{"id":39472,"date":"2013-05-09T08:17:18","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T13:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.austincnm.com\/?p=39472"},"modified":"2013-05-09T09:23:55","modified_gmt":"2013-05-09T14:23:55","slug":"finding-your-inner-chapel-through-journaling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/05\/finding-your-inner-chapel-through-journaling\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Your Inner Chapel Through Journaling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Prayer<\/a>Long before I heard of my good friend St. Teresa of Avila, and threw myself into Carmelite spirituality, I met a really weird guy named Morton T. Kelsey in a book called The Other Side of Silence.<\/em> If I hadn\u2019t met Kelsey in his books I\u2019m not sure I could have ever taken to the Holy Mother of Carmel\u2019s teachings.<\/p>\n

I think St. Teresa may have been guiding me to Kelsey. At that point in my new spiritual life I was still pretty uncomfortable with Jesus. However I was unwillingly drawn to the Catholic Faith to the point I was attending daily mass.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know what was wrong with me. I ended up at St. Anthony\u2019s \u00a0every day with all these old people who said the prayers really fast. I didn\u2019t even understand anything that was going on and sometimes I was offended. \u00a0And sometimes I left. Always I wondered what I was doing there again and told myself I didn\u2019t belong there.<\/p>\n

I had learned some practical spirituality about a year before that that was necessary to keep me from going crazy through a difficult time in my life and I believed in God by then. I knew how to pray and ask for what I needed and to say thank you for what I received each day. I knew how to go on long walks and talk to God like a friend. \u00a0I knew the Our Father well enough to say when other people were saying it. But I didn\u2019t really understand it very much.<\/p>\n

Anything more than that was going to be really hard because first of all I was allergic to Christianity due to bad experiences with Christians.\u00a0 I was ignorant about the faith plus having been raised atheist I had a lot of prejudice about it. And Jesus freaked me out.<\/p>\n

I read this book The Other Side of Silence<\/i>, and also Adventure Inward<\/i> by Kelsey somewhere around that time. I was twenty years old I think.\u00a0 I had kept a journal since I was ten. I loved to write.\u00a0 I had seriously bad ADD. But when I wrote I felt a sense of flow, and focus I didn\u2019t have normally.<\/p>\n

I had heard of \u201cmeditation\u201d of course but I didn\u2019t know Christians did anything like that.\u00a0 I certainly did not know of any type of prayer that was more than what I was doing, and the idea of\u00a0 \u201ccontemplative prayer\u201d was completely unknown to me.<\/p>\n

I was most intrigued by the idea that one could pray by journaling and also by the suggestion that God can \u201ctalk back,\u201d that I could actually encounter God in a personal way and that He would respond to me.<\/p>\n

Kelsey\u2019s suggestions about prayer journaling helped me with some of my problems with Christianity and prayer.\u00a0 This prayer method turned out to be profoundly healing for me and to be the launching pad for my learning to do what St. Teresa called going within oneself to be with God. Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. The Lord is within us. And I love how Teresa says, \u201cWe aught not to leave him there alone.\u201d\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know it but I had found a way to consciously make my way inward for the first time in my life.<\/p>\n

In this method of prayer I could use my abundant imagination to create an image of Jesus I liked. St. Teresa advises getting a picture of Jesus to look at, \u201cOne that you like,\u201d to talk to and facilitate prayer in the beginning. I created a picture in my mind and on the pages of my journal of a Jesus resembling the kind of people my young college student parents had around when I was growing up in the early 70\u2019s: a long- haired hippie guy in jeans and a faded blue button up shirt, a kind face, a big smile, sandals.\u00a0 I could ask Him anything and He wouldn\u2019t freak out.<\/p>\n

He usually brought food and he liked walking on the beach like I did. He laughed easily. He cried easily too.<\/p>\n

My imaginary conversations with Jesus often surprised me by their depth and content. \u00a0I began to draw wisdom and comfort from reading over these pages when I was upset.\u00a0Sometimes He said things I didn\u2019t\u2019 like but I knew were true and sometimes I received deep inner healing from these encounters that changed my life.<\/p>\n

I became able to study the faith, and study the Scriptures without getting so offended. If I didn\u2019t understand something I was able to pray about it and ask for light and study the reasons behind the Church teaching I was having trouble with or the Bible verse that upset me.\u00a0 When it came time for me to deal with some traumatic memories from my childhood and adolescence, praying in this way made it possible for me to do the inner work and receive the inner grace necessary to face\u00a0the damage and to heal.\u00a0 All I was really doing was using writing as a way to go within myself and encounter the Lord in the \u201cLittle Heaven\u201d of my soul. \u00a0And I liked that guy. In fact I fell in love with Him and He became the center of my life.<\/p>\n

Once I was a Catholic (as of 1990) I had spiritual mentors and priests I knew that I could read these writings to and have them reflect for me about them, helping me keep perspective. \u00a0Keeping proper perspective is important if this type of prayer or any other is to be a source of growth in the love of God.<\/p>\n

This prayer has the same danger spots as any other mental or interior prayer form.\u00a0 One must remember that even the most authentic encounters with Christ are not literal messages to be taken as prophecy or to be put on the level with the Word of God or the Magisterium of the Church.\u00a0 They are the traces of prayer: usually part us and part God.<\/p>\n

Receiving great consolation from God in prayer does not make one a holier person than anyone else.\u00a0 And we are all capable of fooling \u00a0ourselves, of being subtly influenced by evil and by the various forms of pride and selfishness we are infected with in our hearts that can mislead us. We can all become so attached to the experiences the Lord gives us we can hold ourselves back from the Giver because of our fascination with the gifts we receive. It is important in the interior life to have experienced people to share with who can keep us on track in our growth.<\/p>\n

Still, the Holy Spirit is at work as the pray-er within and you can trust that if you are earnestly praying and attempting to make contact with God that in His mercy and grace He responds to that intention. Also when we encounter ourselves we encounter God because truly He is in us in a very real way.<\/p>\n

This way of prayer also helped me as a single widowed mom of two wonderful but particularly challenging kids. I did not have a lot of time for prayer and solitude. So I created an inner chapel where I could retreat to pray and be with God within myself. At first I would have my journal open on the kitchen counter and I can remember writing in it as I also did dishes or made dinner. Often I didn\u2019t need the journal I just went within myself while I was sweeping or doing something else. Late at night I could be found writing, writing, praying, pouring out my heart, being nourished and strengthened by the Lord within.\u00a0 I could never have made it through without\u00a0 having recourse to praying like that.\u00a0 I filled up many a journal. I think my closet has more journals in it than clothes.<\/p>\n

The way I did this prayer is to just start writing, creating first a landscape or scene that reflected my mood or else was a place I was comforted by. Pretty soon, as I scribbled away about the scene I could see inside myself in a symbolic way, I was quiet inside and focused, and before too long, into the eye of my imagination, would come that long-haired guy in sandals to see me. The interior images and words would begin to flow easily and I have no doubt I was in my Interior Castle developing my relationship with\u00a0 our \u201cFriend Who we know loves us,\u201d as St. Teresa said.<\/p>\n

I used this method of prayer for years. Strangely enough I don\u2019t use it anymore. It just went away about ten years ago or maybe more, as if the pen fell out of my hand. My prayer became much more passive, simple, silent and dark.\u00a0 I just sit in the cave of my heart, if you will, nowadays, and God is there too.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the Lord seems to take away one kind of prayer and lead you another way. We must all be docile to that and trust it as long as it is not really that we are being lazy or flighty. Prayer requires discipline and before we give up a kind of prayer we are committed to we should be discerning about what that\u2019s really about, what our real reason is. It is always tempting to turn our hand from the plough. Sometimes continuing to pray is hard work, or an issue has come up. And we want to quit. Other times it is that God is leading us in a new path. And we should go with that.<\/p>\n

Imaginative journaling is a great way to pray and it can be powerful and transformative.\u00a0 To me it has much in common with the more active types of prayer Teresa suggests for beginners. Though I think she might have been amused by what I was doing, I don\u2019t think she would have had a problem with it.<\/p>\n

I found out Morton T. Kelsey died some years ago.\u00a0 I hope someone told him how helpful he was when he got to Heaven. I hope he and St. Teresa were able to have tea or something and some good discussions.\u00a0 Maybe she would say, \u201cThank you for helping my little wayward \u00a0daughter to find her heart when she was wandering lost.\u201d \u00a0And maybe he would say, \u201cYou\u2019re welcome. I\u2019m sure glad you took over trying to teach her anything though. Better you than me!\u201d\u00a0 And maybe they laugh.\u00a0 And they toast their tea \u00a0cups to wayward little souls that God leads in whatever way He can get them to go to find Him.<\/p>\n

If you decide to read Morton T. Kelsey remember he isn\u2019t a Catholic but an Episcopalian priest. Also he talks a lot of Jungian psychology, having found some of Jung\u2019s ideas helpful to his own prayer journey. You can either not read him or take what you like and leave the rest if that sort of thing bothers you.\u00a0 Adventure Inward<\/i> is more specifically about prayer journaling. It is also simpler and shorter.<\/p>\n

Or you can just sit down with your journal, get quiet inside, and start writing. Maybe you\u2019re walking along the beach, the waves are choppy and the wind is cold. It\u2019s about to storm. You see someone coming to meet you, his long hair peeking out from his rain coat hood, flashlight in hand. \u201cHey come on, I made breakfast!\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0He slips his arm around you and you\u2019re off on an adventure inward with the best Friend possible, the Lord within.<\/p>\n

* The teachings and quotes mentioned of St. Teresa of Avila\u2019s can be found most easily in her book The Way of Perfection.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long before I heard of my good friend St. Teresa of Avila, and threw myself into Carmelite spirituality, I met a really weird guy named Morton T. Kelsey in a book called The Other Side of Silence. If I hadn\u2019t met Kelsey in his books I\u2019m not sure I could have ever taken to the… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[90],"tags":[1120,74,1687],"class_list":{"0":"post-39472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-faith-blog","7":"tag-journal","8":"tag-prayer","9":"tag-st-teresa-de-avila","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":158954,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/10\/8-minute-guided-prayer-of-recollection-of-st-teresa-of-avila\/","url_meta":{"origin":39472,"position":0},"title":"8 Minute Guided “Prayer of Recollection” of St. Teresa of Avila [Audio Post]","author":"Shawn Rain Chapman","date":"October 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Prayer Break! 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Is your name\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/painting1-117x190.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":267357,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/review-dark-night-of-the-soul-gerald-may\/","url_meta":{"origin":39472,"position":3},"title":"Carmelite Spirituality for the Analytical Mind (Review: “The Dark Night of the Soul” by Gerald May)","author":"Lindsay Wilcox","date":"July 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a relatively new interest in the intersection of psychology and spirituality. I have some good friends who are Catholics and counselors, and while I treasure the opportunities I've had to walk alongside people on their spiritual journeys, I've never wanted to pursue that path myself. 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