Below is a photo of a popular Hawaiian favorite, spam musubi.
I was aiming to make a vegan version using tofu instead of spam. I had to think of an alternative way to enjoy this dish since I did not have cooked short grain rice which is sticky in texture. Not having this, made the construction of the oval shaped rice base difficult. When I was tasting the crumbling attempted wannabe using leftover long grain rice I was enamored by the delicious taste. I decided then to make a deconstructed version. Wow it was better than fried rice.
I had snack size nori only not a whole sheet which made making the conventional layered musubi difficult to prepare I decided to cut them up and use them to top the rice. Wow. The nori provided the salty umami taste plus that pleasant seafood twang to the dish. With the crispy tofu, I did not have to drizzle any sauce over the rice.
Q: I recently read Fr. Daniel Renaud's article on "Desire and Everyday Mysticism" and I see that over 25 years of Christian life I started on the positive way with lots of consolation and wonder, along with a daily experience of the transformative way. When I felt called to practice Centering Prayer, I started listening to Fr. Keating's “The Spiritual Journey” series and began to practice. Much to my dismay, I fell immediately into the Dark Night (the negative way). After several years of Dark Night and slow emergence, I did not "wake up to find that the ocean of nothingness [of the Dark Night] is the ocean of God's invincible and unconditional love in you, and you have become everything, including God and all creation" (as Fr. Keating describes); for the first time in 25 years of Christian faith, I don't have confidence that God is a reliable foundation for my daily personal life. I am concerned that if I have somehow and failed to this first round of the Dark Night I may need to adjust some underlying attitude or practice in order to make space to regain or rebuild my relationship with God. Do you have any guidance or resources that might help?
A: Your fidelity to the spiritual journey as it unfolds in your life and your search for wisdom is a pure gift even if at times it does not feel like it. You are consenting to God’s presence and action in your life, trusting beyond your own understanding. I encourage you to read Fr. Keating’s book Invitation to Love, especially the chapters on the Night of the Sense and the Night of the Spirit to see how they can apply to your own experience.
The Night of Sense and then the Night of Spirit are ongoing processes, always recycling, always going deeper and gradually moving one to transformation. It seems that you have experienced the Night of Sense and are now being drawn into the Night of Spirit. What are the fruits of the Night of the Spirit?
1. Freedom from the temptation to assume a glamorous role because of our spiritual gifts or charisms.
2. Freedom of domination of any emotion.
3. Purification of our idea of God.
4. Profound purification of our attitudes about the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.
5. A longing to let go of the selfishness that still lingers in us and to be free of every obstacle that might hinder our growth in divine union.
Please take the time to ponder those fruits. I found them so helpful in my own journey.
My friend Cynthia Bourgeault commented: “[Our friend] seems to be confusing the Dark Night of the Sense — moving beyond spiritual consolations, an early and in fact blessed purification — with the much deeper and later Dark Night of the Spirit, with its profound disorientation and relocation of one’s fundamental sense of selfhood. In fact, in a very healthy way, it seems that her concept of God is growing. She’s simply moving beyond being able to find pleasure and confidence by telling her old stories about God—in fact, based strongly in emotional consolation—and moving on to a more immediate awakening to the perception of God as a simple enfolding presence she doesn’t have words for. [My advice to her is]: Be truly present to where you are right now. This is not a falling away, but a joyous presence along a route that virtually all maturing spiritual seekers have traveled.”
To use Fr. Thomas’ words in Invitation to Love: “The way of pure faith is to persevere in contemplative practice without worrying about where we are on the journey … we can be spared all this nonsense if we surrender ourselves to the divine action, whatever the psychological content of prayer may be. In pure faith, the results are often hidden even from those who are growing the most.”
You are on the right track. Be aware that the nights are not done with you. The only thing one can be absolutely sure is that whatever we expect to happen will not happen. God is not bound by our ideas; we have to take the leap of trust into the unknown. Keep faithful to your Centering prayer practice as Fr.Thomas himself encouraged Centering Prayer practitioners to do “all I can say is persevere – keep doing it.” I would add, trust the spiritual process and let God love you.
I hope this was a help – please let me know.
Blessings, Fr Carl
Prayer
God of all grace, you have shown your faithfulness to your people throughout the generations. I thank you that, although my heart feels heavy right now, you have not abandoned me. Your supply of grace to me is vast, I will never exhaust your love. May I come to you and find rest from the burdens that are weighing me down. In that rest, I pray that my heart would feel lighter. May I experience the power of your love to transform my life. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with my spirit. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.
Meeting the late assocate Mary Fellow's son and wife during the senior luncheon at st bernadette parish. Fr thom Miller the speaker knew mary and rose when he was the pastor at holy rosary parish in homewood.
a) Susan Muto's impromptu comments during the Mass at St. Susana Church Penn Hills for the late Fr. Tony Gargotta. It was St. Benedict's feast day. Fr. Thom Miller requested her to give her reflection and later on testimonials from other parishioners of their memories of Fr. Tony.
If Jesus was a wisdom master who sought to transform the consciousness of his disciples through a way of life, the desert communities that sprung up in the fourth century may have been an attempt to carry on that traditional way of teaching. Cynthia Bourgeault, an accomplished wisdom teacher in her own right, traces the movement of Wisdom from the desert to the monasteries and into the present moment, honoring it as one of the foundations of her own wisdom schools:
One of the streams of Wisdom comes from very, very deep in the Christian tradition—the Wisdom of Benedictine Monasticism. Saint Benedict, in the fifth century, drew from an already well-established stream of transformational Wisdom that came out of the deserts of Egypt and Syria via a first generation of people who really wanted to practice what it means to put on the mind of Christ. Saint Benedict became heir to this and shaped it into a massive, stable container, which has been the foundation of Christian monasticism and monastic transformational practice in the West for 1,500 years. Its brilliant and stable legacy of “Ora et Labora”: “Prayer and Work,” offers a fundamental rhythm for the balancing and ordering of human life, and for the growing of that beautiful rose of Wisdom.
Joan Chittister, a vowed religious sister of the Order of Saint Benedict, explains how the Rule of Benedict provides an opportunity for transformation for everyone who chooses to follow its wisdom:
All in all, the Rule of Benedict is designed for ordinary people who live ordinary lives. It was not written for priests or mystics or hermits or ascetics; it was written by a layman for laymen. It was written to provide a model of spiritual development for the average person who intends to live life beyond the superficial or the uncaring. [1] . . .
Benedict was quite precise about it all. Time was to be spent in prayer, in sacred reading, in work, and in community participation. In other words, it was to be spent on listening to the Word, on study, on making life better for others, and on community building. It was public as well as private; it was private as well as public. It was balanced. No one thing consumed the monastic’s life. No one thing got exaggerated out of all proportion to the other dimensions of life. No one thing absorbed the human spirit to the exclusion of every other. Life was made up of many facets and only together did they form a whole. Physical labor and mental prayer and social life and study and community concerns were all pieces of the puzzle of life. Life flowed through time, with time as its guardian. [2]
[1] Joan D. Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today (HarperSanFrancisco: 1991), 4.
[2] Chittister, 74–75.
Adapted from Cynthia Bourgeault, An Introductory Wisdom School: Course Transcript and Companion Guide (Wisdom Way of Knowing: 2017), 4. Learn about and register for Cynthia’s online Introductory Wisdom School.
4. Prayer
Holy Father St. Benedict, give me the wisdom to discover you, the intelligence to understand you, the diligence to seek you, the patience to wait for you, eyes to contemplate you, a humble heart to meditate and a life to proclaim you.
