OPENING OUR LIVES… TO GOD’S HOLY DISTURBANCES

Advent Retreat

Compiled by Peter & Kerryn Christensen

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

We praise you gracious God.

You have sustained us through the darkness,

and you have blessed us with life in this new day.

Veni Creator (by David Adam, The Rhythm of Life: Celtic Daily Prayer, 1997)

Come Lord

Come down

Come in

Come among us

Come as the wind to move us

Come as the light to prove us

Come as the night to rest us

Come as the storm to test us

Come as the sun to warm us

Come as the stillness to calm us

Come Lord

Come down

Come in

Come among us

The song of Zechariah:

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel;

He has come to his people and set them free. He has

raised up for us a mighty saviour, born of the house

of his servant David.

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will

go before the Lord to prepare the way,

to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God,

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Opening Prayer

God of all hope and joy,

open our hearts in welcome,

that your Son Jesus Christ at his coming

may find in us a dwelling prepared for himself;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

now and forever. Amen.

Come Lord

Come down

Come in

Come among us.

Amen. Compiled by Karen Block —used with permission.

Lighting of the advent candle

God, we pray for the strength to live our lives with open hands. We pray for the strength to un-

clench our fists, to undo the chains around our hearts, our resources, our plans, our very life

itself, and to live in openness before you. We ask for holy disturbances from you. Though we

fear these, may we see them for what they are—invitations to be a part of the holy drama to

bring about your kingdom. And so we pray, Your Kingdom Come. Amen

Closing Prayer

Opening Our Lives to God’s Holy Disturbances:: Introduction

The theme of this retreat is ‘Opening our lives to God’s holy disturbances’. Let’s consider what that title might be inviting us to. Opening our lives… Clench both your hands into a fist. Hold them tightly for a minute. Feel the muscles in your hand, lower arm, upper arm, and right up into your shoulder tense. Now open them, and let them rest on your lap, palms open to receive from God. Can you notice the difference in how you feel? Even this simple physical gesture makes us more open to receiving. So it is with our heart, with God. The invitation this morning is to be open, to receive, and to invite God into our life more deeply, more disturbingly. Henri Nouwen put it this way,

Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me. And what you want to give me is love, unconditional, everlasting love. Amen.

― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life

…to God’s holy disturbances As we open our lives to God we are also opening ourselves to God’s holy disturbance. In the Christmas story Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and Simeon, all had their everyday, very ordinary, life dis-turbed by God. Every human is a participant in God’s drama on earth whether we acknowledge it or not. But in opening our lives we become willing and active participants. We, who on the cosmic stage are infinitely small, are invited to step into the light and play our part. We are invited to open our lives to God’s holy disturbances, to his disruption, to his direction. One poet put it this way,

To grow up is to find the small part you are playing in this extraordinary drama written by someone else.

― Madeleine L’Engle, Christian Living, March-May 1989

On this retreat you are invited to reflect on one of the characters in the advent drama and to enter into their situation, their ‘disturbance’, and ask God, “what do you want to say to me through this story?” In the handout there are two suggestions for how to do this, using imaginative prayer, or slow, soaking reading (lectio divina). For each character there is a photo of an artwork printed too, and you are invited to use these to help you in your reflection if you wish.

How to use this booklet

In this booklet are a number of ideas for different ways of exploring our theme. Our personalities are all different so not all of these will appeal to you, and that is why there is a range of activities—visual, mental, tactile. Don’t try to do all the exercises in one sitting, but ask God to lead you to what will be most beneficial to you.

Openness to God involves placing ourselves in

his hands and begging him to re-shape and re-

mould us...Lectio divina, or “sacred read-

ing” (instructions below) is one way we can

open ourselves to God and place ourselves in

his hands. Pick one of the stories from the

Christmas narrative that attracts you below

and prayerfully read the associated bible pas-

sage using the method below.

What is Lectio divina? Lectio divina or sacred reading is a simple and ancient way of praying with Scripture. It leads us natu-rally from a rational consideration of how a few verses of Scripture might connect with our current life, to a personal response in prayer and a gentle resting in the love of God, the beginnings of con-templation.

This practice emerged in the early history of the Church, finding its way into European monasticism through Cassian and St Benedict. Now it is being reclaimed by Christians as another gift of grace and growth in Christ.

The practice of Lectio divina

Preparation quieten yourself for a few moments and then choose a short passage of Scripture or oth-er spiritual reading (such as the Gospel passages listed on the opposite page)

Lectio trusting that the Holy Spirit is there to help you, read through the passage several times really SLOWLY. Some people find that reading aloud helps to slow them down. Let the words move deeply into your being, like nourishing rain into the soil. Allow a word or a phrase to touch you.

Meditatio reflect on the word or phrase that has touched you, exploring what it means to you here and now. Let the word or phrase speak to your personal situation; believe that through this process God is communicating with you, perhaps giving a word of encouragement or of challenge, or calling you to a deeper awareness of God’s love for you.

Oratio in this part of Lectio divina, you respond to God. You talk to God about what you have been thinking and what you have heard through the words of Scripture. You might pray your response or write in your journal, even sing or dance or paint your response ...pray as the Spirit moves you whether in gratitude, longing, repentance or intercession.

Contemplatio in this final and most important stage, sit quietly with God, at rest in the presence of the One who loves you. Do not worry that you may appear to be doing ‘nothing’.. Trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in the depths of your spirit, deepening your faith. Let the Word move from your head to your heart to dwell there in peace-full silence.

Source: Sue Pickering for SGM 2005

Scriptures for meditation

Mary (Luke 1:26-56, 2:19) Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25, 2:13-15) Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-25, 57-80) Shepherds (Luke 2:8-20) Zechariah (Luke 1:5-25, 57-80) Simeon (Luke 2:25-33)

Imaginative prayer

Imaginative prayer is the name given to prayer which helps us enter more fully into the passage of Scripture we are reading, by using our ability to form pictures or inner impressions in our minds. We live in a rational, left brain world where information and analysis is prized above everything else. Yet as human beings, our soul is still fired by colour and imagination. Jesus called on people’s imagina-tion all the time. He was constantly telling stories and painting word pictures. He asked people to im-agine the kingdom of God as a mustard seed, as yeast, as treasure hidden in a field… Imaginative prayer ‘puts us in the picture’ with the Gospel characters and helps us see the Gospel sto-ries played out in our own homes and neighbourhoods. Praying this way can create a deeper and more personal intimacy with Jesus. Guidelines (Source: Sue Pickering for SGM 2006)

1. Choose a Gospel passage in which someone is meeting Jesus. Read through the passage

two or three times until it is familiar.

2. Sitting comfortably with eyes closed, silently ask the Holy Spirit to guide and protect you. Offer to God any concerns you may have about your ability to use your imagination.

3. Using all your senses let the Gospel passage gently unfold in your awareness - see the people, hear the voices, taste..., smell..., touch ...

4. Put yourself into the Gospel passage - perhaps as an observer, or someone helping anoth-er; perhaps near the action, even talking to Jesus. Let the story unfold, let the dialogue take shape, simply be present without striving to make anything happen.

5. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.

6. Spend some time reflecting on what has taken place. You may want to make a note in your journal and share something of what has happened - or not happened - when you have time with your spiritual director.

Not everyone finds this easy so do not worry if it does not seem to “work” for you - some peo-ple for example are more likely to form inner impressions without clear detail. Whether or not you see or feel anything, God is touching your spirit, and will work his good purposes out in your life.

Suggested passages: Mary (Luke 1:26-56, 2:19) Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25, 2:13-15) Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-25, 57-80) Shepherds (Luke 2:8-20) Zechariah (Luke 1:5-25, 57-80) Simeon (Luke 2:25-33) You might like to use the paint-ings of these passages as an aid to your imagination.

Dear God...

In the space below, or in your journal, write a poem/prayer/psalm/letter/email to God from the per-

spective of one of the characters in the Christmas narrative about what you think/feel about God dis-

turbing your life. Alternatively you might like to sketch/draw this perspective.

After you have done that, write or draw God’s response to you.

Talk to God about what you have discovered in this process.

Choose one of the characters from the biblical narrative and the accompanying painting. When you have

selected an image find somewhere quiet and look at the photo and talk to God about it...

Spend some time just looking at the image and absorbing it. Look at the big picture, the details, the mood,

the setting. After a while you might like to ask yourself some of the following questions:

What thoughts/feelings/reaction does this painting evoke in you?

What would it be like to be in that situation? Would you want God to disrupt your life in this way?

What is God inviting you to through this painting?

What do you want to say to God about what you are thinking/feeling right now?

Keep the image — you might like to write some of your reflections on the back or paste it into your jour-

nal.

Paintings as prayer

Clockwise from left: Mary; the shep-

herds; Elizabeth with Mary; Zechari-

ah’s vision; Joseph; Simeon with the

baby Jesus. (Full descriptions of

each artwork are given on the next

page. All artworks are in the public

domain.)

Description of the artworks

The Vision of Zacharias—Luke 1:5-23 1886-94, James Tissot During the mid-1880s, when he was about 55, Tissot experienced a religious revelation

which led him to spend the rest of his life illustrating the Bible. He traveled to the Middle

East in 1886, 1889, and 1896 to make studies of the landscape and people. His series of 365

gouache illustrations showing the life of Christ were shown to critical acclaim and enthusi-

astic audiences in Paris (1894-5), London (1896) and New York (1898-9), before being

bought by the Brooklyn Museum in 1900. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Annunciation—Luke 1:26-38 1592-96, Federico Barocci Federico Barocci (c. 1526, Urbino – 1612, Urbino) was an Italian Renaissance painter and printmaker. The Annunciation is an altarpiece which reveals his response to the instructions issued by the Council of Trent on religious art which resulted in simple images with an obvious flow of them, free of mysteries or complications. Sacred epi-sodes were set in the context of everyday reality. This can be seen from the way Baroc-ci includes the Ducal Palace at Urbino in the background of this altarpiece in the Coli-Pontani Chapel of S. Maria degli Angeli in Perugia, and fills the picture with descriptive detail, including the sleeping cat in the foreground. (Source: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/

barocci/annunciation/)

Simon with Jesus—Luke 2:25-35 1665, Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art his-tory. Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Rembrandt's greatest crea-tive triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity.Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called "one of the great prophets of civilization." (Source: Wikipedia)

The Visitation—Luke 1:39-56 C. 1445, Rogier van der Weyden Rogier van der Weyden was one of the most profound and influential painters of the 15th century. He was internationally famed for the naturalism of his detail and his ex-pressive pathos. He created a range of types - for portraits and for religious subjects - which were repeated throughout the Netherlands, the Iberian peninsula, and even Ita-ly, until the mid-16th century. (Source: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/rogier-van-der-weyden )

Description of the artworks cont.

The Anxiety of St Joseph—Matthew 1:18-25 1886-94, James Tissot During the mid-1880s, when he was about 55, Tissot experi-enced a religious revelation which led him to spend the rest of his life illustrating the Bible. He traveled to the Middle East in 1886, 1889, and 1896 to make studies of the landscape and people. His series of 365 gouache illustrations showing the life of Christ were shown to critical acclaim and enthusiastic audi-ences in Paris (1894-5), London (1896) and New York (1898-9), before being bought by the Brooklyn Museum in 1900. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Annunciation to the Shepherds—Luke 2:8-20 1655-57, Cornelis de Visscher Not much is known about Cornelis Visscher (1629–1658), who was a Dutch Golden Age engraver. Apparently he was an able etcher who made famous prints (in his lifetime), and who had an unusual talent for drawing after a live model with charcoal that was unparalleled. This work is based on a painting by Ja-copo Bassano and shows the angels entering completely unex-pectedly into the humble shepherd’s lives. (Source: Wikipedia)

Reflect

Read the following excerpt from Henri Nouwen’s book, With Open Hands, where he talks about prayer

as unclenching our fists. Spend time reflecting on what thoughts/feelings/reactions it evokes in you.

What might God be wanting to say to you through this passage?

“Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter

into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there

what you would rather leave untouched. Why would you really want to do that? Perhaps you would let the oth-

er cross your inner threshold to see something or to touch something, but to allow the other into that place

where your most intimate life is shaped—that is dangerous and calls for defense.

The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to

cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear. A story about an elderly woman brought to a psychiat-

ric center exemplifies this attitude. She was wild, swinging at everything in sight, and frightening everyone so

much that the doctors had to take everything away from her. But there was one small coin which she gripped in

her fist and would not give up. In fact, it took two people to pry open that clenched hand. It was as though she

would lose her very self along with the coin. If they deprived her of that last possession, she would have nothing

more and be nothing more. That was her fear.

When you are invited to pray, you are asked to open your tightly clenched fist and give up your last coin. But

who wants to do that? A first prayer, therefore, is often a painful prayer because you discover you don’t want to

let go. You hold fast to what is familiar, even if you aren’t proud of it. You find yourself saying: "That’s just how

it is with me. I would like it to be different, but it can’t be now. That’s just the way it is and this is the way I’ll

have to leave it." Once you talk like that, you’ve already given up believing that your life might be otherwise.

You’ve already let the hope for a new life float by. Since you wouldn’t dare to put a question mark after a bit of

your own experience with all its attachments, you have wrapped yourself up in the destiny of facts. You feel it is

safer to cling to a sorry past than to trust in a new future. So you fill your hands with small, clammy coins which

you don’t want to surrender.

You still feel bitter because people weren’t grateful for something you gave them: you still feel jealous of those

who are better paid than you are; you still want to take revenge on someone who didn’t respect you; you are

still disappointed that you’ve received no letter, still angry because someone didn’t smile when you walked by.

You live through it, you live along with it as though it doesn’t really bother you...until the moment when you

want to pray. Then everything returns: the bitterness, the hate, the jealousy, the disappointment, and the desire

for revenge. But these feelings are not just there; you clutch them in your hands as if they were treasures you

don’t want to let go. You sit wallowing in all that old sourness as if you couldn’t do without them, as if, in giving

them up, you would lose your very self.

Detachment is often understood as letting loose of what is attractive. But it sometimes also requires letting go

of what is repulsive. You can indeed become attached to dark forces such as resentment and hatred. As long as

you seek retaliation, you cling to your own past. Sometimes it seems as though you might lose yourself along

with your revenge and hate—so you stand there with balled-up fists, closed to the other who wants to heal

you.

When you want to pray, then, the first question is: How do I open my closed hands? Certainly not by violence.

Nor by a forced decision. Perhaps you can find your way to prayer by carefully listening to the words the angel

spoke to Zechariah, Mary, the shepherds, and the women at the tomb: "Don’t be afraid." Don’t be afraid of the

One who wants to enter your most intimate space and invite you to let go of what you are clinging to so anx-

iously. Don’t be afraid to show the clammy coin which will buy so little anyway. Don’t be afraid to offer your

hate, bitterness, and disappointment to the One who is love and only love. Even if you know you have little to

show, don’t be afraid to let it be seen.

Often you will catch yourself wanting to receive your loving God by putting on a semblance of beauty, by hold-

ing back everything dirty and spoiled, by clearing just a little path that looks proper. But that is a fearful re-

sponse—forced and artificial. Such a response exhausts you and turns your prayer into torment.

Each time you dare to let go and to surrender one of those many fears, your hand opens a little and your palms

spread out in a gesture of receiving. You must be patient, of course, very patient until your hands are complete-

ly open.

It is a long spiritual journey of trust, for behind each fist another one is hiding, and sometimes the process

seems endless. Much has happened in your life to make all those fists and at any hour of the day or night you

might find yourself clenching your fists again out of fear.

Maybe someone will say to you, "You have to forgive yourself." But that isn’t possible. What is possible is to

open your hands without fear, so that the One who loves you can blow your sins away. Then the coins you con-

sidered indispensable for your life prove to be little more than light dust which a soft breeze will whirl away,

leaving only a grin or a chuckle behind. Then you feel a bit of new freedom and praying becomes a joy, a spon-

taneous reaction to the world and the people around you. Praying then becomes effortless, inspired and lively,

or peaceful and quiet. When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you

gradually realize that to pray is to live.

― Henri J.M. Nouwen, With Open Hands Ave Maria Press, 1972, 2006.

Hints for making the most of the silence

1. Do nothing at all... just “be” ... sit or kneel or lie down and wait for God to lead, to speak, to put ideas and thoughts and pictures and prayers into the mind. Rest and relax in the Lord.

2. Weather permitting go and enjoy being outside.

3. Use something to “spark off” your prayer : meditate on a Bible passage related to the theme, or use some of the material provided; pray the words of a favourite hymn or song or prayer.

4. Use the time to have an honest talk to God about where you are at... face up to yourself and your particular needs, trusting that God will deal with these if you give Him time and room.

5. Think about your current prayer life and ask God if He desires to show you any new ways of praying.

6. Spend some time journalling... writing or drawing your ideas and explorations about your life and where God seems to be.... or about His absence... then talk to God about what you have written.

7. Use coloured pens or crayons to express what is happening for you at this particular time in your life.

8. Feel free to spend time talking with one of the retreat facilitators if an issue arises which you want help to explore.

“Be still and know that I am God”

Questions to consider afterwards:

How was it for you, as you stopped and consciously spent this time in God’s pres-

ence today? Any surprises? Struggles?

What did you discover about yourself? About God?

Did you sense God saying anything to you? Is there something God wants you to

think about, spend more time with, or is inviting you towards?