Sitting with the Sacred

Sara Fairbanks, OP, reflects through this week’s readings on love’s power to sustain us in the midst of fear and pain.

Yet pain can feel consuming and take so many forms – physical and emotional, yes. But emotional pain can be named more specifically. I tend to name it resentment, envy, anger, frustration, anxiety, and negativity-filled longing. These are the names I’ve learned to give my spiritual struggles. So that these struggles don’t overwhelm me, I need clarity, renewal, and strength the Holy Spirit can provide when I’m open to receiving these gifts.

I’m going to turn to Fr. Mark E. Thibodeaux’s God: I have Issues: 50 Ways to Pray No Matter How You Feel to shine the light of the Holy Spirit on the feelings I listed above. In doing so, I trust that with time and persistence, I will more often recognize light and love as more powerful than any emotion darkness tries to use to make me unable to recognize its opposite.

I also trust that making this book a companion to this blog for the time being will remind me to invite God into and recognize God’s presence in my pleasant, joyful, and simply routine experiences as well as my unpleasant ones.

Fr. Thibodeaux’s book is a guide to living and praying through the gamut of human emotions. Each chapter is dedicated to a different emotion or life experience and begins with a story from the author’s life about when he experienced or shared in someone else’s experience of that emotion.

After each introductory story, which is imbued with relatability and often humor. comes a long list of related scripture passages taken from both the Old and New Testaments.

After this list comes the “Prayer Pointers” section. I’ve consulted this book on and off for years, and while I’m not offering a professional perspective here, I would say that this section combines the wisdom of counseling, meditative, and pastoral approaches. Fr. Thibodeaux often suggests imaginative prayer and visualizations. This section also makes clear that the issues each chapter touches on are not resolved in one day. They are wrestled with in a healthy way by praying to be open to a shift in perspective and practice and by giving helpful habits a chance to become deeply rooted in daily life.

After the “Prayer Pointers” come inspirational or thought-provoking quotes. These are from sources other than scripture.

At the end of each chapter is a list of other chapters that might be related to the one I’ve just worked through. This section acknowledges that emotions are complex. (For example, grief can involve a mixture of sadness, anger, and guilt.) The index is also helpful when I’m not sure which chapter is most relatable to whatever I’m currently experiencing. In it I can look up experiences that weren’t used in the chapter titles.

Maybe in some future posts I’ll share a story of my own that the author’s story made me think of. Maybe I’ll share how his story got me thinking. Maybe I’ll reflect on one of the suggested scripture passages using approaches similar to those of used in the past. Or maybe I’ll share my experience with a visualization. Whatever happens, I’m eager to see where the Spirit leads and to hear what God has to tell me — and us.

Work cited

Thibodeaux, Mark E. God, I Have Issues: 50 Ways to Pray No Matter How You Feel, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005.