STAY IN LOVE
Powerlessness in Advent
We are not meant to work out our faith alone or without guidance.
The School of Prayer will help you make a plan to heal and become a healing presence.
Discern the habits that keep you closed to God’s love and those that open you to receive it.
Explore the relationship between powerlessness, spiritual freedom, and the healing of our attachments.
Deepen your life of prayer through contemplation, lament, and spiritual friendship.
Practice staying anchored in love as you learn to hold space for others and pursue justice.
Consider the place of beauty and the arts in your spiritual practice.
Revive faith that will sustain your journey into the new year.
We are accustomed to self-reliance. How does Advent help you learn God-dependence?
Why Advent?
It is nearly impossible to sustain disciplined, intentional focus on the habits that keep us open to giving and receiving God’s love without communal nourishment. How can the Invitation Center offer support in the rhythms of the church calendar? During Advent, I want to invite you to review your habits with a focus on powerlessness.
As I have walked more than 130 people through the School of Prayer, I have become less certain that “rule of life” is always the most helpful language for what we are trying to do. Some people struggled with the vocabulary, while others may have over-functioned and designed unsustainable rules. I borrowed monastic language because the witness is inspiring, but I worry that the word “rule” can reinforce some of our self-defeating idealism.
Perhaps our answers are better described as a fumbling toward love or our mustard seeds of faith instead of a “rule of life.”
Advent gives us an opportunity to ask: How do we stay open to who Jesus is for us today, in our present circumstances? What does Isaiah 9 mean right now? If people walk in darkness, how does Christ’s light dawn in and through us?
What would it mean to enter Advent by paying attention to the habits that keep us open to giving and receiving God’s love?
Fall in Love & Stay in Love
The words attributed to Pedro Arrupe have been at the heart of the Invitation Center since its beginning:
“Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”
During Advent, I want to return to these words and ask what it means to fall in love and stay in love when we cannot simply make ourselves do it.
Our journey will be shaped by the Prayer of St. Ephrem:
Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
And give to me the Spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love…
The four weeks will move through these movements of take and give, helping us review the habits that keep us closed and those that keep us open.
What the Journey Includes
Preparation
As we prepare to review the habits that open us to fall in love and stay in love, I am inviting you to discern one specific thing that is an obstacle to your love and also to discern one thing you would like to receive.
Is there a particular attachment that keeps your heart closed?
What do you hope to receive in the space created when that attachment is removed?
Notes & Teachings:The week prior to each gathering, participants will receive a set of notes, a short reading, and a 20–30 minute meditation in audio and video. Notes will include reflection prompts with suggested Scriptures to pray through.
Online Discussion: Engage each other about the week’s material using the Mighty online platform/app.
90-Minute Sessions: Each gathering will open with lectio divina including breath exercises and a brief period of solitude to prepare for group listening. We will then have discussion and Q&A around the teaching.
Spiritual Friendship: I will set up one or two other people for weekly check-ins by text or Mighty.
The Four Weeks Overview
Preparation: Examen & Lament: Help me see myself and not to judge myself or others.
· Identifying and avoiding spiritual bypassing
· Tears that cleanse our spiritual eyes
· Powerlessness (kenosis): emptying to be filled
Week One: Take — Askesis & Addiction: Oh Lord and Master
· My image of God,
· What do I trust about God’s active help with my attachments?
· A review of the textbook vices that keep me closed
Week Two: Give — Prayer & Healing Toward Forgiveness
· A receptive posture: from intercession to wordless prayer
· What do I trust about a God who heals me to forgive?
· A review of the virtues that keep me open
Week Three: Justice — Holding Space for Others
· Anchored (staying in love) so we can transgress social boundaries
· Askesis as putting on the shoes of our neighbor
· Jesus as our model of costly solidarity
Week Four: Contemplation — A Spacious Consciousness to Become a Space
· Beauty in the arts as contemplation that liberates our imagination
· Beauty in our bodies, breathwork and emotional regulation
· What is your focus until Lent?
WHEN: Depending on interest, I am open to hosting the gatherings on Mondays, with one session at 7:30 p.m. EST and another daytime session between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. I am also able to schedule the pace of these according to your availability, whether they are weekly or every other week. Share your availability here.
WHERE: The journey will take place on Zoom. For local West Michigan participants, I am also open to meeting in my studio. These gatherings can be hybrid.
REGISTER BY: Monday, November 9: This will give me time to send notes and the first teaching video before we begin.
COST: I am experimenting with income-based pricing because I believe that considering our financial differences is itself a practice of justice. Everyone participates in the same journey, regardless of what they pay. Those with greater financial capacity can help make this experience accessible to those with fewer resources.
Cost is $100-$250 depending on your household income.
CONTACT ME WITH ANY FUTHER QUESTIONS, especially in regard to financial assistance, and if you would like to add one-on-one spiritual direction during this time. EMAIL ME HERE
If you are seeking financial assistance, please answer these questions:
What amount would you be able to pay?
Regardless of what you are able to pay, this journey asks for a meaningful commitment to the practices, preparation, and community.
Are you prepared to make that commitment?
Is there anything else you would like me to know as I consider your request for financial assistance?
ONE-ON-ONE DIRECTION:
If you are in a unique season of discernment and would like to engage me for personal sessions, email and let me know about your interest and we will discern the appropriate number of sessions.