{"id":5122,"date":"2016-04-25T11:46:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T15:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5122"},"modified":"2016-04-25T11:46:30","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T15:46:30","slug":"the-spiritual-importance-of-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5122","title":{"rendered":"The Spiritual Importance of Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enduring Grace<\/a> is a book by Carol Lee Flinders about seven women mystics of the Middle Ages.\u00a0 I have found a lot in this book that is helpful to my spiritual practice.\u00a0 The last woman she writes about is Therese of Lisieux, and I found some things I want to share.<\/p>\n

\u201c… in her upbringing, sinners were perceived not in terms of wickedness, but of forlornness and despair.\u00a0 Indeed, it was understood that despair \u2014 failure to experience God\u2019s love \u2014 can be the motive for sin as much as its result.\u00a0 Sinners are essentially outcasts…\u201d \u00a0 p213<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despair is something I continuously struggle with.\u00a0 Belief in the goodness of the Divine Process is difficult due to early trauma.\u00a0 I always find the idea of \u201coutcast\u201d rather than \u201csinner\u201d to be very comforting.\u00a0 An outcast does not deserve punishment but desperately wants inclusion.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lovely video of Father Greg<\/a> talking about widening the circle of inclusion until there is nobody left outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the entire story of Therese, which we get in so much more complete a form than we do with any other mystic I know of, we keep being struck by the endless ways in which these individuals shaped one another.\u00a0 A model of spiritual development emerges that is remarkably collective<\/i>.\u00a0 It began with her family …\u00a0 They evolve together<\/em>, prompting one another, correcting, consoling…\u00a0 and we see the same process in the convent itself, of individuals \u201cworking out their salvation,\u201d but together<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 p218<\/p>\n

She goes on to say \u201c… women understand the deeply collective and communal side of human experience.\u00a0 They see the incandescent superstar for what it is, but they see the constellation in which it has come into being, too, the reverent and loving care that has surrounded it and nourished it.\u00a0 They see how much we have to do with one another, how profoundly we require one another.\u201d\u00a0 p219<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have been envying my brother the fellowship of AA.\u00a0 I would love to belong to one myself.\u00a0 In fact I do, but it is not as accessible as AA meetings.\u00a0 (In Camden, Maine, where my brother Jack lives, he can go to a meeting of AA every day of the week.)\u00a0 How I wish that I had a local community of Kindred Spirits<\/a>.\u00a0 My experience at camp was one of inclusion and belonging that I had never experienced in quite the same way.\u00a0 I realize that the idea of helping each other along our spiritual paths is one of the joys of that community.<\/p>\n

Father Greg also comments on the importance of community<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enduring Grace is a book by Carol Lee Flinders about seven women mystics of the Middle Ages.\u00a0 I have found a lot in this book that is helpful to my spiritual practice.\u00a0 The last woman she writes about is Therese … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19,11,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-interesting-link","category-present-day","category-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}