Teddy Bears and Spiritual Direction

Paul writes – “Thomas Merton put it like this:

It is true to say that for me sanctity consists in being myself, and for you sanctity consists in being yourself, and that in the last analysis your sanctity will never be mine, and mine will never be yours, except in the community of charity and grace. For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am, and of discovering my true self.

David Lonsdale has this to say:

Taking possession of ourselves, telling, retelling and reflecting on the history of God’s dealings with us, helps to set us on the road to freedom. True freedom is the ability to become the person God destined me to be; the capacity to allow my relationship with God— and hence the grace of God—to determine the shape and direction of my life.”

You can read the whole essay from which these quotes were extracted by clicking on its title – Do Teddy Bears Make Good Spiritual Directors? Ignatius Loyola Meets Donald Winnicott (PDF) by Brendan Callaghan.

Comments

[len]

Whoa.. I did my masters thesis around a related subject.. object relations theory and the imago :)

[Gary Manders]

Great quotes. ido love The Way journal, they have some great articles. Keep up the great blogging.

[Paul Fromont]

Gary, thanks for your kind words. I agree "The Way" is an excellent journal. I just printed off a whole lot of articles from their online archives. For people with an interest in Christian spirituality (Ignatian in particular), the Spiritual Exercises, Retreats in Daily Life, Spiritual Direction etc, it is an outstanding resource, albeit an expensive one from this part of the world.

Len, nice to be able to make a connection with a subject that you've obviously invested a lot o time into researching and writing about. Thanks for the recent mention on your blog. I appreciated your additional commentary and validation - it's an important topic.