"making space for 'other'"

[lizaduff]

Hi Dear Friends, I saw this quote today in my daily email from Richard Rohr....

and I entitle this subject "making space for 'other'" because this is a term, and a step, that we take in listening from the 'felt sense'....that, after I 'make space' for all that is 'within me' (both the huge and glorious and the stuck and not-happy) then I can 'make space' for 'all of you'...both your great and beautiful and the stuck and hurting-hurtful parts of you....just seeing it, 'holding both' to use felt-sense language....it's a step in healing...

sorry to go on so...so here's Richard Rohr's comments today (while I don't feel drawn to everything that he brings, I do hear something very worth while):


A very little bit of God goes an awfully long way. When another’s experience of God isn’t exactly the way I would describe it, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t had an experience of God or that their experience is completely wrong. We have to remain with Francis’ prayer: “Who are you, God, and who am I?” Isn’t there at least ten percent of that person’s experience of God that I can agree with? Can’t I at least say, “I wish I could experience God in that way”?

What characterizes anyone who has had just a little bit of God is that they always want more of that experience! Could it not be that this Hindu, this Sufi, this charismatic, this Jewish woman has, in fact, touched upon the same eternal Mystery that I am seeking? Can’t we at least give one another the benefit of the doubt? I can be somewhat patient with people who think they have the truth. The problem for me is when they think they have the whole truth.

The mystic probably represents the old shibboleth, “Those who really know don’t speak too quickly. Those who speak too quickly don’t really know.”

Adapted from Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate
. . . Seeing God in All Things (CD, DVD, MP3

[Joseph]

Dear Elizabeth,

This writing of yours and Richard's is a beautiful thing for me to read when I came to open this DLS Forum. It continues along a thread of my feelings and thoughts as I wakened from my night's sleep.

Usually when I first wake (after a bathroom break) is to stay in bed to pray and meditate and to 'listen' in silence for Spirit words. This phase of my morning wake up time may last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half or so. And what I begin in bed usually carries over to the time when I dress and walk into my office/study located at the far end of our home. It may be that I then walk about in my office saying the great prayer for the Divine Love, or I may sit in my soft chair to continue meditation or prayer. I have no set ritual, though at times it may appear that I do. There are days, like today, when I go direct to my computer in order to search for a definition of a word or phrase that came to me earlier in the morning. That word today is this: "Dark Night of the Soul." I had a vague remembrance of this phrase, but I wanted to refresh my memory of its origin. I discovered that it originated with the 16th-century Spanish poet and Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross, where in a poem he "narrates the journey of the soul from its bodily home to its union with God. The journey is called "The Dark Night", because darkness represents the hardships and difficulties the soul meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator" [from Wikipedia Dictionary].

So, Elizabeth, I felt when I read your post this morning I was continuing with a thread of a thought and feeling from my morning spiritual exercise. Thank you for posting what you did.

With much love,

Joseph

PS I may or may not begin a new topic on the subject of our "dark nights of the soul," our transformational changes experienced and being experienced as we continue to be changed by the in flowing of God's Great Love - the Divine Love.

[Doles]

Dear Elizabeth,
I don't have much to contribute to your writing other than to say Amen to Joseph's reply. I loved every bit of your and Richard's words there.
P.S. Dear Joseph,
I might not have much to say about the topic you mentioned...but I would definitely like to read the discussions of which I'm sure many will contribute. It sounds like something I might learn a thing or two from.

[AlFike]

Lovely post Elizabeth. We all need to open our hearts and our minds to our brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. The time has come to tear down the barriers and at least try to love and accept unconditionally. This is Love in action and a powerful atidote to all the fear, ignorance and negativity out there. Thanks for bringing up the subject and expressing it so well as you always do. And Joseph, I would like to hear more from you. It seems we are all on a pendulum swinging between light and dark. That's the vision I get from the little you have said. Hopefully we can talk about this sometime soon. With love.......Al

[brother dave k.]

Elizabeth and Joseph, thank you for your contributions. i love it when we get into the real stuff of making spiritual progress and what it is for us, how and what we experience as we progress. It is much more honest (hopefully) and authentic. i'll have to read through the quote again and meditate on it. (It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it (or rejecting it) (or as the buddah would say "attaching" to it).

Joseph, i do think from my experience with very many people in the spiritual fellowship of recovery who practice the principles of spiritual growth every day with help from others, that many have reported passages in their progress where the mental personality (some say "ego" death) has to let go to the innate soul personality, that they go through, or have gone through, denial, anger (resentment), bargaining (self rationalization and justification), depression (dispare), and then finally acceptance (Love is acceptance (of the truth). Jerry Jampolsky). Thomas Merton wrote extensively on his experiences of the existential dread and crisis, etc. in this regard. Now we may speculate and imagine that we do not have to go through these experiences, and that the Divine Love is so magical that we just become celestial without these experiences, but that has not been my experience, and the experiences of many of my personal friends and acquaintances who do the real work of spiritual progress, including daily prayer.

So, in summary, these are the real productive and helpful discussions that help people not feel isolated and alone in the experiences of progression, but promote real connections, unity and harmony in community or society.

So thank you both very much.
With much love to all,
brother dave k.

[Terry Adler]

Another Wow!
I have just discovered this thread, and want to thank you, dear Elizabeth, for starting it by sharing Richard's comments, and Joseph, Dave, Doles and Al for their contributions. What I hear Dave saying is that he appreciates the honesty we are moving into, as I do also! I think one of the dangers of a Forum like this lies in inadvertantly encouraging the wearing of "rose colored glasses" which characterizes seeking the Love as a predominantly blissful process. In my humble experience, it is a roller-coaster ride, with many "downs" requiring me to struggle, learn, stretch myself in order to reach the "ups". I have come to know it as a cyclical process, with greater strength and faith emerging from each down-turn that then gives rise to progress followed by another life-lesson and down-turn.
I find the quote from Richard especially meaningful because it challenges me to accept myself where I am and others where they are, without comparative judgments. It calls me to learn from differences rather than be driven by insecurities to either defend my stance, to belittle it or to disparage others.
Very meaningful to me! Thanks!
Love,
Terry

[lizaduff]

Hello, dear friends,

and wow, I just turn my back for a day, and look what happens! I didn't know there was any comment about what I wrote, in fact--and this will probably not surprise any of you--I forgot that I wrote that.

It is very meaningful to me to have written you about 'making space' because we usually have to struggle to 'make space' for the less savory things we find inside, while it's easy to 'make space' for the things we are happy to find, and eager to share with others. I do not care to share envious thoughts when they come up, or a sense of despair, and like all of my friends and family, my first reaction is to try to brush away those thoughts and feelings.

Thank you all for the things you have contributed to this string; it gives me much to consider. Like Joseph, and probably like all of you, I find the first moments of the day to be very rich and generally prefer to stay in bed, sit up, and pray for a while, letting thoughts come. It is a rich time of day, isn't it?

Sometimes my biggest struggles come when I cannot sleep, and I am finally called to 'make space' for something that feels 'not-happy- or worse, and I sit with it, and I ask our Father to let His Divine Love listen with me here. And during the day, when I feel a pain in the body, I also try to 'make space' for it, and invite it to let me know anything it would like me to know. It's usually ready to tell me something I need to hear, and it's often surprising. Sometimes underneath pain or unhappiness is something that wants love, or is actually energetic but was just being pushed down. I would have to give illustrations but cannot right now.

For me, the 'dark night of the soul' often means those dark moments where I have no sense of God's Love with me, as I am sitting with some previously hidden suffering that is now ready to come out and be healed, and it is a dark time, and can be a time of momentary doubt. But when I 'face' this doubt, and say 'oh, you're here, and you are doubtful', I feel a great relief inside, as though a young child in there was relieved to finally be heard, and then it calms down and 'comes to the table' which is an expression I use...that all those cut off and unhappy places are 'welcome at the table' and need not hide in the closet anymore, that they can be heard with compassion (our Father's great Divine Love) and then they relax and 'come to the table' and become 'part of the family', not in their own miserable state anymore, but now are fresh, healthy parts of myself that were submerged in the past after traumatic events, some of the chronic clusters of events.

I wonder if anyone can relate to this. If not, I am sorry. I am just writing as it comes to me and perhaps it is incoherent.

with love from your sister
elizabeth

[brother dave k.]

Thank you both so very much for what you have shared for the rest of us.

In the Spirit of Progress in the Christ Spirit,
brother dave k.

[Terry Adler]

I am re-reading this thread and savoring it once again. Dave captures a key understanding of mine, that the Divine Love is not magical in the sense that it absolves us from going through "dark nights of the soul", rather, it gives us the courage to do so.
Elizabeth describes what the "dark night of the soul" means to her in a way I can totally relate to!

Elizabeth, I value more than I can say, how clearly you write about the inner dialogue that is necessary to help us recognize, embrace and bring into the Light, those abandonned, rejected, dis-owned parts of ourselves that always have something to teach us, if only we are brave enough to dialogue with them. I will gratefully receive anything you are willing to share about your process and experiences with this; you are a model for me, a valued teacher!

Love,
Terry

[brother dave k.]

i am overjoyed at the transparent genuineness that is all authentic in both of your posts. As i listened to the sharing of your "process" Elizabeth i could completely relate to your words of expression. i might, because of my background and education, us different words that would say the same thing. Your expressions of experience and strength will give much hope to many. Fewer will feel alone in their struggles because of it.

Thank you both for being here and having the courage to express what you do.

your brother in the Christ Spirit,

dave k.