Troy Caldwell > Quotes

“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle within them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“Sample dialog questions Why are you in my dream? Who are you in my soul? Why have you come to me today? How are you trying to protect me? Ask even from threatening figures about protection. Often, these are warnings about inner conflicts between your ego and a part you need to accept, help sanctify, and help heal. What shortcoming or defect in me lets you take over? When did this feeling or part or pattern start? Can you tell me some things that make me feel or behave this way toward myself? What changes must I make to reconcile you into myself? What grace do I need from God to overcome this? What steps must I take to make this change? I keep this list handy on my computer so I can refer to it at times when doing active imagination.”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“as an ego, you are instructed to tell yourself, “I am the image (icon) of Christ. His universal pattern (archetype) is within me, so I am, as a conscious being, his image.” When the sarx or the adversary, tries to tell you this is not true by reminding you what a screw-up you are, you are called to have the faith that you are what God says you are. Your momentary condition in the realm of time does not change your eternal position as a child of God, brother of Christ, beloved of the Father, and all the other wonderful identities He has given to your soul.”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“How the Twelve Steps Relate to Soulmaking 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. This prompts the ego to yield its ego centrism. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. This introduces the idea of a higher unconscious/nous being present as a resource for change. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Here is further letting go by the ego. This links the higher unconscious to God, but it allows those not yet theistic to participate. If one cannot believe in God yet, at least they can still activate the higher unconscious. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. In these next steps, we see that purgation is necessary for deeper illumination: 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. This follows Jesus’ instruction: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23, 24, RSV).” 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Here we see the main point I am making at this time—acknowledgement that meditation is an important, necessary step. Taking the issues raised in the above steps to the still point and offering them to God for healing, aids transformation. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“Doubting helps you sort through competing ideas and come to as much truth as you can discern. Doubt, but keep looking for answers until you find something that makes sense to you. There is a lot of untruth out there. Your ultimate destiny is not dependent on your getting all of the facts right. Nevertheless, truth will empower your growth. Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (Matthew 7:7, 8, RSV)”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“The cloud of unknowing prayer is apophatic and very simple. Imagine a cloud above you. Place your sense of conscious awareness in a location floating just below the cloud. The cloud represents God. It is called the cloud of unknowing because we acknowledge that no image is sufficient to depict God. Since you cannot know God fully through image or reason, you undertake the opposite—unknowing. All things pale in comparison to God’s infinite reality. For that reason, you give yourself a diffuse object to which to direct your attention—a cloud. Then, knowing that distractions inevitably will come, you are counseled to imagine a “cloud of forgetting” hovering beneath you. Whenever you notice that you are distracted, gently, without struggle, see the distraction drift beneath the cloud of forgetting. Then, return your attention back to the cloud of unknowing. But there is one more thing: You do not pay attention just to the cloud. In addition, you “direct your naked longing” to the cloud above you. As you direct your naked (unabashed, unhidden, vulnerable, humble, unhindered, unashamed) longing and need, you will feel a humbling and an opening of your heart. Eventually, you may begin to feel the radiance that is recognized as the energy of God. When you do, rest there and fill up your being with the rivers of living water.63 It truly satisfies. Notice that this is like the Prayer Therapy group in the study, Prayer Can Change Your Life. They reported, “We listen and wait for a sense of victory, a feeling of Presence that tells us, ‘I AM here. All is well.”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“You know, brother, how we breathe: We breathe the air in and out. On this [is] based the life of the body and on this depends its warmth. So, sitting down in your cell, collect your mind, lead it into the path of the breath along which the air enters in, constrain it to enter the heart together with the inhaled air, and keep it there. Keep it there, but do not leave it silent and idle; instead give it the following prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me” (St. Nikodimus and St. Makarios).”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“when a pilgrim approaches the level of growth called the Unitive Way, he deals with metaphysics not as an abstract theory, but rather as an experienced reality. The ultimate being is God. A person in the Unitive Way knows this God, who in the Trinity we call “Father.” St. Bonaventure suggests our chief meditation in this phase is the supersensual realm—that is, higher realms of spirit and knowing. In our age, this may involve a growing appreciation of how the experiential core of Christianity has much in common with the core experience and the mystical teachings of other major world religions, as well. Such growth, when mature and well schooled, does not throw out your well-established faith and tradition. Instead, you integrate and transcend what went before from a higher level of consciousness. You see life and the faith journey from a much higher perspective than you ever previously imagined.”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“The Prayer We recognize a God of Love within us as the healing and directing power of our lives. We consciously surrender any negative quality (motive, drive, thought, feeling) we do not want. We invite God’s power to fill the void our surrender has created. In specific times of prayer and throughout our day we hold positive, healthful, wholesome thoughts and images, certain that these alone are in line with God’s will for his offspring. When we pray, we believe that we have received the specific help we have requested, and we act as though we had received it. We meditate on God as Love, on Jesus’ commandments to love, and seek entrance to that Circle of Perfection in the love of God, of self as God’s child, of neighbor as self.58 We listen, and wait for a sense of victory, a feeling of Presence, that tells us, “I AM here. All is well.” When it is reached. We give thanks! This may seem like a lot to remember, but it is easy enough to keep it in front of you at prayer time and systematically go through the steps.”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“Who Does God Say I Am? The following biblical affirmations about our identity in Jesus Christ are derived from a few selected passages in the New Testament. These passages teach a portion of the many truths about who we have become through faith in God’s Son. Please spend time meditating on each one and letting its truth sink deep into your soul. I am a child of God. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. Even to those who believe in His name. (John 1:12) I am a branch of the true vine and a conduit of Christ’s life. “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser…. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:1, 5) I am a friend of Jesus. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15) I have been justified and redeemed. Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:24) My old self was crucified with Christ, and I am no longer a slave to sin and sarx. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. (Romans 6:6) I will not be condemned by God. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:I) I have been set free from the law of sin and death. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (Romans 8:2) As a child of God, I am a fellow heir with Christ. And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Hi.m (Romans 8:17) I have been accepted by Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God. (Romans 15:7) I have been called to be a saint. To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. (1 Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:2) In Christ Jesus, I have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption. (1 Corinthians 1:30) My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in me. Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16)”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“Hesychia—or Hesuchia—is the aim of disciplined spiritual life, according to Basil Pennington. (Pennington 1982) The aim is to keep the mind tranquil. The way to attain this is to avoid distraction by detaching from the world and its opinions and stimuli. This requires the soul to let go of extraneous thoughts and develop a readiness to receive in one’s heart the impressions engendered there by divine instructions, either through scripture or intuition. To this end, solitude is the greatest help, since it calms your passions and gives your mind leisure to separate the soul completely from this distraction. Through this practice of tranquility, the soul is purified and, withdrawing into itself, ascends to the contemplation of God. Ravished by the divine beauty, the soul applies itself through reading and meditating on scripture to holding God continually in the memory, and we become temples of God. (Jones, C.; et. al. 1986)”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“von Franz says, The Self can be defined as an inner guiding factor that is different from the conscious personality and that can be grasped only through the investigation of one’s own dreams. These show it to be the regulating center that brings about a constant extension and maturing of the personality. But this larger, more nearly total aspect of the psyche appears first as merely an inborn possibility. It may emerge very slightly, or it may develop relatively completely during one’s lifetime. How far it develops depends on whether or not the ego is willing to listen to the messages of the Self. Just as the Naskapi have noticed that a person who is receptive to the hints of the Great Man gets better and more helpful dreams, we could add that the inborn Great Man becomes more real within the receptive person than in those who neglect him. Such a person also becomes a more complete human being. (Jung 1964, 162)”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“The Animus can act as a guide who leads a woman to her soul, because he uses his torch of discrimination and understanding to illuminate her inner world. He also acts as a bridge to the impersonal world of intellect and spirit, and gives her otherwise diffused consciousness a capacity for focused concentration. …It is Animus who throws light on things, … [to make] it possible for her to be objective, and opens up for her the world of knowledge for its own sake. (Sanford 1980, 63-64)”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology

“Glory abounded! Speaking of the parable of the treasure hidden in a field, Amis describes the Eastern Orthodox experience: The deepest interpretation of this parable describes noetic prayer, in which we sacrifice or sell all our mental possessions, leaving the field of our nous clear and without image, and in this empty field we then discover the joy of the Lord, the bliss that is the food of the Spirit. When we discover this bliss, all other pleasures pale by comparison, so that from this moment we will begin to set aside every other desire until only one desire remains to us. At this point we will understand the idea of the one thing needful not only with the head, but with the heart. …as this process continues and we have further glimpses of this treasure, we will perhaps find that at its most intense it becomes a light like an inner sun—the uncreated light. (Amis 1995, 159)”
― Troy Caldwell, Adventures in Soulmaking: Stories and Principles of Spiritual Formation and Depth Psychology