Day four and five of OASIS 2014. (24th-25th November 2014): Sharing of Experiences (God’s Love).

The progress of the FIC Spiritual Journey (OASIS 2014) on November 24-25, 2014 dwells on the theme: Sharing of experiences. This theme explains the sharing of God’s Love in our lives through experiences. That is we stand to celebrate God’s Love in us which also signifies or emphasises the truth and reality of God in our lives. It is also an exercise to deepen our awareness that God is fully alive in our growth and development as religious. We are happy to express our wish and hope that God loves us and has revealed himself to us in which ever ways that it happened. In this regard, we are required to express heart touched feelings in the form of a simple hand written note and cordial hack to one another after each sharing.

Experiences

We took turns in sharing some few remarkable experiences, as well as pointing out notable symbols we identified as inspirational objects or signs that aided the reflection on the love of God. Some of the experiences shared include: serious ill health, fatal accident, great disappointment, lost of spiritual or self direction and painful embarastments. Others are; a challenge of indicision to making choice of life, great shocks, cruel and possessive  relationships, a feeling of rejection, disatisfaction and a poor or inadiquate parental/family affections, among others.

Symbols

From the sharings, it is clear that the various symbols we identified had lots of significance or spiritual interpretations that facilitated one’s spiritual growth and development. Some of the symbols with their unique explanations/expressions are: a butter-fly, which signifies various movement and changes one’s apostolate or life; a banana tree which explains the fruitfulness in one’s life, the colour RED, denotes life, suffering and Jesus Christ on the cross, whilse a mango tree becomes a symbol that represents a good shade in one’s life.

Others are: an isolated cocoanut tree which depicts lonliness when as a child. It also symbolises one who works independently. A rainbow, as a reflective image, portrays the various colours and challenges one goes through in life; while a leave is also displayed to tell the dependancy of one on other human persons for growth. A ‘drift wood’ presented  shows Jesus crusified, and a yam tree appeared to explain the difficulties in one’s development in social life before the religious life. Some others symbols are: a stamp pad, a pencil, river and a branch of a tree. Each is explained to depict a special message that shows the love of God in one’s live.

Endding the two day exercise on the sharing of experiences, another yet important exercise is introduced thus “Contemplative Dialogue”. This is also an exercise that gives attetion to further sharing of experiences among selves. The focus on this sharing is on our lived experience and the relationship with everyday life. In this excercise, one is encouraged to cultivate a listening attitude, be silence and being concise in the sharing of oneself in a most intimate and spirit fill manner. We are to express our thoughts, keeping in mind that they will be reflected on by others. We are then put in groups for effective attention to this exercise in the coming days.

General impression

The general impressions from this sharing are very exciting. We had deep sigh of relief as we shared and listened to one another in our challenged experiences. This gives a significant and determining imparts on the journey. We also learned from one past experiences that it is good, valuable, meaningful and even entertaining to know and celebrate our different cultures. Again, this makes us feel much at home, very cool in the serene environment hence, well composed to continue the journey.    

We concluded the day with Eucharistic celebration at 6.45 pm.

By Bro Amatus Taalo ( Ghana)