Spritual Direction -part II

Oct 18th Mercy Center:
As we listen to each other's Holy Ground experience, we are told to pay attention to our inner thoughts, and notice what is happening within us. My partner shared his brother's death last week, his experience of witnessing his brother's passing from this world to the next world, he experienced the presence of Holy spirit, the comforter was with his brother and his family who were at the death bed. Watching his brother leaving this world and embracing the next world was so satisfying because there was such a peace and grace in that place. They all felt that the presence of God. As I listened my partner's story, I felt like I was right with him because the way he shared about his sacred experience. Then he shared another incident when he experienced God. He was walking on the beach one time; there was breeze, and he knew that was the breath of God. I can totally understand what he is talking about. I too had the same experience with breeze. I call it "God's breath experience".

I was going to share about my new church being a holy ground for me, but first I dovetailed on Bill's story of God's breath. I shared my Uganda experience. God's breath, morning breeze that I felt in that morning in banana field in Uganda, I will never forget. That was my encounter with God, my holy ground experience in 1998. I shared with my current holy ground that I saw in my mind tonight.

After we shared our experience with each other, we met in a large group again, then the facilitator asked about our dyad experience. People said "easier to keep going, became sacred as I tell the story, thinking about and telling about the experience made our experience sacred, trust" The activity took only 30 min. The next 30 minutes, the facilitator read Speech Therapist, how she saw God on the face of a handicapped child. She read it, and then asked what happened to the ST. There are so many great comments were made, as always, I learn a lot from my classmates.

Circle of Life
Spiritual direction is to be in God's presence, nothing is excluded, everything is important to God, assurance from God, God manifest himself. When we touch a person deeply, we touch God. When we have relationship with God whse name is "I AM"- it changed to I - thou relationship to I - I relationship. God is interested in my everyday, ordinary affairs. When I am with Him, my ordinary life comes alive. glory of God is human being fully alive.

Art of listening

Listen to others as though the person is speaking his last words. What a great warning or prompting. If I listen to Chris, Zach and Simon in this way, what would be like? We took a dinner break from 6 to 7 p.m. We had fish, salad, and soup. I sat with two other women whom I have known them since the first meeting last year. We convened at 7 p.m and continued with the listening experience. We broke up with a team of three and practiced Spiritual Direction. Frank was the director, I was the directee, and Louise was the observer. I told about my forgetfulness. I forgot totally about the last month homework, and I cannot even remember what was talked about last month. A few times, I had blacked out experience. Bill caught the word "scared" and asked me why I was scared. I was little agitated that I am not scared, but I am frustrated. It was amazing that Frank's question helped me to sort out the feelings of "scared and frustrated". Frank was very comfortable in his role as a director and I felt his empathy toward the directee was the key for me to open up. He listened to me, gave his undivided attention. I knew that because he was leaning forward to hear what I have to say. Louise debriefed and gave some feedback. We met as the small group, Bill, the mentor for our group debriefed about the today's lesson.

I learned a lot. I am so glad that I came.