I was extremely proud when Smoochie, a male cat who’s lived with me for more than seven years, began to understand — and obey — my command, “Come here!” Not long ago, Mimi, who’s 15 and has been with me since she was six months old, was sitting on the dining room table. I called to her and patted my stomach once, twice and a third time. With feline grace — and in her own time — she came and curled up in my lap. Then there’s Mimi’s plaintive cry, which I have come to recognize as her request for kibbles.
The longer the cats and I live together, the better we're able to communicate with each other. Smoochie complains each morning that he's hungry and I try to persuade them not to scratch the furniture. My ability to communicate with them was never more important than the other day when a guest apparently went out the back, opening both the sliding glass door and the screen door, but only closing the sliding door behind them.
When I came into the living room, I wanted to get some air and so I open the sliding glass door not realizing that the screen door was also open. I put out food for the kitties and when I walked back into the living room, I saw to my horror that both doors were wide open. I ran to see if Smoochie was eating, he was not. I ran to the door calling his name, over and over and over. Finally, the scalliwag trotted over, sat down and gazed up at me.
“Smooch, come on, come inside.” Luckily, he complied whereupon I immediately closed the screen door.
There’s a spiritual parallel here. Through prayer, spiritual reading, meditation and even acts of kindness, forgiveness and generosity, I believe we strengthen our connection to God. God, obviously, always understands what we’re saying, but listening to God’s Word and deeply understanding it, well, that takes time. But just like Mimi, Smoochie and me, the longer we hang out together, the better we communicate. And the longer I hang out with God and listen closely, I can hear God issuing not a command, but an invitation, an invitation to Love.
What if love were the means of both transforming the heart and the world? The path of radical love begins with a realization that love is One, God is One, humanity is One, and that love flows from God through humanity and back to God. Therefore the poetry that sages like Rumi compose also reflects this journey.
In reading mystical poetry of this tradition, it is deliberately ambiguous to determine whether a particular poem is meant for a tender beloved, for the writer’s husband or wife, for a spiritual teacher, for any of the Prophets, or for God. The truth of the matter is that it is typically written for all of them, and all at once. This ambiguity is a trait of this mingled and mingling radical love, one that unites and unifies the lover and beloved, earth and heaven, male and female, the human and the divine. It is this same love that manifests outwardly as justice that redeems the world.
Dr. Omid Safi is a scholar of the Sufi path and a leading public intellectual. He is the Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center, and specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam. He will return to Mercy by the Sea October 25-27, 2019 to facilitate the weekend program, “Radical Love: The Legacy of the Prophetic Traditions.” In addition to looking at the teaching of the path of radical love, one of the spiritual highlights of the Islamic tradition, the retreat will trace the 20th-century figures who best exemplify this tradition in the American context: Rev. Martin Luther King,Jr., Rabbi Heschel and Malcolm X.
The mandala is a circular design which represents wholeness, the Universe or the Self. It has been used as a symbol for prayer, healing and enlightenment since ancient times, in spiritual and cultural traditions around the world. Navajo sacred healing rituals, Buddhist sand mandalas for peace, Hindu mandalas drawn to center a woman for the day, and labyrinths walked by Christian pilgrims for insight are some of the ways mandalas have been used throughout history.
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, pioneered the use of the mandala to explore the unconscious aspects of his own and his patients’ lives. He wrote, “I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, a mandala, which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. With the help of these drawings I could observe my psychic transformations from day to day.” He concluded that the mandala is a universal archetype, a guide that taps into the unconscious, leading a person along the path toward wholeness.
It is in this sense that I began drawing mandalas in 2001. During a stressful time of transition in my life, I followed the suggestion to “draw my feelings” each day. Having had no formal art training, I traced around a dinner plate and drew my feelings intuitively, without thinking what the outcome should be. Instead of choosing a color intentionally, I let colors “choose me.” When I contemplated what then appeared on paper, I allowed the image to connect with events in my inner and outer life. I noticed that, over time, I gained insight into my life circumstances; I became more aware of my feelings by naming them; and I learned to be less judgmental, more accepting and more trusting of my inner process.
Over the years, this habit of “drawing my feelings” became a prayer practice, which continues to the present. I journal to get in touch with my inner state, identify current challenges, pray about them, create the mandala and conclude by writing the prayer around the image. This prayer often stays with me throughout the day.
Rose Amodeo Petronellad, a spiritual director, artist and retired minister in the United Church of Christ, will be showing a selection of her mandalas and other works in the Mary C. Daly RSM Art Gallery beginning June 1. A reception where you can meet the artist, view the artwork and enjoy refreshments will be held on Sunday, June 2, from 2-4 p.m.
In addition to her artistic work, Rose recently published Honoring the Soul: Mandalas for Inspiration and Insight, available at lulu.com. She grew up in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, and lives in Middletown, Connecticut with her husband.
I don’t recall when I first began sitting in my prayer chair early each morning. With the demands of four young children, most likely my practice was born out of necessity. I needed quiet and peace before the many tasks of motherhood took precedence.
The chair is just an ordinary chair that over the years acquired meaning beyond just a piece of furniture. I don’t remember which child first named it the “prayer chair” or which one called the living room the “loving room” but somehow we all sensed the subtle field of grace that permeated the room.
