REFLECTIONS, POEMS & PRAYERS
Poem: Your Wounds
I see you, and your wounds
Deepest wounds of love, opened and offered up
Wounding complete
Jesus, you call me to come to you
In your passion
Inviting me to be close to you
Whatever comes
Though my heart shudders to behold
And my body wants to flee
I see you there, suffering
I do not want to leave you alone
Or abandon you.
So I draw near
Joining you in your suffering
I see you separated from your friends
All alone, praying in agony
betrayed with a kiss
Arrested, accused, struck, judged
Beaten, mocked, abused, bloodied
Rejected, sentenced, carrying, falling, nailed
Weakened, suffering, abandoned
Forgiving, dying
I see you
And your wounds
Deepest wounds of love
Opened and offered up
Wounding complete
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.
This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.
Receiving the Mercy of God
God sees us with mercy. Let us soak these words deep into us. God longs to restore us. Be gone Satan, tell us no more lies! May we always run to the Lord to find forgiveness and mercy.
I continue to notice how many of us have a reflexive feeling that God is harshly critical or judging us. Sometimes we feel this acutely due to a particular sin or failure in our lives. Other times we have a generalized feeling of God’s displeasure or judgment.
There is a place for the prick of conscience when we have done wrong, when we have sinned or when we are living in willful disobedience of God. But when we are seeking to love and follow God, I believe it is often the voice of the evil one, who likes nothing better than to try to keep us from going to the Lord. God always wants us to turn towards him, to come to him. Satan always wants to turn us away from, separate us from or put barriers between us and God.
Consider Adam and Eve in the garden. They disobeyed God and now they hide from God in the cool of the evening. They have done wrong, they feel ashamed and so they hide. It’s like the evil one is whispering in their ear, “God is harsh and angry and will never receive you with mercy.” But Satan is a lier. God wants their restoration. It is not God’s will that they should be separated from him, and so God seeks them out. If only they would run to him, confess their sins and be restored.
I recently came across this helpful quote from Pope Francis.
God sees us with mercy. Let us soak these words deep into us. God longs to restore us. Be gone Satan, tell us no more lies! May we always run to the Lord to find forgiveness and mercy.
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.
Responding to the Deaths that Surround Us
Regardless of the type of dying we face, our call is to turn to the living Lord in the midst of the death. We come to the Lord in our weakness and death, asking to join him in his death, that he might raise us, give us hope and new life.
As a spiritual director, I am privileged to see the Lord bringing new life in people, seeing them find life in the midst of death. Having this perspective into life in Christ also gives me some perspective on the death I see all around me.
In a provocative post, Chuck DeGroat says that some of this death is necessary, and therapists and spiritual directors should not intervene, but instead, let it take its course. This led me to reflect that there are many kinds of death and that they are quite different.
I see people dying in a multitude of ways, some helpful and some quite destructive. I see people being chewed up by the principalities and powers, sinful and broken structures. Some die as they shed their faith and move away from Jesus. I see people realizing that their faith had them living in death and they have to die to that death and find new life in Jesus, one that is more connected into the heart of God.
On a corporate level here in the US, the church is dying in many ways and some of those dyings are needed and we should not resist. Other dyings are more like Psalm 11:3, where destroyed foundations damage God's people in harmful ways that will have long term consequences.
Regardless of the type of dying we face, our call is to turn to the living Lord in the midst of the death. We come to the Lord in our weakness and death, asking to join him in his death, that he might raise us, give us hope and new life.
If you are facing into some type of death, consider spiritual direction as a way to seek the Lord and find new life.
Poem: Thirsting
You long for me with unquenched desire
Longing to fill this empty vessel
To be my source, my living water
You
Thirsting for me
Thirsting
I know that I am thirsty
That I need you
And sometimes I can discern my lack
Deep in my heart
A longing, unquenched desire
For you to fill this dusty vessel
And so I come to the source of living water
You
You know that I am thirsty
That I need you
You can discern my lack
Deep in my heart
Full of longing and unquenched desire
For you to fill my dusty vessel
You invite me to the source of living water
You
And then I recognize that you are also thirsty
Parched by my distance
Experiencing my absence deep in your heart
You long for me with unquenched desire
Longing to fill this empty vessel
To be my source, my living water
You
Thirsting for me
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.
This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.
The False Path of Failure
The gospel is that we are failures and God loves us, meets us in our failure and offers us new life through our failures. Such good news! Our failure doesn’t separate us from God. Instead, our failure is an opportunity to grow close to God.
As a spiritual director, I have been reflecting a lot about failure recently. I see the ways our perspectives on failure interfere with our relationship with God, and I’m discovering a different way to approach failure, one that leads us to God. Here is part 1 of a series of blog posts on failure and the spiritual life.
Failure surrounds us. Pressure to perform. Pressure to succeed. American culture teaches us that we are supposed to be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Disney movies tell us that we can fulfill all of our dreams. More than ever, we start building our resumes in childhood, anything to get into the right school, the right career, all to have a successful life.
All the while, in the shadows something is lurking, the specter of failure. What if I don’t succeed? What if I don’t fulfill my dreams? What if I don’t get into that school? What if I fail? What if other people see me fail or see me as a failure? Failure is terrifying. We will do anything to avoid it. And so we push it away, distract ourselves, seek social media affirmation, tell ourselves lies.
But still, this nagging fear gnaws at us. What if I am a failure?
Surely our faith can help us with this… but unfortunately, our faith is infected with the same sickness. We become good Christian people and suddenly our standards for success are even higher. As a Christian, I’m supposed to have my daily quiet time and love it. I’m supposed to be full of the fruit of the Spirit. I’m supposed to have a wonderful marriage and perfect kids. I’m supposed to be loving and generous and forgiving. I’m supposed to be someone that people will look at and say, “look how successful and wonderful that Christian is, I want that. Tell me how I can become a Christian too, to be a success like you.” We even start thinking that eternal salvation, rides and falls on our success.
And our churches become places where have to work hard not to show our flaws, always presenting our best selves. And then in our spiritual lives, we feel ashamed of our sins and failings and hide them from God, like Adam and Eve in the garden. We only go to God when we feel righteous. We begin hiding more and more of ourselves from God.
And God becomes our success evaluator, our judge, a harsh taskmaster, always requiring more, always seeing the ways we fall short, always frustrated with our failure. It’s no wonder we don’t want to pray, we find ourselves avoiding intimacy with God.
That’s all completely the opposite of the gospel. The gospel is that we are failures and God loves us, meets us in our failure and offers us new life through our failures. Such good news! Our failure doesn’t separate us from God. Instead, our failure is an opportunity to grow close to God.
Read more about failure in my followup post entitled Failure as Spiritual Opportunity
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.
Poem: Comfort Me
And if I opened my heart
Unveiled my soul
Such sorrowful Joy
With you to comfort me
Comfort me
Comfort me, Lord
This life swirls around me
Pressures, responsibilities
All these desires
Conflicts, antagonisms
Rubbing raw
Exposing fissures
Needs
For you
And if I opened my heart
Unveiled my soul
Such sorrowful Joy
With you to comfort me
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.
Poem: Poor In Spirit
So many things on the journey were broken, fallen, twisted
Things that you hope to redeem
But have not
Yet
Jesus
You called me and I followed
Not knowing where you would lead
It wasn’t glorious or heroic
But deeper into poverty of spirit
So many things on the journey were broken, fallen, twisted
Things that you hope to redeem
But have not
Yet
There’s never enough time to mourn all the destruction
Nor could I bear it
So, one foot in front of the other
Persevere
With as much love as I can muster
And when perseverance wearied my bones
You called me on a deeper journey
Into You
Met with compassion, befriended
Drawn to living water
Companioned
The time of redemption begins
When You make morning flee
And wipe away tears
Plant trees that heal
My soul
Blessed to receive the kingdom.
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.
This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.
Celebrate
When God overwhelms you with His love, heals you, frees you from a burden, forgives you, takes away your fear or shame, go and celebrate. You can’t celebrate too much.
In the story of the woman and the lost coin, God celebrates when the one who was lost is found. Jesus the Good Shepherd rejoices over the lost sheep who is rescued. The Father throws a party when the prodigal returns.
As a spiritual director I am privileged to be able to see the amazing work that God does in people’s lives. And when I see God’s miraculous work, I often sense that God wants to celebrate, throw a party.
And so, when God overwhelms you with His love, heals you, frees you from a burden, forgives you, takes away your fear or shame, go and celebrate. You can’t celebrate too much.
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.
Dutiful Faith Versus Joyful Faith
While we all have times where we have to make ourselves pray, ultimately God wants us to want to spend time with Him and enjoy spending time with Him. Do you like spending time with people who are making themselves spend time with you? I don’t, and I think it isn’t God’s favorite either.
I’ve been a very dutiful person. I have wanted to know what is right and true and to live it out. And there’s a real value in this kind of serious discipleship and faithfulness. But I think there is a downside. Have I and have we become dutiful Christians versus joyful Christians?
Let’s explore this in the context of prayer. What kind of prayer does God really want from us? Well, God, of course, wants us to spend time with Him, but it also matters the spirit in which we spend that time. I think that God longs for us to have our hearts in it.
While we all have times where we have to make ourselves pray, ultimately God wants us to want to spend time with Him and enjoy spending time with Him. Do you like spending time with people who are making themselves spend time with you? I don’t, and I think it isn’t God’s favorite either.
The Ignatian Exercises rocked my world in this. I as I prayed and encountered Jesus I discovered that I wanted to be with Jesus. I loved Him and loved being loved by Him. I wanted to care about the things he cares about, and love the people he loves. I found my experience of God transformed from a demanding taskmaster to a God that I wanted to be with and who met me daily with comfort, challenge, encouragement and joy. I would hear Jesus asking me “What do you want?” and I found myself answering that what I most wanted was Him and to give myself to Him.
I am blessed to be surrounded by Christians and be a spiritual director to Christians who take discipleship seriously and have attempted to make their lives about following Jesus and give their lives to the body of Christ. I am truly grateful for that. However, sometimes I see much more duty and obligation than I see joy in the Lord.
One of the biggest things I do in spiritual direction is to walk with dutiful Christians as they grow in having desire and joy become more their motivation. I don’t want them to throw out serious discipleship, but instead want to help them find a new motivation for their serious discipleship, desire and joy. The Ignatian Exercises are designed to do this and Jesus Himself always seems to call people to deep desire and joy as they pray through his life. Maybe that is why I love the exercises so much.
I have a long way to go in having desire and joy be my motivation. But it is a journey I am glad to be on with the Lord. It is easy to fall back into duty, but Jesus loves it when I step into desire and joy.
“Dale what do you want?” “I want you, Jesus.”
“Give me only your love and your grace. That’s enough for me.” -Ignatius of Loyola
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.
This reflection was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.
Poem: A Journey of Soul Restoration
Lord, my hands are your hands
I give them to you
But your Kingdom does not stand or fall on my work
You have your own power and your own ways
You can raise up hands to serve you from these stones
Lord, my hands are your hands
I give them to you
But your Kingdom does not stand or fall on my work
You have your own power and your own ways
You can raise up hands to serve you from these stones
Save me from the sin of self-importance
I can only receive what is given
I can only give when you invite
So I desire to trust you
And let you lead me amid the brokenness
On a journey of soul restoration
Knowing that you are far better than what I can imagine
And more with me than I could dare to hope
© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.