One of the great powers of love is balance; it helps us move toward transfiguration. When two people come together, an ancient circle closes between them. They also come to each other not with empty hands, but with hands full of gifts for each other. Often these are wounded gifts; this awakens the dimension of healing within love. When you really love someone, you shine the light of your soul on the beloved. We know from nature that sunlight brings everything to growth. If you look at flowers early on a spring morning, they are all closed. When the light of the sun catches them, they trustingly open out and give themselves to the new light. . . .
A person should always offer a prayer of graciousness for the love that has awakened in them. When you feel love for your beloved and the beloved's love for you, now and again you should offer the warmth of your love as a blessing for those who are damaged and unloved. Send that love out into the world to people who are desperate, to those who are starving, to those who are trapped in prison, in hospitals, and into all the brutal terrains of bleak and tormented lives. When you send that love out from the bountifulness of your own love, it reaches other people. This love is the deepest power of prayer. . . . When there is love in your life, you should share it spiritually with those who are pushed to the very edge of life. There is a lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that if you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times.
— John O'Donohue in Anam Cara
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You may notice that I have been quoting many of John O'Donohue's writings recently. That is because I am presently doing a 40 days online retreat with Spirituality and Practice.The late John O' Donohue was an Irish Catholic priest, poet, scholar, and bestselling author of two books on Celtic spirituality, two collections of poetry, a book on the spiritual practice of beauty, and a volume on blessing as a way of life. Although he lived in Ireland, he led workshops and retreats in America. He made quite a name for himself with his lyrical, enthusiastic, and buoyant spoken-word audiotapes for Sounds True. To listen to him speak was to be transported to a realm of deep feeling. He peppered his talks with poetry from Rainer Maria Rilke, William Stafford, and many others.
Over his short but stunning writing and teaching career, O 'Donohue consistently tapped into the rich mine of Celtic spirituality and stories. In Anam Cara (Gaelic for "soul friend") he showed us how Celtic wisdom speaks across the centuries to the challenges we face today. In Eternal Echoes, he probed the multiple meanings of yearning and the path of the heart in times of separation. Beauty: The Invisible Embrace gave us a sweeping and vibrant survey of this often underplayed spiritual practice. His final book To Bless the Space Between Us presents ways to use this ritual as a way to connection, healing, and transformation.
You can never love another person unless you are equally involved in the beautiful but difficult spiritual work of learning to love yourself. There is within each of us, at the soul level, an enriching fountain of love. In other words, you do not have to go outside yourself to know what love is. This is not selfishness, and it is not narcissism; they are negative obsessions with the need to be loved. Rather this is a wellspring of love within the heart. . . .
If you find that your heart has hardened, one of the gifts that you should give yourself is the gift of the inner wellspring. You should invite this inner fountain to free itself. You can work on yourself in order to unsilt this, so that gradually the nourishing waters begin in a lovely osmosis to infuse and pervade the hardened clay of your heart. Then the miracle of love happens within you. Where before there was hard, bleak, unyielding, dead ground, now there is growth, color, enrichment, and life flowing from the lovely wellspring of love. This is one of the most creative approaches to transfiguring what is negative within us.
— John O'Donohue in Anam Cara
Two new videos added to the "Spiritual Directors International Learns From..." series. Listen to Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB.
The National Catholic Reporter features spiritual direction and SDI in "An Ancient and Contemporary Pathway to God" by Tom Gallagher.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly episode features "Spiritual Direction."
Online Seek and Find Guide interactive database helps you to search for spiritual directors in your area. More than 5,000 are listed.
Not sure how to choose a spiritual director? The Seek and Find Guide includes a handy set of review questions to help you.
