Ep 80 The Practice of Transformation

Transformation can happen in both big and small ways. It may come as we intentionally nourish our souls, or it may come quite by surprise. We may find ourselves feeling the sting of impatience or the burden of rigidity, both of which can feel unsettling to our souls. But the contemplative can help us find joy in this moment now, even as we journey towards our next moment. Join us as we talk about the remarkable journey of transformation. 

Additional Resources:

Tree: The Buckthorn

#LovingKindness
#CenteringPrayer
#LettingGo
#Deconstruction 

For Transcript:
Go to the "Transcript" Tab.
If you are in a player that does not have the Transcript Tab, use the link below:
https://thecontemplativelife.buzzsprout.com/1642654/11012283-ep-80-the-practice-of-transformation

Sign up for our newsletter here. 

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
transformation, caterpillar, 

Dominic Kaiser  00:06

Welcome to The Contemplative Life: Three pastors, friends and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens.

I'm Christina Roberts.
I'm Chris Roberts.
I'm Kristina Kaiser. We're glad you joined us.  

Hello, it's great to be with you. Today, we are taking some time to talk about the practice of transformation, or maybe even the journey of transformation. So it's interesting to note that transformation can happen in both small ways and in large ways. So when we think of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, that's huge. We're talking about these cellular level transformations. But then there's also smaller experiences of transformation. Maybe as was my case a few years ago, I'm on my social justice, social activism journey. And there comes that day where I say today, and from henceforth, when I see Fairtrade bananas, I'm buying the fairtrade bananas. Or when a friend told me about how straws were impacting turtles in the ocean, I said, Okay, I'm buying my reusable straws, and they're coming with me to the restaurants.  Or maybe we adopt some sort of centering practice to help us be connected to the Divine. So we're experiencing the spiritual journey and engaging with an inner wisdom and reacting and responding to all of that, and something going on on the inside connects to our world on the outside. And so it turns out, we don't have to wait for these things to just hit us in the face, we can nurture them and experience them on purpose. So as we begin our conversation today on transformation, how have you experienced this? Do you have practices that help you nurture it? I’d love to hear from you guys.

Christina Roberts  02:00

It's interesting that you're using the example of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. I was recently listening to Martha Beck talk about this. And she said, You know, it's not like the caterpillar, all of a sudden, grows wings. What happens is the caterpillar becomes liquid, it liquefies, completely changes, and then from there becomes the butterfly. And of course, I've learned that in science class at some point in my life, but it just hit me new. Wow, that is a massive transformation of this liquid liquefying this thing, and just to create something different. And I think, when I think about the larger transformations that you're naming, and I think even societally speaking.  I feel like we're going through, in the wider culture, our world, there's transformation happening, that can feel a little unsettling at times for us.  Going through the pandemic, and wars and all the things that are happening globally, it can feel like oh, my gosh, we were feeling reduced to nothing. Where is hope? But even that example of the caterpillar- butterfly that has to happen sometimes for these massive shifts to occur in our lives, in our society, in our generation. So that's an idea that I've been sitting with lately, on sort of a generational level.  I was also listening to a podcast where this historian was going the four cycles of generations and the different transformation that takes place with each generation. And, again, historically, we see these cycles repeating. So I think that's where my attention is caught today, it's kind of on the larger scope of transformation.

Chris Roberts  03:25

Yeah, I think things are changing rapidly and what comes to mind is I was at a retreat, and a Jesuit practitioner was leading us through this sort of image of prayer.  The first thing we're imagining is a rock and water dripping on the rock. And, you know, how much change will happen from the water dripping on the rock? What will happen to the rock? How much time will it take? And then we were led through the practice of imagining a sponge, and water falling on to a sponge and then the water leaking out of the sponge and spreading to other places. And so, I think of that exercise, and the different transformations in my life.  I think, going back to that first exercise of the rock, what comes to mind is centering prayer. I tried centering prayer several years ago, and I practiced it for many, many years. And I wouldn't be able to point to the change at first. But as I look back over the course of years, I'm like, Oh, I'm a much more stable person. I don't like to get reactionary as much as I used to whenever a situation comes up. And so that's one thing that I think about as transformation. And then, I think about other transformations in my life. One is, I heard a speaker say you can't read literature, and not be empathetic to the plight of human beings. And so I've been engaging in stories. Where have I experienced rigidity? I decided to practice this, reading literature and listening to other people's stories. And I think that's been what's brought about that sponge change, where I am a lot more empathetic towards people's stories. And I'm more willing to change my view on things because I'm listening to somebody else's story. So that's what comes up for me. 

Kristina Kaiser  05:51

Those are both super impacting anecdotes.  The notion of almost when you were talking, Christina, what I was thinking about was deconstruction, reconstruction.  We often talk about it at face level. But it's true in so many ways of Oh, do we need to rethink and then reemerge with something new,  rebuilt.  People often talk about how disorienting it can be for the things that you may have believed or thought were true or took for granted, to suddenly not be now.  It just feels unsettling. And I don't know what it feels like to be a caterpillar in a cocoon. But I can wonder, does that feel peaceful? Does that feel unsettling to be going through this change and then emerge in this new way? But certainly, in my experiences of life, I notice it and it's not quite comfortable. So I thought of that. I don't know. Maybe I'll stop there. Does that give you any thoughts?

Christina Roberts  06:54

Well, Chris, when you were talking about the rock, what comes to mind for me is a retreat that I was at. And you know, we were in Wisconsin, and this speaker, this facilitator, had gone to Oregon and collected a bunch of rocks and brought the rocks back for us to each other as part of the different activity that we were doing that afternoon. And as we were doing the rocks, we noted the Scripture in the Gospel where Jesus says, “Speak to this mountain, and it will be moved.”  And he said, you know, this mountain was originally in Oregon. And here we are in Wisconsin, with a part of this mountain among us. And I just love that idea of rock by rock, bit by bit, that mountain was in a different place. And again, just giving hope that we never know when that tipping point is going to come, when that the actual transformation when the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, or we become the sponge. But gosh, that was just such a powerful experience I had at that retreat of the “moving off the mountain”, which seems like this huge scripture that would always feel out of reach for me. And I was holding it in my hand at that moment.

Kristina Kaiser  07:53

That's just remarkable. Yeah. And I think Chris you were talking about the rock. And it sort of reminded me of the parable of the soils. Sometimes it takes a while, right? That's the thing about water dripping on a rock is it's gonna take a while before it's round and it shows the effect, which is very different from that porous experience. Like maybe it produces the crop, right? It goes through and it keeps going and it spreads. So yes, that was coming to mind for me, as you were talking. 

Chris Roberts  08:27

It’s interesting that you bring up the parable of the seed and the sower and the soil. I was recently talking about that same parable with someone else. And, I think a lot of people don't really resonate with that parable. It brings up images of it's a one and done type of thing. But we were talking about, there's a particular tree in Wisconsin, called the buckthorn and it's the bane of many people. They hate buckthorn and how the buckthorn is an invasive species. What happens is the birds eat the berries. And whenever they fly to a different location, whenever they defecate, they defecate seeds, and it grows wherever it drops.  They have a tree line and they have all these buckthorns that are coming up because these birds are eating these berries. And that's an invasive tree, but thinking about this idea of a seed being thrown down on a soil that you would say isn't going to bear fruit. And then the birds come and take it away. Well, you know, this idea of, even though you think something might not be bearing fruit in your life or being purposeful or being transformative, maybe we can look down the road a little bit later and say, Oh, it's not a one and done thing. Maybe even though it was scattered on this rocky ground birds took it and it still bears fruit a little bit later. So I find that an interesting notion.

Kristina Kaiser  10:11

I really like that. And it reminds me a little bit of the practice of loving kindness, the right to be gentle with oneself when things are difficult and hard.  I think I always want things as soon as I know it, I want to be able to do it. And as soon as I heard it was possible, I wanted it to be true. And it doesn't work . Life isn't like that. It takes time. And so it has been meaningful to me to develop a practice of being able to say this is difficult, this is hard for me, this takes time. It is okay. You are okay. And to allow that journey to unfold as it needs to has been a really important part of my own experience of transformation.

Christina Roberts  10:57

And I think I'm listening to both of you today, you're both acknowledging the importance of reflecting backwards.   That in the moment, we may not see the transformation, it might feel like a slog, but in retrospect, it's like, oh, yeah, change was happening, transformation was taking place. And so just the importance of taking those times to think back and to reflect and to sort of soak in, where we've come from, where we are now and where we're going seems really important today.

Chris Roberts  11:24

Yeah, I think reflection is super helpful, particularly whenever you look at your life, and it hasn't gone the way that you wanted it to go. I think everybody who reflects on their life, whenever they're 18, and they have these grand plans for the future. Whenever you get there, and you look back, it didn't go the way that you wanted to go. And sometimes we can feel remorseful about that. And so the practice of letting go of what you wanted to happen and saying this is what is.  Finding the beauty in what is rather than having this rigidity of I wanted it to be this way, and it is not. So I'm frustrated. I'm going to actually, instead of letting go, I'm going to grip tighter, and I'm going to buckle down and make it happen. And I just find people who do the latter make themselves more miserable. And so I found this reflection, this practice of letting go of what I wanted to happen, super helpful and transformational.

Kristina Kaiser  12:33

I appreciate that. It's a really good reminder. And it causes me to keep thinking too much about the story that often comes up that people are looking for affirmation in life in various ways. And God's love is kind of this really big deal. And sometimes I feel like people go Yeah, yeah, God's love. But it's interesting to me. I've sat in a lot of group experiences where people were listening for the voice of God, and they're listening, maybe for several days, and we get to the end of it. And they would say, I feel like God told me that God loved me. And as a younger person, I was like, Well, no, duh. Of course, God loves you. Like you didn't even have to wait for God to tell you that. You could have just known it.   But actually it becomes this really big deal that we feel like God said to us, I love you, I care about you. It heals the soul in a way that so many other things cannot. And so I feel like it has become a really big part of my life to intentionally find ways to slow down and to connect with that God presence and to realize that I'm not alone. Because somehow what ends up happening is some version of God's saying, I love you, or whatever it is you call God, but somehow that experience of love washing over you. 

Christina Roberts  14:04

And I think in my experience, transformation comes in unexpected places, right? It's when we're least expecting it. It's that story that hits us in those moments where we sense the love of God or whatever it is today. And so that's exciting to me too, because I think we can certainly have intentionality but the fact that sometimes it does very often come in unexpected ways, I think is pretty exciting and makes life sort of zesty and fun.

Kristina Kaiser  14:29

I agree. I agree. 

Well, thank you so much for jumping into this conversation about transformation, journey and spiritual practice. I really appreciate it. And now is the time in our podcast where we take a moment to talk about what we are into. So what are we into?

Chris Roberts  14:54

Well, for better or worse, I've been into appliances. Recently our washing machine started leaking. And apparently the tub on the bottom broke. I tried to fix it and did a couple things. Nope. It could be fixed and so we got a new one. And then right after that the dryer stopped heating, and the heating elements were broken, I tried to fix it. Nope. Kaputz. And so I've been installing new appliances, and figuring out how they work. And I think we're gonna have beautifully washed and dried clothes. For those that live in other parts of the world where drying is a thing. There are some dryers that make your clothes really, really crunchy. And so you know, I'm excited to see what a new, freshly installed dryer is, and how it makes our clothes turn out. So, better or worse appliances.

Christina Roberts  15:57

And I am grateful for your attention to that. Well,  I am into new libraries. We often go to the library as a family and we have our neighborhood library that we go to. And I know that you can order library books online, and they can send them to your library. But lately, I've just been feeling like oh, we need to try some different libraries. And so we will often try different libraries. But we went to a small town near us to try their library. And it was amazing. All sorts of magazines. I love magazines, especially in the summer, I love to just sit and read mindless magazines. And so there were all sorts of different back issues of magazines, and our kids have new comic books and all the things.  So I am into small town libraries.

Kristina Kaiser  16:38

Ah, that's so exciting. Well, I'm also grateful that you have a washer dryer that can serve you and make you happy. And I also love libraries. So whoop. I think I am strangely and yeah, very surprisingly into dill. So the backstory, we had grown a little dill plant in our arrow garden. And then we took that little dill plant and we planted it outside when it got warmer. And I don't really have any experience with dill. It turns out, they grow like the size of trees. They're huge. I mean, small trees, probably but it's like two feet high. And it just keeps growing. And so we have found dill and chives is an amazing combination. And it goes with a number of interesting things and we have to use it because then it just keeps growing. We don't know what to do with it. So suddenly, I'm into dill.

 Well, thank you everyone for joining us. It is good to be with you. Have a great weekend. We'll see you again soon.

 Dominic Kaiser 17:41

If you enjoy listening to the podcast, we invite you to stay connected by signing up for our foundry spiritual center newsletter where you can learn about even more programs and offerings. You'll find a link to subscribe in the show notes or visit us anytime at Foundrysc.com. Thanks again for being with us. We hope you have a great week.