Jordan Stones Blog

Mandi on Mindfulness Part 2: Paying Attention and Mindfulness – A Pep-Talk Have you tried any mindfulness or contemplative prayer practices yet?   If so I would love for you to comment in the blog stream below.   I am hoping the following will be a pep-talk to further your thirst for this practice in your life. I would love to know both your positive experience, and your frustrating experiences. We know the desert fathers practiced silence and solitude in the un-institutionalized desert communities of pure devotion and removed from religion.   Religion becomes toxic when it becomes hollow “form without power”, or structure without Spirit. Religion was growing less intimate and authentic as Rome integrated and infiltrated the Christian faith into government. But, what in the world did they do out there that would cultivate such deep soul-stirring testimony, writings, and tradition? You have to be a special sort of person to read their works direct...

Usually “buzz word” trends make me roll my eyes.   But I drank the Kool Aid before it was even a thing…and fell forever in love and define myself by what we now hear called ‘mindfulness’.   It’s because it is what I stumbled upon 20 some years ago when I started doing yoga to save my body and realized it totally cleared my attention to swipe clear a sight-line between the Lord and I. But the truth is…this is one of the most ancient of ancient practices that people have used for thousands of years to hone their focus on what serves them best. We see this in church fathers and mothers, many from the contemplative stream like Thomas Merton, St. Teresa of Availa, and more recently Henry Nouwen and others in his tribe…but the tradition goes back even further: “As the Christian church moved from bottom to top, protected and pampered by the Roman Empire, people like Anthony of the Desert, John Cassian, Evagrius Ponticus, and the early monks went off to the deserts of Egypt, P...

There is an agenda that presses toward the end-game in the cocoon.  In addition to anchoring in, being still, night prayers , there is a letting go and there is a secret place agenda.   I don’t think it is coincidence, rather syncretistic that the new year of 2018 is upon us as I arrive to a settling close of butterfly insights.   There is a butterfly crescendo on the horizon. This final work takes place in the Secret Place and is accomplished through a final act of bravery and surrender. Surrender to the initially affronting idea that this darkness is not inherently bad is hard to reconcile because it feels so bad sometimes. It is also hard because the darkness involves the eating away of what we are… the caterpillar’s whole self must dissolve .  There must be an agreement with the Lord to this plan of decompensation – we have to say yes to this night prayer.  We have to be overwhelmed by these imaginal cells so that the new thing can be birthed. ...

What happens when you combine the “like -it-or-not”, encapsulated, broken down to “goo”, anchored in for the long haul , stuck in the process and nowhere else to go sort-of existence…. with Advent?  Advent’s very definition means waiting. First consider what is happening in the cocoon while we … daily secure our cremaster , continually weave night prayers into our breath , constantly reorient ourselves to our world from this upside-down position ?  We enter the goo phase; a phase in the caterpillar’s process in which the imaginal cells overtake the old, ill-fitting, non-serving confines of the caterpillar’s silhouette.  It is fascinating. Once overtaken by the imaginal cells, the caterpillar is broken down into a jell, a goo, that becomes reconstituted into the shape of the butterfly, sharing almost no molecular similarities with the former organism that it once was, the caterpillar. For some of us, being in the cocoon is a choice – we dive...

Thirds Breaths And Breath Prayers Keep mouth closed – only breathe through nose throughout this exercise. • Take the fullest breath that is comfortable for you. Fill the whole container of your body with breath. You can think of Filling your belly, flaring your rib cage, and flooding your collar bones with breath • When you begin to exhale - KEEP LIPS SEALED, BREATHE THROUGH NOSE ONLY • Exhale a third of your breath and pause • Exhale the second third of your breath and pause • Exhale out the whole last third of your breath and empty your lungs of breath completely You can stop here…or As you do so, focus on one of these breath prayers-most are just ones I have made up…and make up your own . As you inhale, claim the first phrase over yourself ( e.g. Speak, Lord), as you exhale, claim the second phrase (e.g. Your servant is listening ). ·      Speak, Lord/Your servant is listening ·      Come/Lord Jesus ·   ...

How do you begin this cocoon business?  You have to find your Spiritual Cremaster. What in the world is that? It’s the place you start. It’s your anchor.   I’ll just let Sue tell you : “When the caterpillar begins to spin its chrysalis, it forms a spiny little protuberance at the end of its abdomen called the cremaster. The cremaster is like a button or patch of Velcro that fastens the pupa in the cocoon and holds it in place.  It’s the anchor point, the place from which the caterpillar hangs “ The still point is our cremaster. Without it, there’s no dance of transformation. It’s the place where all cocoon making starts.  We need to find the point in our soul where we go neither forward nor backward but are fastened in our waiting. We need to discover the “protuberance” from which our lives can silently hang and become new. What IS this still point?  It represents the Center, the quiet core where God’s Spirit dwells in us.  “Do you not k...

In times like these …. the tempest roars …what could we need more than a cocoon?  Don't we long to be wrapped in warm transformative safety?  It has to be re-woven with steely silken Holy Spirit threads…EVERY day. But as I try to do the work of putting myself in stillness long enough for the Spirit to thread…it surrounds me. Even when I don’t realize it. Even when I don’t recognize that Jesus is here in the dirt with me,  fighting my battle , going ahead of me,  frustrating my enemies, asking where are my accusers now?, holding all things scary and fearful,  and incubating in the dark what his abundance has planned for me…. all while I wait wrapped in his Kingdom Cocoon . Night Prayers In times like these…when you hunger for the cocoon…the work looks like  “Night Prayers”: “St. Teresa pointed out that the door of entry to the soul is prayer and reflection. Night prayers, more than any others, seem to carry us over the portal. A night pr...