pat loughery

Here are my notes and highlights from the Kindle edition of Abba, Give Me A Word: The Path of Spiritual Direction by L. Roger Owens.  This is a unique look at spiritual direction, because it focuses on being the directee, not a director.

Abba, Give Me A Word: The Path of Spiritual Direction by L. Roger Owens

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Last annotated on April 29, 2012

Crossing the bridge feels like a point of transition for me because when I see the ospreys and the bald eagles, I am reminded of why I’m doing this—to become like the ones the prophet Isaiah talked about, who wait on the Lord and mount up with wings as eagles, and run and run and never tire.Read more at location 67

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This book is an introduction to the practice of receiving spiritual direction, drawn from my experience.Read more at location 130

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Evagrius of Pontus had to say about theologians: “If you are a theologian you truly pray. If you truly pray you are a theologian.”Read more at location 238

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The first is—find a pen and a few blank pages and begin to write about it. Don’t know what to write? Try writing what I call a “longing list.” At the top of a blank sheet of paper write, “What do I want?”Read more at location 292

Note: great exercuse Edit

Let me say it as pointedly as possible: Reading about prayer, or the memoirs of saints and monks, has a subtle way of preventing prayer by replacing it.Read more at location 315

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kind of prayer that pastor and theologian Jason Byassee writes about when he says, “Prayer is ultimately an inner-Trinitarian conversation into which we creatures are invited.”Read more at location 366

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As Thomas Merton said, “Spiritual direction is a moral necessity for anyone who is trying to deepen his life of prayer.”Read more at location 481

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“Nothing harms the monk so much,” said Abba Theonas, “and gives such happiness to the demons, as when he conceals his thoughts from his spiritual father.”Read more at location 502

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Celtic proverb speaks of the importance of this relationship: “Anyone without a soul-friend is a body without a head.”Read more at location 510

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If you are still in this early stage, having recognized your own longing for an abba or amma to whom you can apprentice yourself in a life of prayer, in life with God, but have not found one yet, it would be a good idea to spend some time thinking about what you are seeking in a spiritual guide: Someone who can give you very specific advice, who will take a firm, directive approach? Someone who will take long walks with you, listening and reflecting, and helping you see God’s movement in your life? Someone who can journey with you over a short period of time as you discern God’s presence and movement in your life around a particular issue, or someone who can walk beside you as you seek to make a home in God’s love your whole life long? Thinking about these questions might help to refine your search as you begin.Read more at location 533

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But he’s also willing to challenge me, to encourage me to name the ways I’m deciding not to listen to God, and to ask myself why. I have heard him say in another context that challenging is one of the most difficult things a spiritual director does, but he has been able to do it out of his gentleness and my life is better off for it.Read more at location 567

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And the first thing he said was the most important: In spiritual direction, the Holy Spirit is the real director. All we are doing is looking together at my life—my desires, fears, doubt, perplexities—so that I can become more attentive and available to the Holy Spirit’s direction in my life.Read more at location 573

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discovering God at work in the midst of our problems goes a long way toward alleviating them.Read more at location 587

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Learning to let go and release, that is the first and hardest lesson I am learning in spiritual direction. What am I holding onto that God is inviting me to let go of if I want to live freely and abundantly in the house of God’s love? What memory of the past do I need to release? What lust for power? What hoped-for future? What dream of fame and fortune? What anxiety? What fear? Whenever I let go, there’s always something else to grab. I don’t know if I’ll ever learn to relax my fingers completely. I am beginning to learn how, though, one finger at a time.Read more at location 639

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In spiritual direction you learn to name your desires, noticing them and asking where they come from and what they are for. This naming and noticing is done in the conviction that our deepest desires are for God.Read more at location 696

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“Someone has said,” Larry said after his usual moment of silence, “that when Jesus says ‘deny yourself’ he means ‘deny your image of yourself.’Read more at location 735

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It’s an enduring theme in the literature on spiritual direction: Submit your will to the will of the spiritual director. Obey. Even though there are traditions of spiritual guidance that stress the mutuality of the relationship, such as the Celtic tradition of the anam cara, soul-friend, or the medieval monk Aelred of Rievaulx’s accent on spiritual friendship, the language of obedience and submission remains pervasive.Read more at location 765

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But a spiritual director creates that circle of trust, that place where it is safe for us to offer our whole selves without fear of judgment. And when you get in the habit of making such offerings in this space, whether it’s an office, a house, or a church, and when you learn that however ugly your offering seems to you, you will still be invited back next month, that’s called training—training in getting more comfortable with the idea that we can offer our whole lives to God as well.Read more at location 1046

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There is one final question to ask. You don’t need to ask it every month, but ask it on occasion: Is there something—a secret of some sort, a particular fear or anxiety or experience—that I’m avoiding telling my spiritual director, or anyone else for that matter?Read more at location 1090

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the daily examen.Read more at location 1549

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