Promise of the Soul

Dennis Kenny

Description

"Promise of the Soul is a spiritual workbook. Through simple, accessible exercises and reflections, Kenny offers us practical and proven methods that have enabled thousands of his counseling clients to relinquish their separation from God s love and live from the heart.... Step by step, Kenny s approach shows us how we can release ourselves from self-imposed limitations and lifelong feelings of inadequacy to live a more soul-infused life. It is impossible to read this book without finding yourself somewhere in its pages and setting yourself free. It is a real opportunity." --From the Foreword by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather s Blessings

"An excellent resource for creating a new covenant that will enable you to expand your belief system and your life." --Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine and Miracles and Prescriptions for Living

"This book, like the topic itself, is beautiful and enchanting. This spiritual light is steeped in the great traditions, yet its presentation is original, creative, and brilliant. An essential key to making peace with God is identifying and healing your spiritual covenant and realizing the promise of your soul." --Harold Bloomfield, M.D., author of Making Peace with God

"Promise of the Soul is an exceptional guide to examining the spiritual promises or covenants we make with the sacred. Whether we are Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or of any other faith, this book transcends all paths and beliefs to help each of us identify which sacred promises are limiting and which are beneficial to our spiritual unfolding and inherent well-being." --Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., author of The Four-Fold Way and Signs of Life

"By bringing to light our basic beliefs about how life works, Dennis Kenny gives us room to breathe, to change, to be liberated from prisons of our own making. As a skilled chaplain and teacher, he shows us simple ways to become larger, happier people all that God really wants us to be. This book might just set you free." --Wayne Muller, author of Sabbath and How, Then, Shall We Live?
Foreword by: Rachel Naomi Remen.

Acknowledgments.

PART ONE: Identifying Your Promise.

1 The Promise of Your Soul: Why HealingYour Covenants Is Important.

2 God and Your Spirituality.

Exercise 1: What Do You Believe?

Exercise 2: Ask Yourself About Your Spirituality

Exercise 3: Write to Your Higher Power.

Exercise 4: Examine Your Life Prayer.

3 Healing Covenants: Mind, Body,and Spirit.

PART TWO: Balancing Your Promise.

4 Determining Your Covenant Style.

Exercise 5: Write Down the Answers for FindingYour Spiritual Style.

5 The Promise of the Giver.

6 The Promise of the Wanter.

7 The Promise of the Searcher.

8 Identifying Your Interior, Exterior,and Quiet Covenant Styles.

Exercise 6: Determine Your Three Different Styles.

Exercise 7: Understand Your Styles.

PART THREE: Changing Your Promise,Changing Your Life.

9 The Challenges of Changing YourCovenant.

10 The Benefits of Changing YourCovenant.

11 From Disease to Ease.

12 Creating Your New Covenant.

Exercise 8: Create a New Covenant.

13 Creating a Ceremony for Your New Covenant.

14 The Blessing Moments.

Bibliography.

Index.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian biblical canons
• Buddhism
• Bible study
• Spirituality
• Old Testament
• New Testament
• Judaism
• Hinduism
• Christianity
• Religion
• Islam

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 10 août 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470246825
• Langue: English

Extrait

Promise of the Soul
Promise of the Soul
Identifying and Healing Your Spiritual Agreements

D ENNIS K ENNY
Copyright 2002 by Dennis Kenny. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., New York
Design and production by Navta Associates, Inc.
The author gratefully acknowledges the permission of Laurie Garrett to include excerpts from her work in this book.
The author also gratefully acknowledges the permission of Angeles Arrien to use writings that appeared in a different form in her book, The Four-Fold Way : Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary, copyright 1993 by Angeles Arrien; all rights reserved; San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. For further information about Arrien s work, please contact the office of Angeles Arrien, P.O. Box 2077, Sausalito, CA, 94966; www.angelesarrien.com .
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, [phone], fax [phone], email: [e-mail].
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
This title is also available in print as ISBN 0-471-41833-1. Some content that appears in the print version of this book may not be available in this electronic edition.
For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.Wiley.com
To Eldora and Wilbert, my parents, who gave me a great gift: In my quiet moments I always knew I was loved.
Contents

Foreword by Rachel Naomi Remen

Acknowledgments

PART ONE Identifying Your Promise

1 The Promise of Your Soul: Why Healing Your Covenants Is Important

2 God and Your Spirituality

Exercise 1: What Do You Believe?

Exercise 2: Ask Yourself About Your Spirituality

Exercise 3: Write to Your Higher Power

Exercise 4: Examine Your Life Prayer

3 Healing Covenants: Mind, Body, and Spirit

PART TWO Balancing Your Promise

4 Determining Your Covenant Style

Exercise 5: Write Down the Answers for Finding Your Spiritual Style

5 The Promise of the Giver

6 The Promise of the Wanter

7 The Promise of the Searcher

8 Identifying Your Interior, Exterior, and Quiet Covenant Styles

Exercise 6: Determine Your Three Different Styles

Exercise 7: Understand Your Styles

PART THREE Changing Your Promise, Changing Your Life

9 The Challenges of Changing Your Covenant

10 The Benefits of Changing Your Covenant

11 From Disease to Ease

12 Creating Your New Covenant

Exercise 8: Create a New Covenant

13 Creating a Ceremony for Your New Covenant

14 The Blessing Moments

Bibliography

Index
FOREWORD
by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Some years ago, I attended a Yom Kippur service conducted by a very young Rabbi. Yom Kippur is the one of the most solemn and important of the Jewish Holy Days, a time of atonement for the sins of the past year in the hope of healing one s relationship with God. Having sat through many such services, I fully expected to hear the usual Yom Kippur sermon on the importance of repentance and forgiveness. But on his way to the podium, the rabbi reached out into the congregation and took his ten-month-old daughter from his wife. Carrying her in his arms, he stepped up to the podium and began his sermon.
At first the child stared wide-eyed at the large number of people before her, but after a few minutes, she reached out for her daddy s tie and put it into her mouth. Everyone smiled. Freeing his tie and tucking it back into his suit, the rabbi continued on with his sermon. But his tiny daughter, feeling his attention shift towards others, grabbed his glasses and pulled them off. People chuckled indulgently. Retrieving his glasses and settling them back in place, the rabbi kissed his child and went on with his sermon. A minute or so passed and then the little girl reached out and grabbed him by the nose. The entire congregation, including the rabbi, laughed aloud. Holding his daughter close and wrapping his prayer shawl around her, the rabbi waited. When the room again became still he asked his congregation, Is there anything that she could do that you could not forgive her for? People began to nod appreciatively, perhaps remembering their love for their own children and grandchildren. And when does that end? asked the rabbi. At three? At fifteen? At thirty? How old does someone have to be before you forget that everyone is a child of God? There was an absolute silence. Very softly the rabbi asked, And when did you forget that you too are a child of God?
The rabbi s question speaks to a certain loneliness that is the hidden wound of our culture. It is also the question at the heart of this unique book. When did we forget that God loves us unconditionally? And how has forgetting the promise of God s love affected the way we live our lives?
Reverend Kenny suggests that even though we faithfully attend our churches and our synagogues, we meditate and we pray, many of us are living our lives in a constant struggle to become good enough to loved by God. Consciously or unconsciously, we operate from a fear-driven covenant with God and many of our behaviors and relationships are motivated by an effort to avoid God s judgment. When we become locked into an endless fearful striving to be someone other than who we are in order to deserve God s love, we have no place of refuge and safety. We have become homeless.
Perhaps this effort to avoid God s judgment causes much of the stress that characterizes our times. Stress is often thought to rooted in our unmet human needs, the result of a lack of personal intimacy and community, or an excess of time pressure and expectations. It is rarely thought of as a question of spirit. Yet Kenny suggests that the way we think about stress may be limited by the way we think of human nature. A sense of communion with God may be a fundamental human need. Perhaps a lack of communion is as stressful as a lack of community. Without feeling that we are held by God, we may become frightened and vulnerable, alone in the dark.
Certainly knowing that one is held by God can be enormously empowering for people in times of difficulty. In illness it may enable us to relinquish focus on a specific outcome, a fearfulness of the unknown, and find the courage to move forward. It may even help us to find peace in the face of uncertainty. Many years ago just before one of my own major surgeries, my surgeon leaned over the operating table and confided that there was a prayer he said before every surgery. Did I want him to say it aloud? When I nodded, he simply said Dear God, help us to do here whatever is most right. I can still remember the power of these words. In an instant, they healed my fear and allowed me to meet the unknown with a deep sense of peace.
Perhaps knowing that we belong, that we are enough, may affect more than just our feelings of safety. A lack of communion may even affect our openness to being healed. After many years as a therapist to people with cancer, I am no longer surprised when someone tells me that, despite the many determined efforts they have made to find an effective treatment, at depth, they feel unworthy of becoming well again or unworthy of the concern and kindness of others around them. Promise of the Soul has made me wonder if what such people are really saying is that they are not good enough to be loved by God or to receive God s love through others. Perhaps we may need to heal our relationship with God in order to accept the gift of life?
Kenny cites several interesting studies that suggest that a sense of connection and belonging can affect not only the quality of life but survival itself. Community heals. Dr. David Speigel s research at Stanford demonstrated that connecting in a support group for a brief time every week for a year in the course of their illness can significantly lengthen survival for women with metastatic breast cancer. Dr. Dean Ornish s work suggests that an intense group support experience can help people reverse the sort of heart disease that otherwise requires surgical intervention. Increasingly, community seems to have a positive effect on survival. But who is to say that communion is not as important to survival and recovery as community? Soul loss, a loss of a sense of authentic connection with the source of life, was considered by the shamans and medicine men to be the root cause of all illness. Could a lack of authentic communion make us as vulnerable to illness as a lack of community?
In Promise of the Soul, Reverend Kenny raises these and many other challenging questions. But even more important, he has drawn together insights from his extensive professional practice as a counselor and his personal experience to enable us to better understand our covenants with God and to heal them. Promise of the Soul is a spiritual workbook. Through simple accessible exercises and reflections, Kenny offers us practical and proven methods that have enabled thousands of his counseling clients to relinquish their separation from God s love and live from the heart. It has been said that a human being is not a mechanism but an oppo