Chris Gribble

Be yourself - Everyone else is taken (Oscar Wilde)

Having a Journey Conversation

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What is a journey conversation?

A journey conversation creates an occasion to explore life’s big questions in the company of others: What is sacred in my life? What’s my purpose? What difference can I make?

In a journey conversation participants are invited to slow down, turn off their electronic devices, and learn ways of listening within and listening to one another. Participants embark on a journey of mutual discovery as they share their stories and encourage one another to notice and name what they hold sacred in the midst of the struggles, contradictions, and ambiguities of their lives.

Sharing fundamental life stories helps participants see both the commonality in the midst of their diversity and the distinctive features of their common experiences.

Participants also engage in a journey of discernment as they learn how to ask contemplative questions that help each other notice and name where they find meaning and purpose in their lives.

Asking Journey Questions

Conventional QuestionsContemplative Questions
What do I want to say? (ego)What wants to be said? (soul)
Often seek to fix, save, analyze, or advise anotherSeek to understand and learn more about another
Closed-ended questions (can you, have you, would you, is there, etc.) that can be answered “yes,” “no,” or in a few wordsOpen-ended questions that begin with: how, what, where, when or “in what ways …”
Elicit reactionsEvoke reflection
May or may not resonate with another’s experienceResonate with another’s experience
Often guided by the language you useAre guided by the language another uses
Restrict another’s arena of exploration Expand another’s arena of exploration
Allow for the exchange of informationEncourage another to keep noticing, naming, and nurturing his or her awareness of God/sacred

Meditation – Abandonment

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Read this Prayer of abandonment. It is Charles de Foucauld’s translation of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, Our Father.

It does not become your prayer until the words become your thoughts, feeling & action.

Father,

I abandon myself into your hands;
Do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,
& in all your creatures-
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my
Heart,

For I love you Lord,
& so need to give myself,
To surrender myself into your hands,
Without reserve,
& with boundless confidence,
For you are my Father.

  • What part of this prayer do you find most easy to pray?
  • What is most difficult?

Read & Contemplate this prayer again but instead of addressing it to the Father, put in the names of the people with whom you live & work each day. (Tom, Mary, Jane, etc. “I abandon myself into your hands.”

  • How does this affect your prayer?
  • Is it possible to give yourself to another in this way?
  • What do you find possible to say?
  • What do you find most difficult?
  • How could we dare trust ourselves to another person so totally?
  • Would it be good for them?
  • Would I be good for us?
  • What would happen if we did?\What would happen if someone entrusted themselves totally to me?

We forget the awesome creative power we have in each other’s lives. When someone trusts us totally & completely, they compel us to grow, to measure up to their love, to become what they want us to be. Each of us has incredible power to enable each person in the measure we believe in them., hope in them & love in them into the fullness which they never recognized in themselves. Such love & trust from another can be humbling & frightening. At times we are more comfortable with our enemies or strangers that do not ask this of us.

The more honest we are with ourselves, the more we see that we do not & cannot pray like this.

Only Jesus is able to pray like this, & only he is able to say “Father” with the fullest depth of his being. We can’t pray the PRAYER OF ABANDONMENT. This is Jesus’ prayer alone. But if we desire, Jesus will teach us & enable us to pray his prayer.

Now listen to Jesus pray this prayer to you. In the place of “Father” & “Lord,” put your own name & take time to try & listen to the way Jesus says your name, the way he calls you.

A Celtic Meditation Exercise – Hand Meditation

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A Hand Meditation

Sitting with your palms up resting in your lap, eyes closed, tune into your breathing, relax your tension points and go into your centre.

Become aware of the air at your fingertips, between your fingers, on the palm of your hand. Experience the fullness, strength and maturity of your hands. Think of your hands, think of the most unforgettable hands you have known  the hands of your father, your mother, your grandparents. Remember the oldest hands that have rested in your hands. Think of the hands of a new-born child, your nephew or niece  of the incredible perfection, delicacy of the hands of a child. Once upon a time your hands were the same size.
Think of all that your hands have done since then. Almost all that you have learned is through your hands turning yourself over, crawling and creeping, walking and balancing yourself.; learning to hold something for the first time; feeding yourself; washing and bathing, dressing yourself. At one time your greatest accomplishment was tying your own shoes.

Think of all the learning your hands have done and how many activities they have mastered, the things that they have made. Remember the day you could write your own name.

Our hands were not just made for themselves but for others. How often were they given to help another. Remember all the kinds of work they have done, the tiredness and aching they have known, the cold and the heat, the soreness and the bruises. Remember the tears they have wiped away, our own or another’s, the blood they have bled, the healing they have experienced. How much hurt, anger and even violence have they expressed and how much gentleness, tenderness and love they have given.

How often they have been folded in prayer; both a sign of their powerlessness and of their power.

There is a mystery which we discover in the hand of a woman or a man that we love. There are the hands of a doctor, a nurse, an artist, a conductor, a priest, hands which you can never forget.

Now raise your right hand slowly and gently place it over your heart. Press more firmly until your hand picks up the beat of your heart that most mysterious of all human sounds, one’s own heartbeat, a rhythm learned in the womb from the heartbeat of one’s own mother. Press more firmly for a moment than release your hand and hold it just a fraction from your clothing. Experience the warmth between your hand and your heart. Now lower your hand to your lap very carefully as if you were carrying your heart. For it does. When you extend your hand to another, it’s not just bone and skin, it is your heart. A handshake is a real heart transplant.

Think of all the hands that have left their imprint on you. Fingerprints and hands that have left their imprint on you. Fingerprints and handprints are heartprints that can never be erased. The hand has its own memory. Think of all the places that carry your handprints and all the people who bear your handprint. They are indelible and will last forever.

Now without opening your eyes begin to write out of your stream of consciousness. Slowly become more aware of your outer extremities. The pressure of the air on your forehead. The sensation of the air touching your fingertips.

Slowly as you are ready become present to your reality once more.

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