 Surprised by Joy Prayer Exercise In his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis describes some experiences from his childhood that marked the beginning of his relationship with God, even though he did not realize it at the time. If you are reader of C. S. Lewis s fiction you will recognize immediately how these childhood experiences shaped The Chronicles of Narnia. In this prayer exercise, we invite the Holy Spirit to help us recall memories that reveal how God was reaching out to us in love, even when we were yet unaware. This is not the standard what is your testimony exercise. Rather, we are asking to be shown those moments, which may have seemed so ordinary at the time, where God was revealing Godself to us, and where God was creating a longing in us to know him better. Many people have a come to Jesus moment when they respond intentionally to a Gospel message, but our focus here is on the love-story of our relationship with God that precedes and follows such a crisis event. For those who did not have such a crisis moment, this exercise allows us to narrate our salvation history in ways that are concrete and real, but that might not quite fit the traditional Evangelical narrative. Step by step: o Open your prayer time. Quiet your mind and body. Invite the Holy Spirit to rest upon your memories, to illumine them, to make them vivid and present to you now. o Read C. S. Lewis s account of his memories, carefully and prayerfully. This account may spark your own memories. o For the next minutes (more if you have the time), ponder one or two memories at a time using the prompts on the worksheet. There is no rush. Aim for six to ten memories over the course of the whole week of prayer. o Allow yourself to just be in the memory and notice details. Try not to analyze it. o Write something down that will help you to remember it and return to it later. o Close your prayer time. Make the sign of the cross, or pray with an ancient prayer: O Gracious Light, Anima Christi, or the Lord s Prayer. 3

4 4

5 Excerpt Surprised by Joy: The Shape of my Early Life C. S. Lewis (1955) The first is itself the memory of a memory. As I stood beside a flowering current bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensations which came over me. Milton s enormous bliss of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to enormous ) comes the somewhere near to it. It was a sensation of course, of desire; but desire for what? Not certainly, for a biscuit tin filled with moss, nor even (though that came into it) for my own past. And before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased. It had taken only a moment of time; and in a certain sense everything else that ever happened to me was insignificant in comparison. The second glimpse came through Squirrel Nutkin, through it only, though I loved all the Beatriz Potter Books. But the rest of them were merely entertaining; it administered the shock, it was a trouble. It troubled me with what I can only describe as the Idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say that no one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; and as before the experience was one of intense desire. And one went back to the book, not to gratify the desire (that was impossible how can one possess Autumn?) but to reawake it. And in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, in another dimension. The third glimpse came through poetry. I had become fond of Longfellow s Saga of King Olaf: fond of it in a casual, shallow way for its story and its vigorous rhythms. But then, and quite different from such pleasures, and like a voice from far more distant regions, there came a moment when I idly turned those pages of the book and found the unrhymed translation of Tegner s Drapa and read I heard a voice that cried, Balder the beautiful Is dead,is dead I knew nothing about Balder, but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky. I desired with almost sickening intensity, something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, severe, pale and remote) and then, as in the other examples, found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it. The reader who finds these three episodes of no interest need read this book no further, for in a sense the central story of my life is about nothing else. For those who are still disposed to proceed, I will only underline the quality common to the three experiences, it is of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in any sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is. 5

6 Surprised by Joy Worksheet Meaningful experiences in nature (peace, awe, wonder, at-one-ness, etc.) Memories of pretending and playing in childhood Moments of connection or affirmation with a parent or mentor during childhood or adolescence Memories of being alone but notalone in childhood or later C. S. Lewis words: Sensation of desire for I knew not what Something that administered a shock or was a trouble Intense desire or longing Sense of nature s transcendence quality, i.e. Autumn Sense of surprise joy that comes out of nowhere An ordinary moment that seems suddenly to be of incalculable importance Intuition of another dimension of reality Longing for a distant land Sense of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction Experience of joy: anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Feeling of enormous bliss 6

7 Experiences of being under the muse of creativity (art, music, writing, acting, etc.) Peak moments of joy in life events C. S. Lewis words: Sensation of desire for I knew not what Something that administered a shock or was a trouble Intense desire or longing Sense of nature s transcendence quality, i.e. Autumn Sense of surprise joy that comes out of nowhere An ordinary moment that seems suddenly to be of incalculable importance Intuition of another dimension of reality Longing for a distant land Sense of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction Experience of joy: anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Feeling of enormous bliss 7

8 8

9 Gratitude Examen v Presence: Become present to God and aware of God s loving gaze upon you. Take a few deep breaths and relax into this way of prayer. Notice God s presence dwelling in you and all around you. v Gratitude: Notice the things that come to mind for which you are immediately grateful; nothing is to too big or too small. Express your thanks and then invite the Holy Spirit to illumine your memories of the past twenty-four hours. v Review the day: v Savor: Holy Spirit, I welcome you into my recollections of this day. I want to notice what needs noticing so that I can recognize God s love and generosity towards me and the world around me. As the hours replay in your mind be aware of the varied dimensions of your experience: Five senses: Notice the things that you encountered through your five senses: what you saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt with your hands and on your skin. Relationships: Recall faces of the people who crossed the path of your life today. Notice any details of conversations or interactions that present themselves in your review. Memories: What memories (if any) presented themselves to you today? Express your gratitude to God and savor the gifts of this day. v Ingratitude: v Savor: Lord, I want to notice any ingratitude I have in relation to You and other people. I give you permission to show me the ways I ve been ungrateful. Five senses: Is there any material, created thing in my life that I struggle to appreciate? Relationships: Is there someone in my life right now that I have failed to appreciate as your own beloved creation? Memories: Help me notice and give You thanks for all the people and circumstances and events of my life that reveal Your love and care for me. Forgive me for all the ways, large and small, that I have been ungrateful. Thank you, Lord God, for gift of my life. Rest for a minute or two in the forgiveness and love of God. v Focus forward: Call to mind what awaits you tomorrow. Ask for growing gratitude in the various arenas of your life, especially the ones you find most challenging. v Conclude: with the Lord s Prayer. 9