Ep 31 Second Naïvetés and Spirituality

Ep 31 Second Naïvetés and Spirituality

Second Naïvetés are the act of returning to our experiences and beliefs with fresh eyes and new outlooks, and it’s a common story for many in seasons of questioning in particular.

In today’s episode, we spend some time specifically talking about how each of us has seen our prayer practices evolve as we’ve come in contact with the contemplative and why that evolution has felt so important to us. Two big questions we’ll ask as we look at these prayer models from our younger days: What is the essence of that? And what does it mean to respond to that?

#PaulRiceour
#mystical
#PrayerModels
#PrayerOfLight 

Additional Resources:
Book: Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton
Author: Barbara A. Holmes
Author: Martha Beck
Book: Journey to the Heart: Christian Contemplation through the Centuries, edited by Kim Nataraja
Restaurant: Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

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Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

prayer, contemplative, prayer beads, spiritual, praying in tongues 

Dominic Kaiser  00:06

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

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

Chris Roberts  00:24

Well, hello, it is great to be with you. Today we'll be talking about this idea of second naïveté. And we've mentioned this idea before in our podcast, and it comes from the philosopher, Paul Riceour. It's the notion that we can experience something in our lives and walk away from it. However, later we return to those same experiences and beliefs with fresh eyes and a new take on them. And this is common for people who find themselves questioning aspects of their faith or spirituality. We can have seasons, maybe years of disengaging practices and ideologies that no longer serve us. And then we find ourselves drawn back to these practices in new, fresh ways with more of a mystical approach, viewing it with fresh eyes.

Christina Roberts  01:18

Yeah, I'm continually experiencing second naïvetés in my life, and specifically revolving around prayer. So when I was studying back in the day, I spent an entire semester taking immersive courses on prayer. And the way that it was designed was: We would have a different prayer leader from around the world that would do a week of lecturing, and then we had practicums that we had to do. And so each one had their specialty, like one person would talk about praying for leaders, and she really emphasized prayer lists. And someone else talked about music and prayer. But one of the topics was on what they called "spiritual warfare." And it was basically this idea of darkness, evil, and that we can pray against those things. And they would often quote versus like, "We battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and spirits," and things like that. 

But as I have grown in my faith, I don't really resonate with “battle and warfare” type of languages. So I think I've, kind of left some of those teachings behind. And yet, in recent weeks, and even particularly this year, with all that's been going on in our country, in our world, this idea of darkness is very real in people's lives and personalized evil, and feeling kind of yuck, or blah, or oppressive. 

And so, I was talking to my spiritual director last month, and in my session, (she's a Catholic nun,) she was talking about this prayer that she does what she calls a "Prayer of Light." And she will just picture people in her mind and call them by name, immersed in light, and praying for light to flood them. And I just thought, "Oh, I really appreciate that." Because instead of having to pray, quote, "against the dark," or “against these things,” we can pray “in light.” 

And so I think it just got me thinking about some of these prayer models that I learned about when I was, you know, 19/20 years old, and how they fit into my life now, and how the contemplative maybe is helping me to re-engage with some of this in some fresh ways, and to recognize that there is something there. You don't want to throw everything out, but how to maybe reframe that through a contemplative lens.

Kristina Kaiser  03:21

This is such an interesting conversation, and I feel so attached to it on the inside. Because I think I did come into my adulthood in this Pentecostal way. And so yes! Lots of teachings, lots of "here's how to pray," lots of check-ins with people...for which...were always a little shifty for me, a little uncomfortable, because I am also a performer. I went to school for opera. And so if I knew someone was going to ask me a question, that they were going to follow up about how I was feeling after prayer, I had that...I was on edge about what I was going to say. 

So similar to you, Christina, I have found prayers with fewer words have really helped me engage in a more serene space, around prayers for healing and these kinds of things. And I have other friends, similar to you, who have said, "Oh, the 'battle language' doesn't resonate with me," which, I mean, I'm sensitive to...I'm sure the battle language, resonates...I mean, I don't mind it. I don't mind a little bit of "stomp on the head of the enemy" every now and again. You know, it soothes the soul in a particular way. 

But on some days, I do find it helpful to be able...I think…I first saw it in "Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership," where they talked about intercession, and just sitting in the presence of God with that person in mind, so very similar to what you're saying. And I thought, “Oh my gosh, is that possible?! Can I really just sit in the presence of God on behalf of a person and let God's work do it? I don't have to have all the fancy words?!" It changed my life. It has so changed my life. This is a great conversation.

Chris Roberts  05:07

Yeah, I love what you guys are bringing up, specifically as it's related to prayer. And I think what comes up for me, I grew up also in a Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, Non-Denominational type of faith backgrounds. And this prayer with speaking in tongues was huge for the faith background that I was raised in. And so for those that don't know what "speaking in tongues" is, you know, it's taken from the book of Acts where they spoke in tongues. And it's this "groaning and utterings." And so in my faith tradition, people who would speak in tongues were, like, super spiritual; they had a lot of faith. They were stringing these incoherent sentences together...And now, I don't doubt that God would see their heart and what it is that they're saying, or, you know, that some sort of communication between them and God took place. Because I think my view of God has expanded that he can encompass that. 

But I think one of the things that I've been returning to...this whole notion of "whenever we feel something so deeply," or "something in our life is happening, and we just don't have words for it," this idea of "groaning," of letting out this, “Help!" or "Be with me..." 

I think I've talked on the podcast before about prayer beads, and I've been using prayer beads because I just I find that words don't really serve me, that come from me. I really appreciate words. I'm into poetry and things like that, and they speak to me. But as far as my own personal prayer practices, I've really resonated with prayers of silence, prayers that embody things, like the prayer beads. I think prayer can be embodied. And going through a rotation with my prayer beads, and just the movement...

And a lot of times, I find that I don't know what to pray. And particularly like, the past couple of weeks, I've had some situations. And I have my traditional view of how I would respond in a situation. But it has affected me so deeply, the interactions that I'm having with others, and I don't want to be triggered emotionally. And so I've been groaning in prayer. And I've been doing that with my prayer beads and with guitar playing or doing things with my hands. And so I've really appreciated going back to this notion of second naivete in my prayer life. And it's been super helpful for me this week. So I really appreciate the contemplative approach to viewing something with fresh eyes.

Christina Roberts  07:51

I like what you're saying, Chris, about going to the essence. So there's the act of, quote, "praying in tongues" that your faith tradition celebrated when you were younger. But the essence is, "what do we do when we don't have words to pray?" is what I think I'm hearing you say, that the core of that is this, "I have these deep things going on, and I don't know how to respond to that." And I think that's what I'm at even with the, quote, "spiritual warfare" stuff, too. What is it the essence of that? That there is evil, darkness, oppression in the world. And I think that we can all agree with that. 

And so what does it mean to respond to that? And so I think, in that second naïveté, it’s inviting us to go back to the core, and maybe we can shed some of the layers or the expressions of that and to get to the core, and then find our entrance points. 

And I think, even for me, learning from other faith traditions has been helpful. So even you bringing up the groaning, I'm thinking of a seminar that I just heard where it was interfaith, and there was a Muslim woman who was describing this...and I'm not exactly sure what the holiday was...but there's this lament that she was invited to do. (And this was in London, and it was outside and she was singing these songs of lament.) But she wasn't singing words. It was this…I don't know what it was. It was this sort of phrase or utterance that she did as a way to lament for what was going on in that particular Muslim holiday for her. And I just thought that was beautiful. And she sang a little bit of the chant for us on the screen. (It was a zoom call.) And it was just this lovely, moving...And, you know, she's not going to call it “praying in tongues” or whatever, in her context. But I think that essence of, as humans, we have things that are deep, which is why we cry sometimes. Or, you know, we sigh. You know, we just don't know. And so, I think, kind of, getting to the core of these things is possibly what Paul Riceour is inviting us into with the second naïveté.

Kristina Kaiser  09:42

There are these conversations around the "whole self getting involved," in the contemplative, and so I like what you're saying. I feel like it pulls in that notion of “the whole self.” And there's so many different contexts of this groan. I feel like Barbara A. Holmes talks about the "ring shout," kinda like this ginormous out. And Martha Beck, in one of her books even says, "If you can't laugh, cry or yell." 

It's just this whole-body...And I especially like...right, so these are shouts, crying and yelling are all very...but the sigh is a different space yet, which seems also very necessary. In this "Journey to the Heart" book, they talk about even the Martha/Mary, right, so, as we kind of reimagine, and we think about both the yelling and the screaming versus the sighing...Martha often gets a bad rap, right? And both Richard Rohr and this other book, I was just referencing talk about, like, the wholeness. Like, if we are busy, can we also embrace our less busy side? And if we have this emotion, can we also embrace this other emotion? That's all a part of us, like, not even to reject all the other stuff necessarily, that we talked about. But to: Here's a part of who I am. And here's a part of who I am. And I need all of these expressions in order to communicate with God, to work through!

Christina Roberts  11:05

Yeah, and even you talking about shouting, I haven't thought about that in awhile. But in my studies, that was part of the Spiritual Warfare unit was: Shout to the Lord! There's the Psalms, and we would do these declarations of shouting. And so, again, I haven't shouted prayers lately, but I hear what you're saying, that sometimes there's an intensity and that release of like, you know, in your car screaming, or in the woods, or in the shower, or whatever, where there's this outlet of something that you have to release. 

And so again, if I'm hearing it from a more "Invitational-almost-human..."like, as a human, I have these things that I am trying to communicate to God and it feels intense.” I don't know, to me that feels, again, like a second naiveté versus singing the songs about "shouting to the north and the south," and this declarative thing. Maybe it was fine, and I'm sure I got something out of that at the time. But maybe moving past that. So I think, yeah, that's another great example of some of these more expressive type of outward prayers, and how do we contextualize those things?

Chris Roberts  12:01

Yeah. And I have a wonderful memory of whenever I was, I think six or seven. And my, my grandparents took me to this Native American, I believe it was Cherokee, tribal dance in the mountains that was probably about an hour and a half away from us. And I remember being in the car or sitting on the back of the car with my grandparents. My grandfather, supposedly, was half Cherokee Indian. And I'm sitting on the back of the car with my grandparents, and I'm watching this tribal dance happen, and they're in their traditional outfits. And they're dancing around in the circle. And there are these noises, they're...I don't know if it's their language, but I mean, I’m hearing [imitating what he heard,] it was a lot like the thing you hear on television…I was, brought up on westerns. And I'm like, "I'm seeing it in television shows, and I'm actually seeing it in real life!" 

But I can remember an overwhelming sense of having a spiritual encounter at this tribal war dance. And it was a good spiritual. I felt like, "Wow, these people are interacting with each other, and they're interacting with the Divine in a way that's drawing me into the prayers that they're praying." And I thought that was a wonderful experience. And I'm so glad that we're having this conversation because I don't know that I've thought about that in, you know, 30 or 40 years. 

But I'm also struck by this whole idea of evil, right? I think growing up in a culture where we can explain away everything, I think, returning to...not saying that there are demons or spirits behind everything...But you know, I've really come into contact with a lot of young people that are experiencing darkness in their mind, right? These thoughts of, "Am I good enough? Am I going to be loved? Am I going to be welcome?"  I've really seen this play out over the past month. And I believe that's darkness. And it could be in the music that they're listening to, it could be in books that they're reading, it could be in certain websites that they're searching. But I think I've also thought about, "Okay," returning to this notion of evil or darkness in a fresh way, that's been helpful for my life over the past couple of weeks. So I've really appreciated this conversation with you guys today.

Well, this is the part of our podcast where we talk about what we are into. What are we into guys?

Kristina Kaiser  15:11

Well I recently became the owner of an ice cream maker and I am just thrilled! We are going to make ice cream and sorbet and sherbet. We're gonna make all...the...things, like, I am going directly to the store to buy all the things. So ice cream makers are my thing.

Chris Roberts  15:30

That is awesome. I have loved making ice cream in the past. And so if you need tips, like do you want to make ice cream? Or do you want to make custard? 

Kristina Kaiser  15:41

Right? I know, I don't know yet. 

Chris Roberts  15:43

Use some egg yolks. Thicken it up. That's awesome. 

Well, I have been into, I guess, carpooling. I've been hauling my daughter and her friends around over the past couple of weeks, going from this location to the next location. But most of it is centered around rowing and the sport crew. And so they've been going out on the lake, and I've been a parent that's been helping them put this...it looks like a Viking Longboat, but it's an eight-person boat that they use for crew. It takes about 12 of us to get it out onto the water and then they go out for like...it takes longer to get the boat on the water than, I think, that they're actually out in the water. But I've been into carpooling my daughter and her friends and crew for the past couple of weeks.

Christina Roberts  16:39

So maybe I will jump on the custard bandwagon. I have been into Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, which is a staple in St. Louis, where I grew up. And we're leaving Friday to go to...by the time this podcast airs, we will have already been to St. Louis and I am planning to take my kids to Ted Drewes to get some custard. It's a whole thing. It's an outdoor thing. There's lines everywhere; people stand around the parking lot and eat their custard. So it's not just the custard itself. It's the experience. It's on Route 66. So I am into Ted Drewes Frozen Custard.

Chris Roberts  17:11

Nice. Well, thank you so much for joining us. For more resources, we invite you to check out thecontemplativelife.net, and we look forward to seeing you soon. Have a great week.