Friday Photographs-Visio Divina: An Introduction

Visio Divina or praying with art is a spiritual/meditative practice that like its sister practice Lectio Divina is gaining popularity. Both Lectio Divina and Visio Divina are ancient practices that find their roots in the Benedictine Christian tradition.

Visio Divina (Latin for "divine seeing") uses images as the basis for prayer and meditation. While practicing Visio Divina one gazes at an image and lets the image speak to them. The image becomes an avenue for becoming aware of God's presence within us as well as for God to speak to us. Visio Divina speaks to me because it is accessible to almost everyone from young children to adults. It speaks to me because it lets our spirits connect with both the spirit of God and the spirit of the artist who created the image.Visio Divina speaks to my creative side and I hope it will connect with some of you.

Try Visio Divina with the image below. Here is one method to get you started:

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Invite God into this time of prayer & meditation.

Gaze prayerfully at this photo...

...let your thoughts and feelings sit with you for a while.

What do you see?

What are you feeling?

What might God be saying to you through this photograph?

Say a work of thanks to God for this time! 

Spiritual Practice-Gratitude Journaling

I decided to jump on the Thanksgiving bandwagon and write a post about thankfulness or in this case gratefulness. Now don't get me wrong it's not that I'm not thankful or grateful but this year I don't feel the need to broadcast these things on Facebook or social media. In fact this post isn't going to focus on what I'm thankful. However, I do want to take this time to say THANK YOU to YOU the readers of this blog! I am grateful that you take the time to read, ponder, and respond to what I write. It gives me courage and inspires me to continue this blogging journey.

Okay so back to the main purpose of this post. I have a spiritual practice of gratefulness. I try to each day to be intentional about naming the things I'm grateful for. Some days I just take a few minutes to name them in my head. Other days I write them down as part of my pray journaling practice. Some days I even post them on Facebook or Instagram. This practice is usually just a list of people, things or events. In the past few days I have to feel the need to reflect on my gratitude on deeper level. I have felt the need to challenge myself to not only name what I'm grateful for but also to put into words why I am grateful that particular day for that person, place, item or event. This might include reflecting on how this positively impacted me or where/how I experienced God's love. This will take more time than just making a list. Yet, I believe it will open up my heart and soul for glimpses of God's healing and transforming love.

For Advent I am going to commit to putting this into practice by keeping a gratitude journal. Each day not only will I name what I'm grateful for but will reflect and write down why I'm grateful for the things I name. I also commit to reflecting on this experience in a blog post after Christmas.

So who wants to join me in this gratitude challenge? I would love to have others along on this journey with me and to hear what you noticed about yourself while engaging in this spiritual practice.

Here are some question to ponder as you reflect on the "why":

• How did this person, event, or thing positively effect my life today?
• How am I different because of this?
• How did I experience God's healing and transforming love today?
• What about the person, event, or thing made me feel grateful?

Who's with me?!

Mandala-A Spiritual Practice of Coloring

Recently I have been reacquainting myself with different spiritual practices that I either learned about in seminary and/or found to be effective for me at one time. For the past couple of weeks I have been doing a spiritual practice called Praying in Color (I wrote about it in a previous post). While I have found this practice to be very grounding and effective this morning I knew I needed something different. My soul was telling me that I needed to think less about what I was doing with my hands and let my mind just wander a bit. This was a perfect opportunity to engage in a spiritual practice using a Mandala!

Mandalas are an ancient practice that are used in many religious traditions, including Christianity. The word "mandala" means "circle" in Indian language of Sanskrit. Traditionally, mandalas are designs that have a center and are based on circle.

However, some modern mandalas designs are not circular in nature (like the one below).

No matter what the design is there are two consistent aspects of mandalas. One it that they made up of geometric patters and second that you color these designs. It is the act of coloring that is the real spiritual practice. Coloring lets your mind go into a different mode of being. As you color you begin to relax both physically and mentally allowing your mind to stay more present with God. This doesn't mean that your thoughts won't wander to your to do list (as mine did more than once today) or that you won't begin to feel stressed about something in your life (that happened to me too). Rather it allows you to let those thoughts and feelings come, sit for a moment (hopefully only a moment), let them go, and then refocus your attention on God.

Today's practice was difficult for several of the reasons mentioned above. I kept wanting to quit so I could get on with my day and my long "to-do list." Yet, I kept hearing the Spirit say, "Stay with me a little longer." I realized I need to MAKE time to sit with God, just be present, and let God's love seep into to my soul as I color. I didn't "finish" coloring the mandala today and that's okay. I am actually looking forward to "finishing" it tomorrow and seeing what I experience and feel.

Have you engaged the spiritual practice of mandalas? If so, share you experience in the comments other (including myself!) can learn and grow from your story? If you are interested in learning more about this practice please contact me! I'd love to talk with you about it. Happy coloring!

Friday Photographs-Shifting Perspectives

"All spiritual practice is the art of shifting perspectives."

~Teal Swan