The Home Altar

Last weekend I spent a significant bit of time on a single garden project. I built a raspberry trellis out of wood, cable, and metal stakes. The eventual goal is to take the somewhat unruly raspberry bush and gently train it up into the cables so it can grow with better airflow, lots of sunshine, and easy access for pollinators.

Since the structure will also allow for the healthy canes to be held aloft, the weedy ground cover that has invaded the patch will be exposed where we can cut it down, hoe it out, and provide protective cover and mulch for the space. All of this work should help to make this patch fruitful and give it room to grow as we let suckers start new canes inside the bounds of the trellis system. The cables are set up in such a way that we can loosen the clamps and add more tension. And the cables are attached to the posts with carabiner clips, meaning the cables can be opened for pruning, harvesting, and adjusting. There is a lot of flexibility within the structure, since we’re partnering with a plant that is growing, changing, and living in it’s own organic pattern.

This structure reminds me of the way a rule of life (whether corporate, personal, or some combination of the two) and a personal spiritual practice work when they are a healthy system designed to both hold space and provide a container for a growing, changing, living self. While there is a defined layout and method of containment, and there is a slow and gentle work of attaching to the apparatus, it needs to be flexible enough to accommodate what is real and true in a given moment of our life and growing.

A rule and a practice should be giving us gentle guidance that points us in the direction of the wisdom we want to embody. It should regularly expose us to the spiritual nourishment that we need, just as the trellis helps the patch access sun, water, pollinators, and good airflow. It helps when our practice meets us at the level of our thirst, breath, hunger, and longing for connections that make us more fruitful. Our rule and practice can guide our growth in ways that provides support and healthy space to what is new, what is emerging, and what is flowering.

It’s even helpful when our rule and practice makes room for the gardeners (our mentors, companions, partners, and even the Holy One) to weed our plot, clear out the things we don’t need or that hold us back, and to provide the safety of mulch and protection for our roots. Moving beyond a self-help model of being our best selves, we can find the flexibility and openness we need to be both our current selves (weeds and slugs and all) and to bear witness to what emerges as we continue the mystery of becoming who we will be.

Practice

Spend some time writing down or studying your rule (the disciplines of loving self, others, and the Divine that you are committed to), and your practice (what makes up your daily and weekly habits of awe, meaning making, prayer, reflection, meditation, etc.).

• What are the parts that bring you in touch with nourishment and support that comes from beyond yourself?
• What parts give you guidelines and boundaries?
• Where do you see space for you to grow and change, and to adjust as you go?
• Who is actively helping you to weed, mulch, and compost the parts of your life and experience that interfere with your well-being, sense of peace, and felt safety that helps you to trust?
• How are you enjoying and savoring this structure? If you aren’t, what feels inflexible, constricting, or unhelpful and would be a great area to explore with a trusted listener?

After your reflection, take time to feel the gratitude for what feels supportive, and to ask for help and self-compassion on the areas that need tending. Send some love to your rule and your practice, noting how it keeps you connected to yourself, to others, and to the Holy One.

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

It’s been a little bit as I’ve been spending time being gentle with myself. I hope that my readers and clients find ways to take that freedom too when life is momentous, heavy, or hard. Almost immediately after sharing my post about the reflective practices of Holy Week, my own family life was upended by loss, grief, and bereavement.

Inside our household at St. Clare House, we’ve been riding the waves of challenge as our dog Matteo ages. He is losing his sight. He isn’t a puppy or even an adult dog now at 14 years old. He’s a senior. Along with this slow moving transition, he had a serious bout of pancreatitis, which can be fatal if left untreated. While he has made it through treatment and a restricted medical diet and seems to be doing well, this is another step in the aging process of decline. Recognizing that a beloved creature has less time left than we have already richly enjoyed brings grief.

As if this were not enough, all of these household gyrations and animal hospital visits took place in the same space as a broader family loss. My partner’s father had been failing in health since 2022, and in 2024 the decline worsened. So it was that on Wednesday of Holy Week we were rushing to the animal hospital even as our other family members were taking him to the emergency room on Holy Wednesday.

Unsure of how things might play out, knowing how many small emergencies had subsided in the past two years, we remained home for one more night. The very next morning we were greeted by the phone call no one wants to get, “something has happened and they are working to revive him.” Fifteen years of chaplaincy and bereavement care in the parish told me that we had arrived at the final chapter.

In lieu of the traditional Holy Week exercises, we spent Maundy Thursday racing to Connecticut so we could be bedside with the rest of the family. We participated in my father-in-law’s receiving the sacrament of the sick and last rites. We said goodbye to this well loved father, father-in-law, husband, friend. We learned the gut punch of the Paschal mysteries first hand as we watched him die.

We held each other in tears, through donated meals, in wondering, in processing, in sorrow, and in relief. We stayed close to the upper room of the family dining room, wondering if there could still be life in the face of this very real loss. We began the process of telling the story of this man we loved to one another, so that we would be ready to recount it to others in the days ahead.

The shock of Good Friday. The silence of Holy Saturday. All embodied in a gathered body in a family childhood home. Easter was weird. The mention of my father-in-law in the intercessions brought fresh weeping. The meal was delicious and good, and it was so good to be together and yet so strange. Somehow we had come to the day of resurrection “still doubting and wondering”.

At first, I felt thrown by this turn of events, and by the way in which the rituals of personal bereavement had supplanted the ritual practice of the Holy Days. In addition, I had finished a Lenten routine that I dearly loved and found very anchoring throughout the season, and it seemed as though now I was untethered.

It was only as I was reflecting with my own spiritual director that I saw how I was riding out the storm thanks to the ballast of my practice (both old and keeping a few items from Lent), and that while I might feel a bit rudderless (unable to steer), my balance in the waves was holding up. Daily meditation through breath prayer, walking, and my prayer rope had continued at habitual level, and I had barely noticed. The daily offices were like old friends, coming and calling each day to see how I was. Praying for others felt purposeful. These all anchored me as I gave loving guidance to family members as they planned a funeral and a celebration of life, prepared obituaries, and crafted heartfelt eulogies. My experience of doing this hundreds of times made these compassionate tasks a source of comfort to them and to me.

I’m still grieving and I will be for some time. My practice has not been a shortcut or a workaround for the bodily sensations, the warm tears, the sadness, the laughter at good memories, or the gratitude of watching a large family grieve well and marveling at the privilege of being a part of it. At the same time, I don’t feel like I’m sinking, and I’m confident that this moment of suffering can be met with compassion for myself and others.

Practice

Take a moment to sit quietly and anchor yourself in your breath.

Reflect on your week.

Can you catch yourself being kind to you?

What did that kindness look like?

When you have noticed yourself moving from fixing to experiencing, what habits helped you make that shift?

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

Here in the northern hemisphere, we’re growing accustomed to an ever growing number of daylight hours. Christian communities who follow the Gregorian calendar are in the beginning of Holy Week, a time of intense and prayerful focus on the final days of Jesus’ life and transformation of death and defeat through resurrection.

I pray for a blessed Lent to our Orthodox Christian siblings, and for many blessings to those celebrating a variety of religious holidays and holy days, including Ramadan, Holi, and Purim.

As I engage deeply in my own practice, I offer here a reflection I penned on April 3, 2017 as that year’s solemn observance began. It is ended both as pondering and as an invitation to practice for those who are called to participate:

“Doing anything with single-mindedness is hard. Doing it for a week is harder. God’s invitation to us in the week ahead is an audacious one; “Give me a week and I will remake the world”. Contained within this promise is the equally powerful personal promise; “Give me a week and I will remake you.” Dwelling in the stories, songs, prayers and silences that made up the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry is challenging, but it does something to us, it opens us to the possibility of resurrection in the Easter story and in our own lives.

Palm/Passion Sunday

The coming weekend reminds us of the highs and lows of the week. We sing hosanna (please save us!), we wave branches and we remember Jesus’ joyful entry into Jerusalem. We also remember how this triumph turned tragic as the politics of the day had no room for a leader named Jesus.

Holy Monday

Jesus wasn’t timid during his visit to the Holy City, after that grand parade he got busy chasing the moneychangers and animal dealers out of the courtyards of the Temple.

Holy Tuesday

Jesus is surprised by an extravagant gift of love. During a dinner at a friend’s house, a woman pours expensive perfume all of his head, anointing him for burial. His friends struggle with the apparent waste, but he urges them to be generous in all things and to see what lies ahead.

Holy Wednesday

Sometimes called Spy Wednesday, this is the day associated with Judas and his plot to turn over Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. What could someone get you to do for a month of wages?

Maundy Thursday

From Mandatum or command, this day recalls that Jesus instructed his friends during his final meal before his arrest. He commanded them to love one another, represented by the washing of feet. He commanded them to remember him with the special Supper that he celebrated that night.

Good Friday

We read the story of the passion and crucifixion, not to feel morally superior to Jesus’ tormentors, but to recognize ourselves in them and to see the mercy Jesus extends to them and to us. We reel in the sadness of the loss and cry out in desperation “Remember me when you come into you kingdom!”

Holy Saturday

A time for silence, for watching and waiting. A time to keep vigil in all the places where death claims to be the last word. A time to contemplate the depths that Christ would go to, knowing the despair of death after death, before revealing true life after death.

Easter Vigil

We emerge from our silence to remember stories of salvation, to listen for Good news, to welcome new siblings into the family of God, and to sing the first songs of praise in the night!

Easter Day

From sunrise to sunset, we marvel in the power of God to make a way where there is none and to bring life out of death. In our worship, our festivities and even the quiet dinner of leftovers Jesus is present.

I urge you to use this listing as a guide, even if you can’t gather with others during each step of the way, to reset your mindfulness of Jesus’ journey to the Cross and beyond each day. Take time to pause, read the passages in your bible, imagine each scene and soak in what it means when the shouts of “He is Risen” fall on your ears.”

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

One key function of prayer, meditation, and reflection time is a form of self-care that I like to call self-nurture. It’s the act of both attuning and attending to presenting needs and feelings the way that a caregiver does for another person. This can be especially important when puzzling over why we reacted or responded to the circumstances of our day in a way that feels “over-sized” for the actual experiences we encountered. What was happening outside of us probably began to dance with what is inside of us, our unspoken and sometimes even unacknowledged needs. Sometimes we can’t process the meaning of an experience, or begin to grasp where Divine Wisdom was unfolding in the space, because we have an unmet need, an unrealized sensation, or an incomplete physical or emotional response happening in response to what we have heard, seen, done, or had done to us.

Self-nurture takes practice and can feel unnecessarily self-indulgent, especially if we grew up in an environment where coping strategies like denying or minimizing our needs were prevalent. This can include realistic, yet unhelpful comparisons between the struggle or suffering of people in our lives. “I could have it so much worse” is a form of bypassing, which isn’t necessarily wrong, but it can be a form of deep alienation from what is actually happening inside of us.

Sometimes, we need to start small, with acts of attunement. Since transitory experiences, including self-awareness can quickly slip from consciousness and into our unconscious mind, there is value in having a tool at hand to begin this practice. I’ve pictured here a pocket sized notebook and pen, but truthfully, voice memos, evocative photographs, an email to ourselves, or any other tool that captures the moment of self-awareness can be helpful. The key is being able to re-encounter in brief form that “when I was doing A, I experienced emotions B & C, and it was accompanied by the bodily sensations of D, E, F.” For example, “giant Jenga set fell over with a loud sound, I was frightened, body tensed, heart raced, scanning for exits.”

As we explore this practice, it can be helpful to capture safe and reliable attunement tools for our toolbox, i.e. “this song helps me feel angry safely, this movie always makes me fall over laughing, this poem is great when I need to cry, etc.” These tools that help us move in the direction of a self-expression can be helpful when our attunement is a fuzzy approximation, or when we need to move towards attending, but aren’t sure how to help ourselves feel more richly or fully.

When attuning, via a self check, or processing with a trusting listener, becomes comfortable and natural, and we have a robust catalogue of both experiences we want to process and those that bring reliable outcomes, we can begin to think about attending.

Attending can be as simple as discharging stuck energy (going for a run when remembering something that makes us want to flee), actually feeling our feelings until the feeling of the tide going out and settling washes over us, or providing gentle and affirming touch to the part of our body that feels constricted, numb, tight, or buzzing. Sometimes our prayer response and practice changes, based on the spiritual medicine we need in that moment. In deep fear and anxiety, we may need to engage deep, slow breath and settle our bodies into the cradling arms of our Divine Parent. In deep sadness we may need to move our bodies and dance and weep all at once. This is why knowing what is going on is critical to trying to meet our need.

Our ability to attend to ourselves in merciful and nurturing ways depends on some amount of attuning to what is really going on. Is this pain emotional, physical, spiritual, or all of the above? Am I lonely, or hungry, or bored? Am I longing to laugh or cry, but need a permission giving nudge? What tools, resources, and relationships do we have to explore these questions?

Sometimes, we have a beloved caregiver in our past, and we can readily summon up the energy of this wise ancestor, imagining what they would do to care for us. Other times, we may struggle to call someone like this to mind. Here, let us rejoice that we have been made with marvelous imaginations. Perhaps we can borrow the energy of a beloved figure from sacred scripture or a well-loved story. There’s nothing wrong with saying to ourselves in this process, “today, I will care for me and invite myself to adventures the way that Frog does for Toad.”

Other times, we may struggle with naming any human relationship that has provided this deep care, and need to ask the Holy One if they will fill this role for us. We invite the Spirit to inspire us to attend to us, they way that the one who gives life and breath to the world might do. Here is faith, the very idea that in the vast and sacred expanse of this moment, all of the love and compassion of the entire cosmos are present to us. In the end, it really will be okay.

It can be so tempting to focus on self-discipline as the entire path to self-care. It is true that moving towards a vision of a new life requires concrete steps. This however, can become a distraction from knowing and loving ourselves precisely as we are now, with no further growth or change baked in. Take some time this week to practice attuning to yourself and your environment. What is actually happening, and how does that make your body and your soul feel?

Practice

In the weeks ahead, why not use one of the tools mentioned to begin your attunement toolbox. Think about and make note of the stimuli (art, movies, books, music, etc.) that regularly give you deeper access to your emotions (fear, anger, sadness, happiness, hurt, shock).

Take 3-4 minutes each day to check in with your body, noting the sensations, warm or cool areas, tight or loose areas, place where energy feels trapped. Scan slowly from head to toe and back. Offer yourself gentle and affirming touch where you notice tenderness or tightness.

Any time you feel that a sensation or emotion has arisen, peaked, and subsided, take time in prayer to give thanks for the amazing gift that is you and your body! Ask curious questions about what this information is trying to communicate.

If in your attuning, you come across an injury, a feeling of profound discomfort, or an unexpected thing that you were previously unaware of, give yourself gentle permission to seek help from a caring professional who is trained to care for that part of you.

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

Prayer doesn’t always look like words. Meditation doesn’t always look like soaking in something made by another person. Sometimes, the act of prayer is the spiritual practice of creating without judgment purely to express wonder and devotion. I had the good fortune to enjoy an incredible continuing education session this past week with Liza Hyatt, an art therapist and spiritual director. She reminded us of the power of arts and creativity to unlock our capacity to heal and to grow.

That session was very much in my mind when I gathered up the supplies for making a little portable Stations of the Cross, a devotional practice begun by Franciscans after they became the custodians of the Christian pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land. These artistic renderings of the Passion were meant to be an imaginative journey through Jerusalem during Jesus’ final hours. We were hosting my niece and it was time for some family art making, and I specifically chose to open myself to this particular project.

The fact that many Christians are observing Lent, that I just had a wonderful class on trauma healing through art, and that we were collectively taking time to create, are all kind of incidental to the project I chose.

I say this to offer encouragement, sometimes our creativity needs to be free play, with no objective in mind. Other times, it helps to have an end in mind to help spur our acts of creative mindful presence and contemplative awareness.

I have had the pens for at least a year. The colored pencils have been in my study for even longer. The artist cards are at least five years old. I bought the tins online almost three years ago. Inspiration doesn’t always lead directly into action, or even proper contemplation. Don’t despair of the prayer tools you have thoughtfully assembled and yet haven’t touched.

It’s true that they may need to be given away as a part of the spiritual housekeeping during this season. It’s also possible that they are ready to be transformed now, and therefore you’re being invited to pick them up and play. Discipline should bring peace and anchored energy, not be another source of dysregulating stress.

So it was that I began my journey along the little pocket pilgrimage. Many years after I imagined it. A few years after I gathered the supplies. At a time when it was the moment to be fully present to the beautiful dance that is making, even when the corners are wonky. or the tins need fussing to balance, or it seems that the work needs one more stroke, and then one more.

I’ve been so encouraged by this practice, that I look forward to slowly working my way through the set throughout this season. I can feel myself longing for the focus and the gentleness I experience while working on each piece.

I hope that you find ways to incorporate creativity and expression into your practice. Not as a commodity, or a product, but as the work of your body that brings more joy into the world, whether that comes through making or through some sort of embodied performance.

Practice

Take a moment to find something you have made (or a photograph/recording if it no longer exists).

Sit quietly and savor the goodness of bringing something into the world, whether witnessed by many, or only by you and the Divine.

Try to remember the sensations, emotions, thoughts that accompanied that moment of creation.

Savor those as well, and sit with them for as long as they last.

Offer a prayer of gratitude for your creativity before you leave this space.

Breathe deep, and be mindful of opportunities for creativity that come to you in the week ahead.

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

In my personal practice this week, I’m sitting with the fascinating confluence of celebrations and solemn remembrances in my geographic, cultural, and religious contexts. In some ways, this past week, with its unseasonably warm and Spring-like weather, is a fantastic example of this juxtaposition of themes and embodied experiences. Even as I was relishing the long walks in the sunshine on dry sidewalks (with thanks to St. Brigid and a certain immortal/undead rodent in central Pennsylvania for ushering in the Spring), I was experiencing discomfort and worry in my body and my emotions.

After all, it’s not even Valentine’s Day here in the North Country of the eastern United States, and Winter here can hold us in its grasp until April. Signs of life and reminders of dying are the hallmarks of this moment, and it summons me to a new attentiveness and desire to sort out in my body and soul how to be present to these overlapping realities.

In the broader culture, folks in the United States are preparing to virtue signal by either watching or not watching our present day gladiator games and posting punny photos of some Superb Owls.

This will be paired with the other final winter festival of Valentine’s Day, a saccharine celebration of romance and romantic love on Wednesday. Taken with a light heart and a sense of spiritual detachment, these too can be occasions for celebration with friends, family, and dear ones as a form of gentle resistance to the perpetual commercialization of festival.

In my own liturgical practice, I note that Sunday and Wednesday are overlaid with feast and fast respectively, in one case revealing the miraculous and transformed that is present alongside the ordinary, and in the other, reminding participants that they are impermanent and are most certainly going to die.

The little season of time after Epiphany ends with the story of Transfiguration, where a select few witnesses see incomprehensible glory pouring forth from the body and presence of Jesus. In this mystical encounter we see threads of unity in the midst of a world of division. The Hebrew Scriptures as represented by Moses (Law/Torah) and Elijah (Prophets/Nevi’im) engage in profound and soul stretching conversation with Jesus as his own followers tremble in awe. Like a breath of early spring, with its petrichor essence wafting in the air, we are reminded that life, love, oneness, and holiness shine through, even in the seeming ordinariness of the moment.

The solemn season of Lent begins on Wednesday, with a summons to prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. We are invited to offer up our time to Divine presence within and around, our resources in generosity and solidarity to the divine presence embodied in the neighbor, and our deep seated attachments in a spirit of gratitude and trusting attachment to God. These little acts of giving our lives away with sincere openness are sealed by palm ashes that remind us of our current and our future dying.

In my own practice, I’ve just begun to grapple with the embodied awareness of death and mortality. I’ve been cognitively aware of death since childhood, and know the grief of many layers of loss, from beloved pets, to dear friends and companions (indeed, Wednesday marks the 5th anniversary for one of these losses), and even the loss of a parent. I’ve accompanied dozens of people through the death and dying process as well as offering the bereavement care for their loved ones. I’ve known that I will die for quite some time, though I’m in no hurry to do so. It wasn’t till this past year that I had my first moment of the voice of wisdom bubbling up from within, “there will be a moment when I am not, and that will be okay”. I can honestly recognize that this bodily awareness came upon me quite unintentionally, felt profoundly different than the flight or freeze response of considering or feeling the fear of death.

I recognize this now as a hallmark of the safety I experience in my practice and my sense of connection to the Holy One and Source of all whose love in this very moment surpasses all my illusions of permanency and schemes for the future. I also realize that this is a sign of metabolizing the losses, fear and grief I have experienced along the way. I am not a fatalist, simply wishing to dissociate by thinking happy thoughts between now and my end, or now and the end of the human experiment on Earth. I am called to love and care for myself here and now, even as there will be a day when “I am not” in a very real sense. I am called to love and care for our mother Earth and the many creatures who call it home.

The illusion I let go of is that my only choices are reactive freezing/fawning, i.e. being stuck in the immense inescapable nature of the crisis, or reactive fighting/fleeing, i.e. trying to bring about a new future through force or retreat to an isolated safe harbor. I have a choice to be present and to embrace the wisdom of mortality, and the love that shines through it. I can settle my body, my nervous system, my spiritual core, and see what this grace-filled, more spacious consciousness can offer, not only to me, but my companions in this wandering.

This is why I will practice this week, because I need to know that I am one of the people I will grieve before my life is over, and that will be a sign that through the unfolding wisdom of God, I will be one of the people I learned to love before my life is over.

Practice:

Take some time to anchor yourself in the safety and care of the present moment. Attune to your breathing, be aware of your body and where it sits in space. Scan your body to look for any discomfort or pain and adjust your posture if needed. Offering loving attention to your tender points.

Once you’re situated, call to mind someone you love who has died. Feel free to imagine them in any way that helps them to feel gently and safely present. If a big feeling comes up, don’t distract yourself or rush ahead in thinking, just give yourself time to experience the sensations and emotions and let them express themselves.

Make a note of some things that ended when they died and that you miss. Don’t dwell on any one of them, just observe what comes up. Once a few things have come to mind, move your attention to ways you love them and that their love and life still affects you today.

If at any time you feel unsafe, return to your breath, open your eyes and scan your environment slowly. Let yourself know you are safe.

If you’ve been able to stay with these reflections, thank the person you love and wish them well.

Once that’s complete, take a moment to consider what you will miss about yourself when you die. Try to stay focused on things you appreciate about you. If you’ve come up with a few things, wonder about some ways that your love and legacy will be embodied by others and give thanks that you can share such gifts. Take a moment to thank the Divine for the gift of you.

Reconnect to your breath and your present surroundings. Slowly scan your environment. You may want to take some time to journal about your experience or process what you noticed with a trusted listener.

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

Today’s post owes a great deal of gratitude to the teachings of Jessica Fern and Deb Dana, both clinical social workers.

One of the great challenges we face as human beings is limitations to our field of vision based on where we stand. In the picture I took from inside a stone tower, the narrow window provides a gorgeous, yet limited, glimpse at the lush summer landscape both below and beyond. Our minds can live in the tension between wanting to accept only what’s clearly in the frame as real, while also filling in the gaps from our imagination, completing a much larger vista. When I engage with clients about the emergence of wisdom, the stirrings of the Spirit, or the presence of the Divine, sometimes the unfolding action is front and center, clearly in the perceived world right in front of them. Other times, the sacred flow of God’s dance is happening just outside the field of view, in the imagined world that is obscured by the stone archway.

Our internal sense or interoception of personal safety is built around three key factors; agency, authenticity, and attachment. This week I want to focus on the importance of attachment. It will be the key to understanding how we can use our imaginal mind to reframe what is happening within and what God is up to. We can be profoundly activated by uncertainty and a sense of Divine absence, but this doesn’t have to be the case. This is not to discount a period of spiritual dryness, the alarm of spiritual warfare, or even the transformative womb of the dark night of the soul, but rather to affirm the ongoing attachment that is possible even in times of great stress and change.

What that action or presence looks like in our mind’s eye is often shaped by our experiences of attachment in our human relationships. Attachment is a profound and trusting bond, built ideally around safe and attuned responses that help us to co-regulate in times of distress. The model for this bond is an infant’s primary caregiver in early life, and indeed a lot of information about how attachment works is woven into us in our first three years of life.

Where the caregiver was attuned to themselves and regulating their own well-being, and similarly responsive and attuned to our needs most of the time, we probably developed a secure attachment to that individual, knowing that they were a source of safety and comfort whether they were present or not, and that they would respond appropriately when we cried out.

When the caregiver was struggling to attune and attend to themselves, distracted, stressed, sick, or otherwise unavailable in a consistent way, we likely developed an insecure attachment. We could not reasonably depend on them to show up appropriately when we cried out, which might result in a few different life-saving coping strategies. We might go quiet and begin to internalize a deep sense that “no one is coming, I must fend for myself”, often called avoidant attachment. We might become more raucous and disruptive, doing whatever we can to attract the attention we need, constantly seeking our caregiver in cycles of anxious attachment.

Sometimes, a caregiver simply isn’t capable of being the source of safety we need. They are dangerous as a result of untreated mental illness, substance use disorder, unhealed trauma, or other profound stresses. In an abuse situation one person embodies the most significant danger to our well-being, and our link to survival. Our nervous system’s emotional development and spiritual need for **both **connection and safety, cannot be met in this environment. We may develop a disorganized form of attachment, vaulting from traumatic shutdown, to avoidant, to anxious, with very little solid ground to understand how to properly attach to another person.

I have observed these styles at work both in relationships with a Theistic Personal sense of the Divine like Jesus, My Ancestors, or Gaia, and with more Apersonal senses like “The Universe”, “The Force”, “The Spirits”. This is not surprising to me. If we have a basic orientation of “If I don’t do it, no one will”, it’s not a far step to include the addendum “even God”. If we have been seeing glimmers of love and connection some of the time, it can be so easy to want to pile on practices and tools, and techniques so that “the Universe will have no choice but to stop ignoring me.” To say nothing of metabolizing the traumatic theology of “I will be so perfect (faith-filled, pious, pure, normal, etc.) that the God who tortures the imperfect (faithless, scandalous, indecent, marginalized, etc.) will have to love me.”

These various mechanisms can really show up when the Holy One is present or at work just out of view. Not so far away that there’s nothing to pick up on, but just obscured enough that we are prompted to cry out, “WTF are you doing?!?!” in our desperation to attach. We can feel abandoned, anxious, afraid, or we may be resentful, angry, and demanding. Our practice can become less one of presence and more one of overthinking, and frantically trying to appeal to One who might not be listening, might not care, or might even lash out in response.

Here we do well to remember that the image or construct we have created in the imagination space just beyond the boundaries of our present perception is just that, an image. Best case scenario, it’s a most loving work of mixed media, macaroni and crayon, show “me”, “my family”, and “my divine love/caregiver”. Worst case scenario, it’s the story-less nightmare fuel of fragmented sensory, emotional, and coping overwhelm that are the hallmark of a traumatic experience. Just as our earliest and most adoring rendering of “my mom” that hung on a refrigerator door is hardly the fullness of the one we know/knew as “mother”, so our image of the divine at work in the world is a fragment of who the Holy One and Being Itself truly is.

While improving artistic skill, or perhaps our first camera, might bring a much more realistic likeness of our beloved grandfather to the page, even that image is a moment in time and not the entire ancestor who shaped us. What’s more, is that our improved ability to capture the moment, in no way replaces that depth of relationship that took us through time together, from flat figures in crayon to artfully shaded pastels. Using our imaginations to connect to our loved ones in more subtle, mindful, and intentional ways is not an abandonment, but rather a healthy and holy reimagining.

Just because we have applied a particular attachment style to our relationship with the Divine in the past, doesn’t mean that we always have to employ that frame when God is just out of view and we can sense presence but not purpose, or change that leaves us feeling unsettled and lacking clarity. We can borrow the safety from any secure attachment that we have and use it as spiritual medicine with the challenging attachments in our lives. Secure self-attachment can be a source of healing in relationships with partners and parents. Secure friendship attachment can help us learn to love ourselves. Any of these can be a source of reimagining our connection to the Divine and give us room to approach the uncertain work of God just outside the frame of view with curiosity, hopefulness, and patience. It’s not about walking away from God or abandoning our spiritual life, it’s about letting the Mystery who pursues our hearts be bigger than our earliest sketch of who they are.

Practice:

Praying with Color

Find yourself some colored pencils or crayons and grab a page from a coloring book or find a coloring page that intrigues you on-line.

Before beginning to color, set aside some time to ground yourself in a mindful intention. This might be a one sentence prayer, a breath practice, a quality of the Holy that you want to meditate on, a question that you’re pondering, etc.

With that question in mind, you can begin, using either silence, or perhaps soft wordless music to create an environment of calm and presence.

Color in the picture in whatever way you feel moved to.

When images or words arise, add them as a note or doodle in the boundary space and then let them go for now. You can always go back to them later, or process them with a trusted listener.

Sit with your finished work at the end of your time, let it soak into you and savor this little act of creativity.

Notice in yourself, has anything moved in your bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts, understanding? What is new or different? What has subsided?

Put your coloring somewhere where it will remind you of the shift in you, while holding that change loosely.

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

Sometimes clients ask about the phenomenon. Other times I try to give a fair warning when it seems like their practice is helping to return them to an anchored spiritual state with some consistency. Either way, we have to watch out for the baggage goons, traumatic memories and other personal baggage that can arise out of an endorphin or dopamine state. This can be shocking, to feel as though our practice has helped us to slow down, modulate our anxiety and fear, and give us a sense of spaciousness and peace, suddenly betrays us as an unwanted time traveler catches up with us.

I love to use imagery, humor, and playfulness to help de-stigmatize and even befriend these parts of ourselves who have been dutifully carrying our locked trunks, suitcases of shame, doom-boxes, and steamer trunks of trauma. They chase after us day by day, always holding tight to their container, never falling so far behind that we can escape from them, but also, just far enough behind us and out of sight to remain hidden to our conscious minds and our internal observer. In my practice, I like to imagine them as playfully scary but inviting characters like the Wild Things from Maurice Sendak’s children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, or the lovable monster Sweetums from the Muppet Show.

However we want to use our imagination to welcome these parts of ourselves who have allowed us to survive what Harry Pickens calls “the overwhelming” that was both “inescapable” and “unwitnessed”, we can attune to their presence, even when it might disrupt our calm and our feelings of spiritual progress.

Thanks to the power of neuroplasticity, we can use our imaginations and our conscious thoughts to rehearse and prepare ourselves for these experiences, and even if the contents of the box are too much for the moment, we can experience curiosity and wonder at their bearers. After all, these lovable monsters that chase us, are us! An important part of us who holds information and memories about how we became who we are thus far.

If increasing touches of presence, peacefulness, calm, or even playful joy are being interrupted by the baggage of our lives, chances are, we have slowed down enough for the baggage goons to catch up with us. Their question is often something like “I’ve been saving this for you, would you like to sort through it?”

There’s a really good chance that if we don’t have the level of support, safety, and resources that we need, our instinctive reply will be “absolutely not!” Thankfully, there are so many healing modalities that can provide us pathways to gently explore the contents that can reduce the instance of further harm.

As tempting as it might be to plow through the contents, it’s probably best to engage with the one or two things that have the most coherence where we can connect body memory with emotional memory and some non-judgmental observations about the experience. The baggage goons are trying to protect us, and their goal isn’t to destroy us, because indeed they are us. We can lovingly say, “that’s enough for now” and return to embodied practices that calm our minds, bodies, and spirits. A great big conscious yawn, with a stretch, and gentle affirming touch can be a great place to start. Savoring the sensory memory of a grounding moment (i.e. when was the last time you felt…) can be a resource.

It can be easy to feel broken when meaningful interior work brings to light a surprising, “yes, but!” from a character who seems to be chasing us with the things we want to avoid. Indeed, sometimes we are a bit shard like, a piece of broken glass and we have cultivated numerous systems for handling ourselves and coping so that neither we, nor others get cut, at least most of the time.

In welcoming the baggage goons, we can acknowledge the limits of our own efforts to heal. Often our conscious intention and efforts needs to be paired with letting go, allowing the process of our practice and the emerging wisdom of the Spirit to tumble us like broken glass in the sea. Even a shard can become a thing of beauty with help and care from others.

Practice

Maybe you’re just beginning your journey and feeling any peace, joy, or happiness feels far off.

Perhaps you’ve found a rhythm and a love in your practice and are seeing the changes in yourself.

Maybe a moment of compassionate savoring was interrupted by a storybook monster carrying a steamer trunk.

I want you to know that I believe you, and I’m glad you’ve made it this far.

As much as you can while being kind to your body…

• Take a big stretch
• Yawn while you do it
• Return from that stretch by gently touching your body, maybe rub your head, caress your arms, give yourself a gently hug
• Let your attention be drawn to your breath
• Try this a couple more times, and then either observe or journal just a few words about your state of being and feeling
• If you spot a baggage creature, give them a wave and let them know they are loved too.

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

If the crowd at the gym, in the waiting room of the therapist’s office, or a quick glance at my own appointment calendar are any indication, it must be January in a new year. After all, I’ve certainly jumped on board with a twelve week continuing education course in “Trauma and Belonging”. There is a collective energy to return to the practice of self care, the pseudo-mystical art of self improvement, and the infinite longing for self-perfection.

Loving ourselves might be one of the most talked about, and yet least practiced components of our spiritual lives, insofar as that love looks anything like the agape or divine love without condition that is at the heart of all meaningful transformation. Often I sit with folks who are trying their utmost to find and make peace with their better or even best selves, and yet, the vision of the best self looks more like the twisting of a temptation story. “If you’re really a good person then…”, “You would be truly loved if only…”, “One more practice, once you master them all you’ll be free…”

A vision of you that provokes anxiety, fear, grief, sadness, and lament might be an accurate assessment of the trouble you’re in, but it hardly seems worthy of calling the illusory mirror image of your current struggles “my best self”.

For this very reason, I’ve begun to introduce the concept of “my favorite self” to the people I care for. Hopefully, there is a version or a part of each of us that has agency, authenticity. and genuine attachment to one who cares for us, even if it’s a little hard to spot them at this very moment. It’s the version of myself that I would find compelling, real, and worthy of pursuing for further connection if we met out in the wild. It’s me both aware of my capacity and also in loving acceptance of my limitations.

Our favorite selves are a glimpse of the way we are held in love and esteem by the Divine, even when we struggle to experience it first hand. It is a dimension of who we are that is worth discovering, and not just in a heady rush of self improvement because the calendar has turned over.

It could very well be that our favorite self is urging us to be both kind and active in the stewardship of our mind, our body, our emotional well-being, and our spiritual life. Even so, these aren’t accomplishments to check off or virtues to signal for all of our followers just how seriously we take self-care. Authentic care-giving, including for ourselves grows out of an abundance of love and desire to promote thriving.

Exercise:

Whether you’re already growing weary of the pile of expectations you placed on yourself, or you’re busy beating yourself up for not being able to chase the better, best, bestest version of you, I have an invitation for you. Let’s pause. Breathe. One long slow inhale, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now hold 4, 3, 2, 1. Now exhale 4, 3, 2, 1. Now hold 4, 3, 2, 1. Repeat as needed. You’ve just pumped the brakes on the part of your nervous system that controls heartbeat and respiration. You can keep at this practice until you feel settled.

Here’s a lovely set of questions you can add to a daily examination of consciousness:

Self Care Examen:

What is one concrete thing I did today that helped me care for my body, mind, soul? (Self-discipline)

What is one way I attuned to and then attended to my needs when they arose, instead of putting it off? (Self-nurture)

What’s one story I told myself about myself today? Was it loving and merciful? If not, is there a kind story I can tell me about me now? (Self-compassion)

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef

It’s very easy to get heavily focused on preparing for a season, a holiday, a holy time. There is a way in which a lot of U.S. culture is built on both anticipation and desire. For a lot of us who still make our way through secular life as a part of our journey, we can find ourselves pulled in many directions. Parts of us scoff at the roll-out of seasonal decorations in retail outlets. Other parts of us begin to experience anxiety and angst as social preparation for special days and holy seasons call to mind navigating challenging or hurtful relationships with family, religious communities, co-workers, and even our own shortcomings.

There can be pressure to conform to social, religious, familial, or even self-imposed keeping of time that takes us out of the moment and sends us fearfully into memory, or anxiously into the near future with deep ambivalence as one season year draws to a close and another begins. We can spend more time being distressed by the “happiest time of year” than actually experiencing the glimpses of pure joy that can be found in the midst of all the sparkle.

When the holidays are more joyful than stressful, and we get to rest in the deep assurance of holy time, we’re confronted with a new challenge. How do I let go of this time and settle into the new and miraculous moment that is before me?

Interestingly, there does seem to be a lot of reflective activity in this part of the year, from year-end lists, to year-in-review synopses, to resolutions and re-dedication to a sexier, smarter, thinner, more well-read, wealthier, and more accomplished version of ourselves. What seems lacking in this moment is a an opportunity to bear witness and to engage with what is actually happening from the stillness of a contemplative head and heart space.

Each iteration of the special time, from the parties and feasts, to the solemn and sacred moments, was a gift in itself. Likewise, each moment of bidding goodbye to that special time, and gently giving thanks and savoring it is a gift as well. Because of the way the calendar fell this year, instead of the luxury of a Second Sunday of Christmas and a lush standalone celebration of the Epiphany, instead we had a twelfth night on a Friday, a feast day on a Saturday, and another feast on Sunday that marks the entry into “ordinary time” the weeks of prayer and practice that aren’t part of a special season.

In some ways though, it made this triple purpose weekend a perfect opportunity to engage in the practice of the mindful goodbye. To be thankful for what Christmas and the twelve days that followed had given in memories, relational moments, special encounters with wonder, and the joy of soaking up the soft glow of twinkling lights during a quiet night at home.

I found myself less focused on the “must do” and the “if only” of the time and space, and abiding in the happy little gifts of the holy time. Even in turning off those very twinkling lights and putting away decorations, ornaments, and nativities, I could feel myself both honoring the time and the experience. Thoughtfully putting everything away so that it will be ready to serve it’s purpose later this very year was a way of being present to both the sadness of the ending of a special time, and the awareness of the inestimable gift of the next day, hour, minute, second.

In lieu of resolutions, I’m spending my evening pondering a word that can shape my spiritual and personal practice, and help me as I ponder the mystery of the Divine. You can have a word picked for you too, there are plenty of tools out there like this one.

I believe that at the core of our practice is simultaneous unfolding of both “who we are” and “how we are” in the light of Divine Wisdom. These can often be much more challenging to sit with than “what else shall I do?” or “how can I become someone else?” As if there was some requirement for us to become something other than who we are in order to be the instance of incarnation that we are called to be.

Tomorrow there will be time to set up quieter candles and soft glowing stars to bear witness to this time we are entering. In the meantime, I’m staying present with the thoughts, feelings, and sensations of a gentle, thankful, and loving farewell for now.

Exercise

• If you’ve already done the physical chore of putting away the things for celebrating the winter holidays, what would it look like to lovingly review that task in your mind’s eye, taking time to be thankful for the moments and relationships represented by that time?
• If you’re receiving a Star word, setting an intention, or finding another way to reflect on “who you are” and “how you are”, who can help you to be gentle with your assessment? Who can help you be accountable to your values and sense of self? How might you invite Divine help and presence into this process?
• When is the next goodbye you can use to practice being present to the feelings, sensations, and thoughts that arise? What would it look like to greet those experiences with gratitude and curiosity?

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef