The Holy Spirit: Weekly Summary

Sunday
The Holy Spirit within us is the desire inside of all of us that wants to keep connecting, relating, and communing. It isn’t above us. It isn’t beyond us—it is within us. It’s as available as our breath, and that’s why the Risen Christ gives the Holy Spirit by breathing upon the disciples.
—Richard Rohr

Monday
To span the infinite gap between Divine and human, God’s agenda is to plant a little bit of God—the Holy Spirit—right inside us (Jeremiah 31:31–34; John 14:16–26). This is the meaning of the “new” covenant, which replaces our “heart of stone with a heart of flesh” as promised in Ezekiel (36:25–27).
—Richard Rohr

Tuesday
Until an objective inner witness (the Holy Spirit) emerges that looks back at us with utter honesty, we cannot speak of being awake or conscious. That is at the heart of what we mean by “waking up.” Unfortunately, people so fear a negative and judgmental critic that they never seem to access the “Compassionate Witness” promised us in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
—Richard Rohr

Wednesday
Imagine recentering on the God we know in Jesus. Imagine becoming practicing communities that follow Jesus and embody his community of love…. What it takes is disciples who together follow Jesus in his Way of Love, lean fully into the Spirit that animated him, and try to do what he did and live as he lived.
—Stephanie Spellers

Thursday
The highest expression of the spirit is the one that opens us to the Great Other, in love and trust. It establishes a dialogue with God, listens from the conscience to God’s call, and delivers us trustingly into the palm of God’s hand.
—Leonardo Boff

Friday
The Spirit gives us life and moves us to do the work of God and bear the fruits of the Spirit. We cannot see the Spirit, but we can experience the work of the Spirit. The Spirit lives in us and inspires us when we are frightened, disheartened, and confused—states in which we often find ourselves.
—Grace Ji-Sun Kim

Divine Feminine Prayer

Spiritual teacher and CAC friend Mirabai Starr guides us in a prayer to God using feminine language. We invite you to breathe intentionally for a few moments, feel your breath as it moves through your body, and receive the words of this prayer. Click here or on the image below.

Beloved One

Shekinah

Indwelling

Feminine Presence

Immanence

Embodiment

Mother-Heart

Please come flowing into every open window in our souls right now,

as we call to you.

Infuse every cell of our bodies with your fierce and tender Mother-Wisdom.

Give us the strength to speak truth to power in these fractured times.

Give us the tenderness and humility to listen deeply

to those that we are conditioned to otherize.

And remind us again and again when we forget that we belong to each other,

and we belong to you.

Amen.

Reference:

Mirabai Starr, “Divine Feminine Blessing,” Center for Action and Contemplation, March 1, 2023, YouTube video, 3:29.

Image credit: A path from one week to the next—Exercise in Grief and Lamentation credits from left to right: Jenna Keiper, Jenna Keiper, Izzy Spitz. Used with permission. Click here to enlarge image.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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Empowered to Do the Work of God

Theologian Grace Ji-Sun Kim recounts the events of the first Pentecost:

When the Holy Spirit arrived on the first Pentecost, it was not a quiet event; the sound was as if a great wind (breath) filled the room in which the disciples had gathered in their uncertainty and fear. The wind shook up those who had gathered. All the chaos continued. Tongues of fire appeared among the followers of Jesus. And when they went outside to speak, those who had come to Jerusalem from a wide variety of places heard the disciples’ speeches in each hearer’s native tongue, even though those speaking were all from Galilee….

Acts 2:1–3 celebrates a powerful event of the Spirit coming down to inspire the followers of Jesus. The Spirit descended upon those gathered in that upper room in Jerusalem. This event marks the resurrection of a frightened group of people and the birth of the church. It was a miraculous, confusing, wonderful event. Luke had a little fun with us by playing on the word tongue (Greek: glossai) in his telling of the experience. He used “tongues of fire” to describe the Spirit’s dance with the followers. He then followed that by observing that those imbued by the Spirit received the ability to speak in different “tongues.”

Kim reminds us that it is the Holy Spirit who moves us to do the work of God:

The Holy Spirit has great power to move the people and the church. That first Pentecost seemed something of a bizarre day in the life of the church, but what a birthday! As Acts describes, the Spirit inspires the followers of Jesus to get out of the upper room and preach the good news in Jerusalem and then spread the word: north to Anatolia; west to North Africa, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Gaul; south to Egypt and Ethiopia; and east to Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Persia. The empowering Spirit moves the church to do the work of God….

Pentecost stands second only to the resurrection among the incredible events that give life to the Christian church. In fact, Pentecost can be viewed as the resurrection of the followers of Jesus [emphasis added]. The Spirit, promised by Jesus, did not raise them from the dead, but it did pour new life into them when they were frightened, disheartened, and confused.

The Spirit gives us life and moves us to do the work of God and bear the fruits of the Spirit. We cannot see the Spirit, but we can experience the work of the Spirit. The Spirit lives in us and inspires us when we are frightened, disheartened, and confused—states in which we often find ourselves. Pentecost fulfills Jesus’ promise and the Old Testament prophecies (Acts 2:1–13). Pentecost established that it is the Spirit that will move the people to do God’s work.

Reference:

Grace Ji-Sun Kim, The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to the Holy Spirit: Hand-Raisers, Han, and the Holy Ghost (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2018), 49, 50–51, 51–52.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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Story from Our Community:

Early during the [pandemic] lockdown in the UK, I was prompted by the Daily Meditations to begin a daily practice of contemplation. I was a little surprised at myself—after all I had not attended church for 60 plus years! It felt as if our wondrous Holy Spirit was saying: “Go on, you’ll be ready to go deeper this time around.” My renewing faith, hope, and love is a daily delight—one which I cannot now imaging giving up, ever. I am so grateful to the CAC. Thank you. —Vince R.

An Indwelling Presence

Father Richard identifies the Holy Spirit as a divine “yes” within:

We must first remember who we are! Our core, our deepest DNA, is divine; it is the Spirit of Love implanted within us by our Creator at the first moment of our creation (see Romans 5:5, 8:11, 14–16). [1]

Those who have gone to their depths uncover an indwelling Presence. It is a deep and loving “yes” inherent within us. Christian theology names this inner Presence as the Holy Spirit, which is precisely God as immanent, within, and even our deepest and truest self. [2]

Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff describes the signs of this interior awakening to the Spirit:

The principal characteristic of human beings is our role as bearers of consciousness, of intelligence—in a word, of the spirit. The spirit infuses the whole universe from its very beginning, but in human beings it becomes self-aware and free….

Nothing shows the presence of the spirit in human life as well as love does…. When love is expressed as compassion, the spirit enables us to come out of ourselves, put ourselves in the other’s place, bend over the person fallen by the wayside. In forgiveness we transcend ourselves, so that the past does not have the last word and cannot close off the present and the future.

The highest expression of the spirit is the one that opens us to the Great Other, in love and trust. It establishes a dialogue with God, listens from the conscience to God’s call, and delivers us trustingly into the palm of God’s hand. This communion can be so intense, say the mystics of every tradition, that the soul of the beloved is fused with the Lover in an experience of nonduality; by grace we participate in God’s very being. Here the human spirit is touching the hem of the Holy Spirit’s garment. [3]

Richard writes:

Some saints and mystics have described this Presence as “closer to me than I am to myself” or “more me than I am myself.” Yet this True Self still must be awakened and chosen. The Holy Spirit is given equally to all; but it must be received, too. People who totally receive this Presence and draw life from it are the ones we traditionally call saints.

The Holy Spirit is never created by our actions or behavior; it is naturally indwelling, our inner being with God. In Catholic theology, we call the Holy Spirit “Uncreated Grace.” Culture and even religion often teach us to live out of our false self of reputation, self-image, role, possessions, money, appearance, and so on. Only as this fails us, and it always eventually does, will the Holy Spirit within us stand revealed and ready to guide us.

From this more spacious and grounded place, one naturally connects, empathizes, forgives, and loves just about everything. We were made in love, for love, and unto love. This deep inner “yes” is God in us, already loving God through us. [4]

References:

[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2018), 185.

[2] Rohr, Essential Teachings, 190.

[3] Leonardo Boff, Come Holy Spirit: Inner Fire, Giver of Life, and Comforter of the Poor, trans. Margaret Wilde (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015), 41, 42.

[4] Rohr, Essential Teachings, 190, 191.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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The “Age of the Spirit”

The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers describes how the Holy Spirit helps us to follow Jesus’ way of self-emptying love in times of immense transition:

Religious commentator Phyllis Tickle [1934–2015] pointed to this time as one of those periodic awakenings or “rummage sales” that Christianity holds every five hundred years or so, when it purges what’s no longer useful and reforms itself for the age to come. [1] In her final years, she promised we were entering “the Age of the Spirit,” when our obsession with order and control would backfire, and we’d be forced to rely on the wily ways of the Holy Spirit. [2] “Our jaws should drop open in amazement,” she remarked at a [2013] Emerging Church conference … (I was sitting in the pews scribbling furiously). “I think we’re seeing a shift in Christianity as dramatic as that first Pentecost wildfire.” [3]

In the very first chapter of Mark, Jesus heads from Nazareth to be baptized by John in the River Jordan. Just as Jesus comes up from the waters, the heavens break open and the Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove. “And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (Mark 1:10–11). Everything that follows is powered by the Spirit and by the love of God.

The same Spirit that Jesus received now rests on anyone who follows him. God invites us into a covenant, where by the power of the Spirit we can choose to allow our hearts to break, and then take the pieces—our lives, our goods, our love, and our privileges—and share it all like a broken loaf of communion bread.

Granted, this is a very non-American way of being. Think of the phrases that shape our national identity. We assert our “right” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which means we are free—and even expected—to organize our lives around our own individual desires. So much of our American story consists of groups of people protecting themselves and what’s theirs, with a gun or a flag or the cloak of racial, class, or gender privilege.

Jesus’s story is exactly the opposite. In this moment, as we reckon with the limits and consequences of self-centrism, domination systems, and the church’s capitulation to empire, we could lean into the Jesus way. We could reclaim kenosis [self-emptying], or perhaps claim it for the first time. [4]

Imagine recentering on the God we know in Jesus. Imagine becoming practicing communities that follow Jesus and embody his community of love. The forces of empire and establishment will tell you that’s a worthy cause but impossible in this day and age. They are wrong. What it takes is disciples who together follow Jesus in his Way of Love, lean fully into the Spirit that animated him, and try to do what he did and live as he lived, so that we, our communities, and the whole world might become more like him. [5]

References:

[1] Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 16, 19–31.

[2] Phyllis Tickle with Jon M. Sweeney, The Age of the Spirit: How the Ghost of an Ancient Controversy Is Shaping the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2014).

[3] Stephanie Spellers, The Church Cracked Open: Disruption, Decline, and New Hope for Beloved Community (New York: Church Publishing, 2021), 12–13.

[4] Spellers, Church Cracked Open, 94–95.

[5] Spellers, Church Cracked Open, 118–119.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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Story from Our Community:

Richard’s Daily Meditations are a way for me to stay centered in my journey. As a spiritual guide, I am aware of the importance of being grounded by the Holy Spirit. I look forward to each morning as I set my internal movement by the hopeful words shared in the Daily Meditations. I am just as grateful for the challenges that sometimes arise as I ponder the weekly topics. The meditations are lessons in re-examining my moral compass as I continue to tread the sometimes turbulent waters of life. —Tanya H.

Waking up Our Conscience

Father Richard points to the witness of the prophets to demonstrate how the Holy Spirit works within to wake us up to who we are:

What we see in the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible is the clear emergence of critical consciousness and interior struggle in Israel. We see them allowing an objective, outer witness, which is the death knell for both the ego and the group ego. They have to leave their false innocence and naïve superiority behind and admit that they do not always live as they say they do at the level of “law” or inside their idealized self-image.

In a sense, we can call the prophets the fathers and mothers of consciousness, because until we move to self-reflective, self-critical thinking, we don’t move to any deep level of consciousness at all. In fact, we largely remain unconscious, falsely innocent, and unaware. Thus, most people choose to remain in that first stage of consciousness, secure and consoled. It’s great to think we’re the best and the center of the world. It even passes for holiness, but it isn’t holy at all.

Until an objective inner witness (the Holy Spirit; see Romans 8:16) emerges that looks back at us with utter honesty, we cannot speak of being awake or conscious. That is at the heart of what we mean by “waking up.” Until then, most of us are on cruise control and cannot see our egocentricity at work.

Unfortunately, people so fear a negative and judgmental critic that they never seem to access the “Compassionate Witness” promised us in the gift of the Holy Spirit (see John 14:16–26). How wonderful that John calls the Holy Spirit parakletos (Greek for “defense attorney”). It is painful but necessary to be critical of your own system, whatever it is. But do know it will never make you popular. [1]

Theologian Grace Ji Sun-Kim describes how the Holy Spirit seeks transformation for all:

In the Hebrew Bible, the Spirit empowers the Servant of God to work for justice and peace and to create a community of liberated life (Isaiah 11). In the New Testament, at Pentecost, there is a powerful outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2:1–3). The communities of followers of Jesus received the Spirit, which was understood to be the source of an extraordinary power. It is power beyond our worldly comprehension and beyond our worldly expectations. The Spirit empowered and directed the early church. The Spirit that created life, transformed the people, and moved the early church is not gone. Enter now that life of the Spirit.

Christ is portrayed as a “life-giving Spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45). The believer has a responsibility to live her life in the power of the Spirit (Romans 8:4–6, 14). This responsibility should not be taken lightly, as one should not ignore the depth of the Spirit’s power. Walking in the power of the Spirit is life-changing, as the Spirit becomes an agent through which transformations can occur. [2]

References:

[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2008, 2022), 76–77.

[2] Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Reimagining Spirit: Wind, Breath, and Vibration (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019), 130.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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The Divine Strategy

For Richard Rohr, the Holy Spirit empowers us from within:

Power cannot be inherently bad because it is used by Luke and Paul to name the Holy Spirit, who is described as dynamis, the ancient Greek word for power (see Acts 10:38; Luke 24:49; Romans 15:13; 1 Corinthians 2:5). “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Then you will be my witnesses … to the very ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Once we contact our Inner Source, we become living icons for the Divine Image itself (see Isaiah 43:10). That is what true, humble, and confident power represents. It is the ultimate meaning of a well-grounded person.

Paul states the divine strategy well: “God’s Spirit and our spirit bear common witness that we are indeed children of God” (Romans 8:16). The goal is a shared knowing and a common power—totally initiated and given from God’s side, as we see dramatized on Pentecost (Acts 2:1–13). As when Mary conceives Jesus by the Holy Spirit, it is “done unto us” and all we can do is allow, enjoy, and draw life from this powerful gift. We would be foolish to think it is our own creation.

To span the infinite gap between Divine and human, God’s agenda is to plant a little bit of God—the Holy Spirit—right inside us (Jeremiah 31:31–34; John 14:16–26). This is the meaning of the “new” covenant, which replaces our “heart of stone with a heart of flesh” promised in Ezekiel (36:25–27). Isn’t that wonderful?

The Divine Indwelling is central to authentic Christian spirituality. Yet we could consider the Holy Spirit to be the “lost” or undiscovered person of the Blessed Trinity. No wonder we seek power in all the wrong places—since we have not made contact with our true power, the Indwelling Spirit (see Romans 8:9, 11; 1 Corinthians 3:16). [1]

Richard suggests that the Holy Spirit’s empowerment is the ultimate answer to our prayers:

We pray not to change God but to change ourselves. We pray to form a living relationship, not to get things done. Prayer is a symbiotic relationship with life and with God, a synergy which creates a result larger than the exchange itself. God knows that we need to pray to keep the symbiotic relationship moving and growing. Prayer is not a way to try to control God, or even to get what we want. As Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel (11:13), the answer to every prayer is one, the same, and the best: the Holy Spirit! God gives us power more than answers. [2]

A truly spiritual woman, a truly whole man, is a very powerful person. The fully revealed God of the Bible is not interested in keeping us as children (1 Corinthians 13:11) or “orphans” (John 14:18). God wants adult partners who can handle power and critique themselves (see Hebrews 5:11–6:1). [3]

References:

[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2008, 2022), 102–103.

[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Breathing under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2011, 2021), 57.

[3] Rohr, Things Hidden, 103, 104.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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Story from Our Community:

I’ve gradually learned a new (for me) way to pray the Our Father that I would like to share: “Our Father, who are in heaven and whose essence permeates every molecule in the universe, Holy are all Your Names! May your kingdom come, may Your will be done throughout the universe as it already is in Heaven. Please give each of us humans, plants, drops of water, pieces of the earth, sea creatures, creatures of the air, and all animals what we need for this day for our bodies, our minds, our hearts, and our spirits. Please forgive us our sins, and help us forgive ourselves, those who trigger us, or sin against us, or sin against people we love, or sin against any vulnerable person, and please protect us from being seduced be temptations, but deliver us from evil in all its forms, for yours is the only kingdom I want and You are deserving of all my faith, awe, respect and love now and forever, Amen.” I am so grateful God guided me to the CAC, it is changing my life. —Mary W.

As Close as Our Breath

On this Feast of Pentecost, Father Richard reminds us that the Holy Spirit is as near to us as our own breath:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21–22).

God has been trying through all of history to give away God. Jesus shows us that the gift is free and totally available, as available as our breath. It seems that God has a hard time giving away God, however, because most of us aren’t interested. We’re interested in other things: money and power and success and good looks and politics. It takes a long time to get around to the one thing we were created for.

If you’ve ever ridden on the subways in London, before the doors open and you get out of the train, they say, “Mind the gap.” When the doors open, it’s written in big words in front of every door: “Mind the gap.” It means, of course, that there are a few inches between the doors and the sidewalk, and they don’t want anyone to fall in that gap.

In teaching on the Holy Spirit, what we need to do is “mind the gap”—because the Holy Spirit fills the gaps of everything. First, we need to be aware that there usually is a gap. There’s a space because we don’t recognize that God is as available to us as our breath. We always allow God, by our own silliness and stupidity, to be distant, to be elsewhere. We always find a gap between ourselves and our neighbor, between ourselves and almost everything. We therefore feel quite lonely and isolated in this world. Without some awareness of the Holy Spirit’s presence, frankly, we’re not connected to anything or anybody. We just live an isolated life.

The Holy Spirit within us is the desire inside all of us that wants to keep connecting, relating, and communing. It isn’t above us. It isn’t beyond us—it is within us. It’s as available as our breath, and that’s why the Risen Christ gives the Holy Spirit by breathing upon the disciples. He’s saying, in effect, “Here it is! Here it is! Can you breathe in what I have breathed out?”

As we grow on the journey, we’ll begin to experience that breath, that Spirit, as if it is the very air. It’s everywhere, all the time, and we can’t live one minute without it. Isn’t it amazing that air, the thing that’s most essential, most invisible to most people is the one thing that’s everywhere all the time and free? The Holy Spirit likewise has been given to us freely.

Reference:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Pentecost Sunday: The Divine Sparkplug,” homily, May 15, 2016.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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Depression and Spiritual Healing: Weekly Summary

Sunday
Hold your when or how long or where before God. Make space for your disappointment, frustration, and unfulfillment to come out of hiding and present themselves in the light.
—Brian McLaren

Monday
Those of us who suffer from depression call it many things. The fog. The black dog. The darkness. The unholy ghost. We dance around it with metaphors and paint pictures of the pain with our words.
—Diana Gruver

Tuesday
The infinite love of God can come welling up, and something of the depth dimension can begin to shine through in our dilemmas. It isn’t just that we’re caught in the middle of a dilemma, but we have a felt sense of knowing that we’re not alone.
—James Finley

Wednesday
With therapists, medication, meaningful studies, a small church community, a pastor who cared, friends who understood, and a name for my condition, God was knitting me. God was knitting me back together.
—Monica A. Coleman

Thursday
When we risk sharing what hurts the most in the presence of someone who will not invade us or abandon us, we can learn not to invade or abandon ourselves.
—James Finley

Friday
The spirituals give me a way to be sad without being alone. Because they are sung in community, they say: It’s okay to suffer. We know how you feel. We are suffering too. We all are.
—Monica A. Coleman

Praying without Words

For author and Episcopal priest Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, it’s during times when words fail us that turning to wordless prayer can help sustain our faith.

God is not a figure outside of our experience and in need of information about it. We don’t really need to pray about anything; we’re not in charge of much of what happens in the world. We can content ourselves with prayer from within it all.

So if prayer’s efficacy is not measured by whether or not we get what we ask for, it’s probably safe to stop asking for things, especially if doing so seems to feed the desperation and despair that take root in the soul of a depressed person—if prayer has become little more than worry with an “Amen” tacked on at the end. Here is a suggestion:

Maybe we could try not using words at all.

Never is this permission to be wordless more important than when depression strangles even the everyday words of human interaction. At such a time, a spiritual practice may be needed that will allow your emptiness, rather than fight to fill it. The ancient practice of centering prayer is one, like other meditative techniques from other religions and cultures: the quiet, gentle abdication of all one’s illusions of personal power and control. It is not measured by the quality or quantity of emotion it produces. Prayer doesn’t have to be measured by anything.

We invite you to join CAC teacher Brian McLaren as he leads a silent meditation.

Reference:

Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, Jesus Wept: When Faith and Depression Meet (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 114.

Image credit: A path from one week to the next—CAC Staff Exercise in Grief and Lamentation credits from left to right: Jennifer Tompos, Jenna Keiper, Jenna Keiper. Used with permission. Click here to enlarge image.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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Finding Hope in the Depths of Depression

Diana Gruver writes of finding solace and hope through others who share their experiences:

As I slogged through seasons of depression … I have found the stories and presence of others who have experienced depression to be invaluable. I hear a hint of something I recognize—an aside, a metaphor, a clue that points to those marks left by the darkness—and I zero in on them. There is someone who knows, I think, someone who understands. They, too, have walked through the valley of the shadow of depression….

They remind me I am not the only one to walk this road, that this experience is not an alien one. The lie that “surely no one has felt this” is cut down by the truth that others, in fact, have, and their presence makes me feel less isolated. These fellow travelers are my companions in the darkness of night.…

They give me hope—hope that this is not the end of my story, that I, too, will survive this. Hope that depression will not have the last say. [1]

Theologian and minister Monica Coleman finds comfort and healing in the spirituals of the Black church:

The further I’m away from Southern black churches, and the more I understand depression, the more I need spirituals. Created by enslaved Africans in the United States, spirituals express both suffering and dependence on faith…. Like the Psalms of the ancient Hebrew community, the slaves took their emotions to God, putting them to music….

The spirituals give me a way to be sad without being alone. Because they are sung in community, they say: It’s okay to suffer. We know how you feel. We are suffering too. We all are.

They aren’t afraid to linger in the painful places. They have no need to rush to praise. They can be slow … drawing out one syllable over tens of seconds … taking their time … waiting.… They knew how to take moans, make them hums, and then turn them into words. They knew how to give voice to pain and how to do it together.

Thus I’m convinced that when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” from the cross (Matthew 27:45–46), he wasn’t making a profound theological statement about the hidden God. Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, the spirituals of his people. He was in pain, and he began to sing. In my sanctified imagination, I see the people at the foot of the cross joining him as we do today in my faith community: slowly at first, one voice, then another, humming, then forming words. It sounds like this:

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

a long way from home….

They remind me that if you stay in a spiritual long enough, you’ll hear God, you’ll feel hope. In the depths of depression, I can think of no greater spiritual gift.

Reference:

[1] Diana Gruver, Companions in the Darkness: Seven Saints Who Struggled with Depression and Doubt (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 13.

[2] Monica A. Coleman, Not Alone: Reflections on Faith and Depression—A 40-Day Devotional (Culver City, CA: Inner Prizes, 2012), 17, 18–19.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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Story from Our Community:

I’ve struggled my whole life with depression, anxiety, complex trauma and many years of addiction. My therapist introduced me to Richard Rohr and his teachings have been monumental in my healing. Although recovery has been long and hard work—and always will be—I am now better able to find peace and love with God and slowly with myself. A very heartfelt thank you to Fr. Richard, the CAC, and the whole community. You truly inspire me to find meaning from my suffering and help others with a loving heart. —Erika C.

The Healing Work of Community and Service

Womanist theologian and pastor Dr. Monica Coleman writes openly about her experience with bipolar depression:

I either felt sad or I felt nothing at all. I couldn’t feel happy or look forward to things I wanted to feel happy about. I couldn’t even remember what made me happy anymore. Feeling nothing was better than feeling sad, but eventually I felt sad. I was losing my ability to function. I had to detach myself emotionally from everything just to keep from crying all the time, and still sometimes that didn’t work. It took all my energy to get up and get dressed and be there and not cry through the day. I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months and months. [1]

In her quest for healing, Dr. Coleman joined a church-based knitting group that created items for homeless individuals. They met monthly, and—after struggling with depression for years—Coleman began to experience the presence of God again in a community dedicated to serving others.

Revelation did not come to me in thunderbolts. God was just there. In the hot cup of tea. In the women who gathered. In our laughter. In the knitting. God was in my uniform rows of stitches. God was also in the dropped stitch that created an imperfection.… There is something holy in the movement of yarn through fingers and needles. It grounds you. It keeps you from falling through the chasms around you…. God is in every cell, every person, and every activity. Whether I know it or not. Whether it feels like it or not. God is creating. With yarn and needles, hiccups, unraveling, do-overs, a rhythm, and individual stitches, God is making something new. Something beautiful. I thought that my prayers and good intentions in knitting for homeless men were divine activity. I was knitting God into the hat and scarf. No. God was knitting me. With therapists, medication, meaningful studies, a small church community, a pastor who cared, friends who understood, and a name for my condition, God was knitting me. God was knitting me back together. [2]

Coleman reminds us that our diagnoses do not define us but are part of our lifelong journey of discovering our true worth in God:

I don’t want to be reduced to my symptoms and diagnosis. Tied down. I am learning the difference between captivity and rest, between an illness and a condition. There’s nothing wrong with me. After all, this is the only me I’ve ever known. But sometimes I need to slow down, check to see if I’m okay; look at the emotional heap of yarn in my lap, undo a few rows, and try again. I need to know that the things I drop, the things I can’t do the way I want, the hard parts of my life are not failure. They are evidence that I’m human. [3]

Reference:

[1] Monica A. Coleman, Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman’s Journey in Depression and Faith (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2016), 281.

[2] Coleman, Bipolar Faith, 332–333.

[3] Coleman, Bipolar Faith, 340.

On retreat, the CAC staff used watercolors to connect to our collective grief. This is one of the watercolor paintings that came from that exercise.

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