Wednesday, April 18, 2018

"Availability - Upper Room - Easter Season" The Upper Room Publishing of The United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, United States for Wednesday, 18 April 2018

"Availability - Upper Room - Easter Season" The Upper Room Publishing of The United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, United States for Wednesday, 18 April 2018
"Availability" - Easter Season, From The Upper Room Center
This newsletter comes to you from The Upper Room Center for Christian Spiritual Formation, an evolving offering of Upper Room resources, past and present.
Mindful Availability by Sue Monk Kidd
"How should one live?
Live welcoming to all."
(Mechthild of Magdeburg, Christian mystic)
What would it mean to live, welcoming all? Mechthild's vision suggests a new and radical availability, one that could, if I truly pursued it, significantly alter my way of being in the world.
What if I practice receiving each person with the whole of my heart, being fully present to them with a singularly attentive mind, or what might be called mindful availability?
Such deep availability requires a hospitality that receives people as they are, without necessarily seeking to cure, fix, or repair their problems. When you practice mindful availability, you are simply there with your heart flung open.
Bringing such a rare quality of presence to another human being is, in itself, a healing and transformative gift. As the late Henri Nouwen pointed out (Reaching Out, page 54), "We cannot change people by our convictions ... advice and proposals, but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves ... to listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own center." This space is the spiritual geography where real change happens.
(From Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life(September/October 1997), copyright © 1997 The Upper Room.)
The Struggle to Be Present to Others by James McGinnis
Why is it such a struggle to be present to people? “To die to our neighbors means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and thus to become free to be compassionate," wrote Henri Nouwen (The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry, page 35). “Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.” To give up our preoccupation with evaluating others feels like death. We’re saying goodbye to the self-importance that tells us that we, above all others, truly know what’s right. We’re surrendering our cleverness and our discernment skills. To give this up involves a purposeful grief that must be chosen over and over.
The [critics] in our head don’t surrender easily. They don’t excel in goodness and love and so I must offer goodness and love to myself. The lesser sort of humility, according to The Cloud of Unknowing (page 65), is to “see clearly the degradation, misery, and weakness of the human condition.” I am very good at seeing these things in myself, but I must bring myself along gently and let the love of God teach me today as well as I can be taught. Here and there, I can open my heart to others, even someone I find irritating, and watch my heart of stone slowly become a heart of flesh.
(From Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life(September/October 1997), copyright © 1997 The Upper Room.) 
Practice: Listening by Thomas Porter
Why is listening so important? Listening speaks one of our deepest needs: to be understood or to feel understood. Yes, we might like people to agree with us, take our side, but it is a great gift when we feel that the person understands us, even if the person does not agree with us. It shows the person cares. It develops trust. It connects us.
Listening acknowledges and honors the other’s uniqueness with his or her own stories and truths. We each need to tell our story, and we each need to hear the other’s story. Being listened to provides the opening we need to tell our stories, to express feelings and ideas we would otherwise be afraid to voice. In many ways the greatest gift of listening is that it enables us to go deeper into our own stories. Often I don't know what I think until I hear what I say. ... Listening which includes asking questions, can lead the other person to greater understanding and clarity about themselves.
Listening is important to the person speaking, but it is also important to the listener. ... Listening creates the possibility of learning and being changed, enriching our lives. If we do not listen, our creativity, flexibility, and ability to grow and learn is diminished, our universe is diminished. Through listening, we can understand how we have harmed another, and also how we can make things right. Hearing has consequences, and these consequences can be redemptive.
Believing that we experience God in the flesh, incarnate in life, we can acknowledge that God speaks to us through the other. We, therefore, need to listen for God’s voice in the other, who is created in the image of God.
Here is a list of listening practices for you to explore.
(From The Spirit and Art of Conflict Transformation by Thomas Porter. Find this spiritual practice and others to strengthen your spiritual journey in The Upper Room's Resources).
Prayer from Alive Now
God of the great feast, just as you have welcomed us, let us welcome others to your table, where there is room enough for everyone and food enough for all. Amen.
(From Alive Now (March/April 2000). Copyright © 2000 The Upper Room.)
Weavings Reprint
"Staying Awake," a reprint of an article by Deborah Smith Douglas from The Weavings Journal. Available in The Upper Room Bookstore.
Audio Lectio
Pray with us the gospel lessons for the Sundays of the Easter Season. Audio Lectio is a guided meditation using each week's gospel reading from the lectionary.
Join the Journey
Join us in an upcoming Two-Year Academy for Spiritual Formation. California - beginning in July. Alabama - beginning in August. Learn more.
This occasional newsletter brings resources for your spiritual journey and updates from The Upper Room.
Blessings to you during this Easter season.
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