Practicing Safe Spirituality

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Practicing Safe Spirituality

• LGBTQ Diversity Training for Human Services
• Presented by Rev Jenna Zirbel, MS, MTS, MDiv
• For Rainbow Access Initiative, Inc
• And Church Within A Church Movement, Inc
• July 1, 2011
• Permission to use context may be obtained by
  emailing j.zirbel_at_yahoo.com

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• This is a training that will encourage
  participants to reflect on a spirituality that
  nourishes their lives as people who are lesbian,
  gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer.
• The session will be informed by the participants
  individual perspectives leading toward communal
  wholeness and wellbeing.

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• The hope is that people will leave the training
  with a renewed understanding and a refreshed
  sense of the value of spirituality and diversity
  of sacred worth.
• People who may be addressed through this training
  may feel estranged from their inner spirit,
  banished from their own expressions of
  spirituality, even completely numb from the word
  beatings hurled at them from organized religions.

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• The amnesia caused by neglect or abuse can be
  dispersed in recognizing and/or reaffirming
  individualized, personally unique ways of
  practicing safe spirituality.
• Beliefs that are personally invalid can be
  nullified and replaced by the congruence of
  spiritual expression and life experiences.

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• The exercises in this training are intended to be
  inspirational, affirming self exploration of what
  is and/or can be expressions of individual
  experiences of the spiritual in life, experiences
  of the source of energy in life, the divine,
  and/or the eternal.

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Spirituality

• Practicing Spirituality is about embracing that
  in life which
• nourishes creativity
• enhances the sense of worth of individual lives
• increases understanding of what really matters in
  life
• Therefore, practicing spirituality can bring
  moments of joy!

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• Practicing Safe Spirituality is about
• exploring/investigating individual practices
• and respecting that others in the community have
  a different perspective on spirituality and that
  denigrating the other does nothing to enhance the
  value of either spirituality.

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• Safety comes in being able to practice
  spirituality within the understanding that the
  goal to spirituality is peaceful and just
  existence in community.
• What is lost in practicing safer spirituality is
  the competition for rightness as well as giving
  up the opportunity to offer unrequested
  assistance in helping the other see the error
  solely because it is different.

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• Spirituality is the energy that touches lives
  with joy as well as helps people to move through
  painful losses, floundering and numbness, toward
  wholeness and healthy well being, individually
  and collectively in community.

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• Individuals envision the source of life from the
  experiences that we have in our own skin
• how we see the power of the universe in our
  minds eye
• how we recognize what is sacred in our humanness
  
• what is eternal in how we are loved and how we
  love others.

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• If we so desire, collectively we can share
  interpretations and expressions of spiritual
  practices that a community holds in common,
  celebrating friendships built on understanding
  in a particular time and place.

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• Gathering in common community is not a necessity
  for everyone, as spirituality can be addressed
  individually and/or in unspoken expressions
  without the formality of gathering.

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Imaging Spirituality

• There are countless ways of describing the
  spiritual in ones existence.
• How we conceive what is spiritual informs
  ourselves and others about
• who we are
• what we most treasure in our lives, and
• what it is that defines the value and worth of
  our lives.

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• There are limitless ways of imaging the spiritual
  in ones existence.
• One might conceive the source of spirituality as
  a presence and/or a power. A practice of a
  pervasive spiritual presence has been the concept
  of a creating source.

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Exercise I Imaging

• Reflection
• What images, words, thought, and/or sensation
  come to you in relation to spirituality?
• Note your response, honoring and respecting what
  is honestly your own.

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• Previous participants in this training have noted
  diversity of spiritually evoked images, some of
  which included
• Zen picturing hills that gradually became
  mountains solitude with higher connection
  hearing music and words of Bob Marley
  individual journey to God the actual action of
  singing music sense of self dance
  oneness peace love

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Spiritual Symbols

• In exploring and honoring ones unique
  expressions of individual spirituality, movement
  is made toward bringing wholeness of self as
  authentic, accepted and respected, thus
  remembering and affirming self worth.

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Exercise 2 Spiritual Symbols

• Reflection
• What symbols or images for you represent
  spirituality?
• Note your response, honoring and respecting what
  is honestly your own.

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• Participants involved in developing this training
  noted a diversity of spiritual symbols and
  images, some of which included
• cross 5 pointed star, images of bright,
  dusk, tree, roots, happy place, acts of
  justice and caring, feeling waves drawing down
  the moon, pebbles, sound of water flowing, tears
  of joy and sorrow, home with wall to block out,
  hearts all connected, mountain, spire, hand,
  dance, music

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Spiritual Practice

• Affirmation comes with the sense of self
  recognition and congruency in spiritual symbols
  that are true to the real experience of life
  valued and leading into a fuller life to be
  lived.

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Exercise 3 Safe Spiritual Practice

• Reflection
• What ways do you bring spiritual images into your
  daily life?
• Note your response, honoring and respecting what
  is honestly your own.

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• Participants in this training have noted people
  watching for a feeling of sense of self relating
  to each other, poetry, reiki, listen to inner
  soul and act out, affirmation, practicing
  gratitude and generosity, listening to and
  playing music, having purpose in community work,
  and daily practices of prayer.

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Practicing spirituality daily

• Practices of inner spirituality address common
  life experiences that include
• celebration recognizing joy
• struggle sorrowing in loss, fear, anger
• /or painful experience
• hope feeling of possibilities within an
• void
• appreciation for lifes opportunities

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Practicing Safe Spirituality

• Self determined spiritual practices may connect
  one with the source of spiritual energy and
  creativity, and ultimately connect others in
  common expressions of spiritual practices.
• Growth and continued development toward wholeness
  comes with adaptations of those unique
  expressions to changes and new learning in life.

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• Identifying spiritual symbols and practices
  specific to ones experiences as lesbian, gay,
  transgender and/or queer can overcome barriers to
  spirituality erected by organized religion and
  the practices of civil religion.
• This work of naming spiritual symbols and
  practices enhances the sense of worth in
  individual lives and realizes the reality of our
  spirituality.

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• The sense of well being and wholeness in
  individuals develops in spiritual practices that
  increase understanding of what really matters in
  life, individually and communally.
• The purpose of learning the techniques of
  practicing safe spirituality is to overcome
  barriers that have been placed by dominate
  social/cultural practices where diversity is at
  times ignored, negated and denegrated.

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• This training was designed to encourage and
  celebrate the skill of reflecting on a
  spirituality that nourishes lives as people who
  are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or
  queer and their families live in community and
  are served by practitioners in the human
  services.

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More information

• Contact
• Church Within A Church Movement, Inc
• www.cwac.us
• Rainbow Access Initiative, Inc.
• www.rainbowaccess.org

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Some useful resources

• We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For (2006)
  by Alice Walker New Press.
• Let There Be Light (2002)Poems and prayers for
  repairing the world compiled by Jane Breskin
  Zalben Dutton Childrens Books.
• Chop Wood Carry Water (1984)A guide to finding
  spiritual fulfillment in everyday life by Rick
  Fields, et al. Putnam Book.
• Subversive Devotions (2003)A journey into divine
  pleasure and power by Pat Youngdahl Bean Pole
  Books.