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“...we have chosen to speak of spirituality ultimately as the way in which we live out our response to God. Unless we find this personal, transformational meaning in its fullest sense, the struggle for wholeness will remain unresolved. As Augustine put it in the first paragraph of his Confessions, 'God created us for a relationship with him and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God.”

HealingSpiritual DisciplinesSpiritual DirectionAugustine
Book:The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith
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“When pursued it becomes clear that this separation between one's self and the Church usually stems from deep unresolved pain or dissatisfaction rooted in early religious upbringing. Sometimes it arises from a contemporary image of the Church as authoritarian, chauvinistic, hypocritical, or unforgiving in nature. Though thirsting spiritually for a relationship, some find it too threatening or the prospects too unsatisfying to have to return to a painful image or experience associated with God and the religious realm. This group ay actually scorn the Church because it is not intellectually acceptable to live with a reality that can only be accepted on faith. "To believe in something non-verifiable,' they say, 'is to be weak in one's thinking.' A point comes on the spiritual journey, however, when a healing of one's early religious experience must occur in order for wholeness to be realized. This healing requires a transformation of the person and of the traditional religious images, symbols, and words. Such transformation allows for a new way to experience these traditions and, therefore, a whole new appreciation of spirituality, It's coming full circle to wholeness.”

ChurchHealingSpiritual DisciplinesSpiritual Direction
Book:The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith
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“The Wall, a dark and sacred place, reeks of God. In the Wall we are vulnerable enough to listen to what God says - whether it is in the guise of other people’s voices, God’s voice, or serendipitous experiences. Once we believe that God is in the midst of the darkness with us, it can be a transforming place. We don’t necessarily get cured or erase our pain or become saints, but we learn how to embrace our pain, how to stay with it and learn what it is trying to teach us, how to look fear in the ace and keep moving into it. The Wall invites us each to heal.”

Spiritual Direction
Book:The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith
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“We cannot escape most of the crises in our lives, nor should we. In fact, these events frequently provide the energy for movement on our spiritual journey, even when we are stuck along the way... we ask questions about our own life. We wonder about meaning. Our present view may become inadequate. We ask deeper questions. Even joyful experiences can propel us forward.”

GriefSpiritual Direction
Book:The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith
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“A crisis can knock us off balance, making us afraid, vulnerable, and ripe for change. This also happens in our spiritual journey. We have a crisis in our faith that causes us to reconsider. It might frighten us, at least make us vulnerable. If we become bitter or too resistant, we can get very stuck. But if we let the change or crisis touch us, if we live with it and embrace it as difficult as that is, we are more likely to grow and to move eventually to another stage or spiral in our journey [of faith]. When we are most vulnerable, we have the best chance to learn and move along the way. In the midst of pain there is promise.”

HealingSpiritual DirectionJourney Of Faith
Author:Janet O. Hagberg
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“It is easy to mislead people into thinking that they can move themselves to the next stage by just ... setting their mind to it. Nothing could be further from the truth. The journey of faith is our personal journey, and movement on the journey is the place of mystery, holy ground. Moving from one stage to another reverences timing. It involves bringing our response in sync with God's grace in our lives. God does not make us move. God's grace allows us to move.”

Spiritual DirectionJourney Of Faith
Author:Janet O. Hagberg
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