Forever Imprinted By You

Your shaking hands touched me

Grasping my rough imperfections

Taking my burden upon you

I am what you came here for

You are what I’ve been fashioned for

I can tell that still you love me

Carried until you stumble

Then hauled by another to the place

where we lay defenseless

Your hands pressed against me

The spikes that pierce you

pierce me also

Driven through you

Deep into me.

Your blood spills over me

Soaking into my grain

Like a Passover door post

Forever marked before the Lord

We are lifted up

And I can provide little comfort to you

in your time of trial

You are abandoned

And I alone am left to embrace you

Let this last embrace be one of love

I give what I have to you

You who have absorbed such bitter hate

To be so close to the one I love

These terrible, holy moments

Now in your hour of death

I chant a blessing for your dying

“Receive your servant

His trials done

Let not death hold him

Your beloved Son”

Then you breathe your last

And your spirit departs

I shudder along with all creation

At the emptiness that descends upon us.

I hold your body till you are taken down

Then I am empty, but not barren

Never the same

Forever imprinted by you

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Poem: By Your Wounds

By Your Wounds

There you are, wounded in your person

Drawing me close to you

To join myself with you

You open my heart and I weep

To see you afflicted, mortal, suffering

I am stricken

Then I am on fire

All my wounds blazing

Burning, overwhelming my senses

I did not come here for this

I came for you, not my woundedness

Jesus, you can’t help it, can you

Always there for me

Seeking my good, even in your time of trial

“Come closer,” you say

Bring my wounds close to yours

uniting them together

Sorrow and love flow mingled down all around me

And you say this is the beginning of my restoration

Mending what’s broken

Redeeming the losses

Making things right

Such blessed suffering you give me

That by your wounds I am healed

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Poem: Your Wounds

Jesus, you call me to come to you

In your passion

Inviting me to be close to you

Whatever comes

Though my heart shudders to behold

And my body wants to flee

I see you there, suffering

I do not want to leave you alone

Or abandon you.

So I draw near

Joining you in your suffering

I see you separated from your friends

All alone, praying in agony

betrayed with a kiss

Arrested, accused, struck, judged

Beaten, mocked, abused, bloodied

Rejected, sentenced, carrying, falling, nailed

Weakened, suffering, abandoned

Forgiving, dying

I see you

And your wounds

Deepest wounds of love

Opened and offered up

Wounding complete

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Receiving the Mercy of God

I continue to notice how many of us have a reflexive feeling that God is harshly critical or judging us. Sometimes we feel this acutely due to a particular sin or failure in our lives. Other times we have a generalized feeling of God’s displeasure or judgment.

There is a place for the prick of conscience when we have done wrong, when we have sinned or when we are living in willful disobedience of God. But when we are seeking to love and follow God, I believe it is often the voice of the evil one, who likes nothing better than to try to keep us from going to the Lord. God always wants us to turn towards him, to come to him. Satan always wants to turn us away from, separate us from or put barriers between us and God.

Consider Adam and Eve in the garden. They disobeyed God and now they hide from God in the cool of the evening. They have done wrong, they feel ashamed and so they hide. It’s like the evil one is whispering in their ear, “God is harsh and angry and will never receive you with mercy.” But Satan is a lier. God wants their restoration. It is not God’s will that they should be separated from him, and so God seeks them out. If only they would run to him, confess their sins and be restored.

I recently came across this helpful quote from Pope Francis.

“The Lord always looks upon us with mercy;…let us not be afraid to approach him! He has a merciful heart! If we show him our inner wounds, our sins, he will always forgive us. He is pure mercy! Let us go to Jesus!”

— Pope Francis

God sees us with mercy. Let us soak these words deep into us. God longs to restore us. Be gone Satan, tell us no more lies! May we always run to the Lord to find forgiveness and mercy.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Responding to the Deaths that Surround Us

As a spiritual director, I am privileged to see the Lord bringing new life in people, seeing them find life in the midst of death. Having this perspective into life in Christ also gives me some perspective on the death I see all around me.

In a provocative post, Chuck DeGroat says that some of this death is necessary, and therapists and spiritual directors should not intervene, but instead, let it take its course. This led me to reflect that there are many kinds of death and that they are quite different.

I see people dying in a multitude of ways, some helpful and some quite destructive.  I see people being chewed up by the principalities and powers, sinful and broken structures. Some die as they shed their faith and move away from Jesus. I see people realizing that their faith had them living in death and they have to die to that death and find new life in Jesus, one that is more connected into the heart of God.

On a corporate level here in the US, the church is dying in many ways and some of those dyings are needed and we should not resist.  Other dyings are more like Psalm 11:3, where destroyed foundations damage God's people in harmful ways that will have long term consequences.

Regardless of the type of dying we face, our call is to turn to the living Lord in the midst of the death.  We come to the Lord in our weakness and death, asking to join him in his death, that he might raise us, give us hope and new life.

If you are facing into some type of death, consider spiritual direction as a way to seek the Lord and find new life.

Poem: Thirsting

Thirsting

I know that I am thirsty

That I need you

And sometimes I can discern my lack

Deep in my heart

A longing, unquenched desire

For you to fill this dusty vessel

And so I come to the source of living water

You

You know that I am thirsty

That I need you

You can discern my lack

Deep in my heart

Full of longing and unquenched desire

For you to fill my dusty vessel

You invite me to the source of living water

You

And then I recognize that you are also thirsty

Parched by my distance

Experiencing my absence deep in your heart

You long for me with unquenched desire

Longing to fill this empty vessel

To be my source, my living water

You

Thirsting for me

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

The False Path of Failure

As a spiritual director, I have been reflecting a lot about failure recently. I see the ways our perspectives on failure interfere with our relationship with God, and I’m discovering a different way to approach failure, one that leads us to God. Here is part 1 of a series of blog posts on failure and the spiritual life.

Failure surrounds us. Pressure to perform. Pressure to succeed. American culture teaches us that we are supposed to be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Disney movies tell us that we can fulfill all of our dreams. More than ever, we start building our resumes in childhood, anything to get into the right school, the right career, all to have a successful life.

All the while, in the shadows something is lurking, the specter of failure. What if I don’t succeed? What if I don’t fulfill my dreams? What if I don’t get into that school? What if I fail? What if other people see me fail or see me as a failure? Failure is terrifying. We will do anything to avoid it. And so we push it away, distract ourselves, seek social media affirmation, tell ourselves lies.

But still, this nagging fear gnaws at us. What if I am a failure?

Surely our faith can help us with this… but unfortunately, our faith is infected with the same sickness. We become good Christian people and suddenly our standards for success are even higher. As a Christian, I’m supposed to have my daily quiet time and love it. I’m supposed to be full of the fruit of the Spirit. I’m supposed to have a wonderful marriage and perfect kids. I’m supposed to be loving and generous and forgiving. I’m supposed to be someone that people will look at and say, “look how successful and wonderful that Christian is, I want that. Tell me how I can become a Christian too, to be a success like you.” We even start thinking that eternal salvation, rides and falls on our success.

And our churches become places where have to work hard not to show our flaws, always presenting our best selves. And then in our spiritual lives, we feel ashamed of our sins and failings and hide them from God, like Adam and Eve in the garden. We only go to God when we feel righteous. We begin hiding more and more of ourselves from God.

And God becomes our success evaluator, our judge, a harsh taskmaster, always requiring more, always seeing the ways we fall short, always frustrated with our failure. It’s no wonder we don’t want to pray, we find ourselves avoiding intimacy with God.

That’s all completely the opposite of the gospel. The gospel is that we are failures and God loves us, meets us in our failure and offers us new life through our failures. Such good news! Our failure doesn’t separate us from God. Instead, our failure is an opportunity to grow close to God.

Read more about failure in my followup post entitled Failure as Spiritual Opportunity

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Poem: Comfort Me

Comfort me

Comfort me, Lord

This life swirls around me

Pressures, responsibilities

All these desires

Conflicts, antagonisms

Rubbing raw

Exposing fissures

Needs

For you

And if I opened my heart

Unveiled my soul

Such sorrowful Joy

With you to comfort me

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Poem: Poor In Spirit

Jesus

You called me and I followed

Not knowing where you would lead

It wasn’t glorious or heroic

But deeper into poverty of spirit

So many things on the journey were broken, fallen, twisted

Things that you hope to redeem

But have not

Yet

There’s never enough time to mourn all the destruction

Nor could I bear it

So, one foot in front of the other

Persevere

With as much love as I can muster

And when perseverance wearied my bones

You called me on a deeper journey

Into You

Met with compassion, befriended

Drawn to living water

Companioned

The time of redemption begins

When You make morning flee

And wipe away tears

Plant trees that heal

My soul

Blessed to receive the kingdom.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Celebrate

In the story of the woman and the lost coin, God celebrates when the one who was lost is found. Jesus the Good Shepherd rejoices over the lost sheep who is rescued. The Father throws a party when the prodigal returns.

As a spiritual director I am privileged to be able to see the amazing work that God does in people’s lives. And when I see God’s miraculous work, I often sense that God wants to celebrate, throw a party.

And so, when God overwhelms you with His love, heals you, frees you from a burden, forgives you, takes away your fear or shame, go and celebrate. You can’t celebrate too much.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.