Image 001– Soul Space Archie Honrado

Lectio on life– contemplate and pray

Juxtapose your soul, ministry with the paragraph, how does it look like?

What soul care practices nourishes you?

Where can soulful spaces be in your daily living?

Image 002– Silhouette in my window By Archie Honrado

Lectio on my soul

What silhouette image do I see from inside my soul?

What soul-nurturing resource am I instinctively drawn to but I’m afraid to give myself permission to even try because of my set tradition?

This photograph was taken from our living room. It was a Southern California coastal winter day light. The call of the silhouetted tree arrested my attention. I snapped the photo and sat

down to reflect. This was my art museum during the winter weeks, I was quieted by the drama of

such irresistible image. It brought me to my place of waiting without fretting and trusting God for new sprouts and leaves to appear soon in the Spring.

Image 003- Soul Care Trellis

Photo by Archie Honrado

Lectio on my trellis

Trellis supports the growth of a vine. The vine‟s health and growth,

exposure and protection from the sun are largely dependent on where it

is planted and how trellises are installed. What supports your spiritual

growth?

What is my soul care trellis?

Image 004- “Composition”

Jackson Pollock

Lectio on Chaos

Jackson painted a turbulent abstraction. He developed the “drip painting “

technique that created an unorderly and chaotic image, drawing from the

unconscious.

What would a Pollock‟s bold technique parallel be like in drawing your

unconscious out to a chaotic but ordered and artful and soulful living life.

Image 005- “Circles in Circles” By Wassily Kandinsky

“Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a divine center, a speaking voice, to which we may continually return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives. . . Life is meant to be lived from a center, a divine center.”

-Thomas R. Kelly

from his book . A Testament of Devotion.

Lectio on sacred familiarity

What is your favorite devotional practices– the classic ones– that you

always return to? What does your favorite devo practices tell you about

your “inner sanctuary of your soul” ?

Aren‟t sure what could make your spiritual life robust? Are there circles

in circles in your divine center?

Are you in love with one particular spiritual discipline? If so, is that

soul nurturing?

Image 006– “ Carnival of Harlequin”

Joan Miro

Lectio on Abstract

As a youth pastor to several junior high boys, I have seen the boys see

order in chaos and concrete in the abstract by guiding them to gaze at

Miro‟s surrealistic image and other abstract paintings.

Before I even started teaching them to gaze, I taught them centering

prayer and breathe prayer. They would find their own space on the

floor, lie in silence for 10-15 minutes and then I would play my

powerpoint slide show of different abstract and surrealistic paintings.

I looped the powerpoint in a „lectio divina‟ manner and then I asked

each one to speak. Not only did they ‟see the picture‟, the art helped

them see the connection of the art in their lives. They talked about

their stress-filled school and family life but are happy to feel that

things can be normal and can be placed in order.

Have you ever reflected and prayed with and through art?

Image 007- “ Trinity”

Rublev

Pray with Icons

Image 013 “ Mother and Child” Gustav Klimt

“Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and mas-saged Jesus' feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house. “ - John 12:3 Living for meaning or purpose ? Gaze at the Mother and Child Let her arrest your attention Let her put you to rest Put yourself in the picture of the child Gaze at the beauty of the Lord Rest in the awesome presence of God Living for meaning is always purposeful Purposeful doesn’t always give meaning Search for meaning, find life,

Image 014- “ La Scapigliata” (The Female Head) Leonardo DaVinci

Alienated from Myself or At Home With Myself “ If I am not at home with myself I won't feel at home anywhere else. It is such a delight to come home to my-self, to become my own friend. I experienced this kind of homecoming once when I was living alone. Under the guise of ministering to others I had become alienated from myself. In my everyday maddening ministerial rush I suddenly discovered myself eating on the run-grabbing a sandwich and eating it while standing up or going out the door. The violence of this great irreverence to myself suddenly occurred to me. I was not at home with myself. It took a while to slow down, but I was finally able to make a decision to spend time with myself. I be-gan to experience the joy of being with me. I put flower on the table, lit a candle, turned on soft music, ate slowly. I learned the joy of simply being with myself without rushing. It was like taking myself out to dinner. It was a kind of coming home to myself. When you can lovingly be present to yourself, your presence to others takes on a deeper quality also.”

Excerpt from Macrina Weiderkehr “ A Tree Full of Angels”

Harper Collins Publishing Mini-Retreat idea: Learn to be lovingly present to yourself

Go on a date with yourself so you can ‘BE’ lovingly present to yourself

Go out on a date with yourself– Dinner at a seat down restaurant, visit a museum, watch a movie– whatever it is, be fully present, be aware of what you see, feel and taste. At the end of your date, journal and finish by praying as a response to your soul and what God led you through.

Date yourself, shop, prepare and dine at your own living room.

Pick an Orange fruit and set a time to practice contemplation. With an Orange at hand, find a quiet place, sit until relaxed, spend time with your Orange– Be keenly aware of what your sensory re-sponses are to your Orange. Whenever a thought will distract you away from contemplation, lovingly focus back to be fully present to your Orange. After your time with your Orange, journal your reflec-tion and the prayers that rises within you.

Image 015– Nepali Girl”

Photo by Archie Honrado

Choruses from The Rock T.S. Eliot, 1934 O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying! The endless cycle of idea and action, Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Image 016- “ Nepali Children”

Photo by Archie Honrado

“Sometimes all that we yearn for beauty, courage, love, hope, faith-lies hid-den. God seems to be absent from our lives. We are unable to truly see the people with whom we live. The goodness and worth of our own lives elude us. At times like this we may feel called to take a step back and look at the mys-tery of life anew. That’s what the word retreat means- to go back.

-Macrina Wiederkehr from her book . The Song of the Seed.

A monastic way of tending the soul question to ponder:

Image 017- “ Scream” Edvard Munch

.“ He who has realized that sun and stars and souls do not ramble in a vacuum will keep his heart in readiness for the hour when the world is entranced. For things are not mute: the stillness is full of demands, awaiting a soul to breathe in the mystery that all things exhale in their craving for communion. Out of the world comes the behest instill into the air a rapturous song for God.” - ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL

Are you creating stability where you are, in your relationship, community and

faith?

What are you screaming for? A song of defeat or victory?

Image 018- “Hyde Park, London” J.A Hampton

Life in 3D

Decompress, Defragment, Debrief Jumping from one activity, event, or ministry to the next without ‘decompression stops’ can lead to burn‐out, and soullessness. When done over time, we’ll surely miss‐out on the deeper meanings that can be found in our activities and actions. An illustration can be drawn out from a deep‐water diving practice called “decompression stops”. Decompression stops are stops divers should make when returning to the surface to let the nitrogen in their blood dissolve safely out of their bodies. The practice prevents a diver from contracting decompression disease that can lead to death, confusion or memory loss, double vision, tunnel vision, unex-plained extreme fatigue, just to name a few.

Imagine how this illustrates our need to decompress from the intense pres-sures of ministry and life.

Just like a computer hard drive needed to be “defrag’, how do you defrag your life?

How do you debrief your work, ministry, relationships?

Image 019- “France” By Elliot Erwitt

Do you wanna get away? Do you feel lost , tired and often times wondered about finding an-other job or another church? You probably go non-stop, always busy, right? STOP THE NON-STOP! Go on a Sabbath rest, you need to retreat to replenish and renew your soul, mind and body. You restlessness and doubts about where you are right now speaks of your need to step back to retreat into the depths of your soul. Where your thirst and longings are of God and there also will you find your fill.– like the psalmist David wrote about.

Go and be on a spiritual retreat, soul wanderlust– spiritual wanderlust

is to wander about your soul’s real estate leisurely stopping and pausing only to spaces and places of beauty, joy and delight.

Image 020 “ Sacred space of my heart” By Archie Honrado