Spiritual direction is the practice of attending to your inner life—your deep questions, your soul’s longings, that place within where you meet with God—all in the company of a trained listener whose role is to bear witness to your story and to support you in making meaning of what’s unfolding inside of you.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve moved through my days, contemplating big shifts in my relationships, vocation, sense of identity, or in my faith life, and thought to myself, It would be so nice to have someone with whom I can discuss these things. Someone who is far enough removed from the details of my life to be helpful and has experience in honoring these types of thoughts and questions.

There have been times when I’ve looked to therapy and found tremendous value in it. But the work of therapy tends to focus on psychological processes and mental health. These are great things, but not always the same as soul care and spiritual presence.

There have also been times when I’ve looked to coaching, and also found tremendous value it. Coaching tends to focus on goal setting and practical changes—also good things! But not necessarily the same as the gentle work of contemplative and prayerful listening for how the holy is unfolding in our lives.

The work of spiritual direction is fundamentally, well, spiritual. If it sounds a bit intuitive and mystical, that’s because it is.

We’re listening together for how God is present in the reality of your story.

We’re listening together for those sacred invitations to deepen in your love for God, for yourself and for others.

We’re listening together for how those places of discomfort, agitation, or unrest within might be welcoming you into new ways of being.

Spiritual direction is a container in which we increase our capacity to sit with what’s present and real, often beginning with silence before deepening into soul-level conversations about what matters most.

What Happens in A Spiritual Direction Session?

A typical spiritual direction session lasts for about 50-minutes. I prefer to begin sessions with a bit of silence, allowing for a period of transition from the activities we were doing before. This moment of silence also gives us the chance to pause and settle-in before welcoming whatever topic or question is top of mind for my client (or directee.)

Over the course of the session, the client/directee shares what is most present for them. I, as the director, listen. I ask questions. I make observations. I hold a non-anxious, non-judgmental space with prayer, openness, and curiosity. As we move through your story, we work together to maintain an openness to Love’s leading in our midst.

At times, I may recommend books or offer resources for further reflection. We may end our sessions in silence or with a contemplative exercise. I almost always ask people to share what’s shimmering for them as our session comes to a close.

As is the case with most helping professions, the depth of our 1:1 companionship grows over time as we build trust and find our footing. Given this, I recommend people commit to at least a handful of sessions to determine if spiritual direction with me is a good, long-term fit.

Where Do We Go From Here?

If you’re reading this and spiritual direction with me sounds like something you may be interested in, click here or follow the link below to read through the spiritual direction page on my website. On that page, I answer questions like,

• What happens when I join Bethaney in the practice of spiritual direction?

• What is Bethaney’s training or experience in spiritual direction?

• What if I’m not from the same Christian tradition, or religious tradition, as Bethaney? Is spiritual direction with her right for me?

• What would I have to invest in this journey, in terms of money and time?

I answer all these questions and more on my website.

After reading through everything, if the idea of working with me is shimmering for you, please email me, hello@bethaneywilkinson.com, and we will schedule an introductory Zoom call to discuss more. I can’t wait to hear from you.

Spiritual Direction - Bethaney’s Website

Hi Friends! This post was originally shared in March 2025, but the themes are as resonant as ever. I hope it meets you where you are with encouragement and care.

I was sitting in a cushy Airbnb, stealing away for some alone time, and scrolling on Instagram when I saw a post on my feed about the “shameful events that unfolded at the White House today.”

I felt my body brace for the worst.

The post gave no other context or details, so I hastily made my way to the comments section to put my internet sleuthing skills to work. After a few scrolls and taps, I had my clue: “Trump got in a fight with Zelenksy,” one commenter said. No other context.

My mind swirled. My thoughts were racing. Fight? What does that mean? Were fists thrown? Were expletives exchanged? What happened? I’ve gotta check YouTube…

I made my way to YouTube and had barely typed in “White House” before the search engine answered my exact question, as if by magic. The videos were right there: short form clips of their exchange, long form recordings of the entire conversation, and of course all sorts of commentary. I picked the short form video; time was of the essence and I had other things to do.

I watched for about three minutes and felt my stomach turn over a few times. I felt sad, disappointed, and afraid. Maybe even a little appalled or ashamed. I wasn’t in a headspace for analysis or judgment so I quickly switched back to Instagram to let other people tell me what to think. I have a selection of progressive and conservative commentators whose content I check-in with when I want to understand how news is landing across the political spectrum. The analysis wasn’t remarkable or surprising as both camps took their respective versions of the moral high ground, shaming their opponent and criticizing the other side for their fake news and rewriting of history.

I was stumped. I’d begun forming my own opinion which was helpful to a degree, but my body was still rushing with all of this anxious, fight-flight-freeze1 energy. By way of Instagram, my nervous system had noted a threat in my environment and jolted into self-protection mode. It was a whirlwind of emotions, information gathering, making judgments and assessing risk. My body was flooding with hormones preparing me to run for my life or play dead, all while sitting in this cushy Airbnb looking at my iPhone. This is ridiculous, I thought to myself. No wonder I avoid the news.

“Just get off the internet,” they say…

My go-to remedy for the madness of the news cycle has been to get off of social media and to limit how much news I listen to or watch. This has it’s many upsides as I do think social media is wildly unhealthy for the human soul and I do think our hearts can’t actually hold all of the emotionally charged information we’re exposed to each day. Real boundaries for our media intake are helpful and we need them.

However, I found myself in a tricky situation a few short days after the Inauguration when it became apparent to me that this new administration’s decisions were going to have an immediately felt, instantly harmful impact on all sorts of people and projects I care about. Of course, this is a classic case of waking up to one’s privilege. Privilege is an insulation from the negative effects of systemic harm; you don’t always know you have it until it’s threatened. I experienced a sort of privilege under the former administration because my work supporting African American communities was valued by them. The tide has turned and the type of work I do each day to support Black communities is more vulnerable now than ever. We’re not insulated anymore meaning I don’t have the luxury of checking out of the news cycle. I need to know if and when another executive order is going to cancel the contracts that support the landowners in our network. I need to know what’s happening on the ground with federal agriculture and forestry agencies. I can’t check out because it’s painful, scary, or hard. My ability to do my job depends on me being in the know.

Given that I can’t just opt-out of the news and media landscape—and given my commitment to leading a life that is slow, rooted, and doesn’t compromise my value for emotional well-being—I’ve been considering what it might look like to find peace by adding practices that support my nervous system instead of subtracting news and media. My theory is that if I can support my nervous system through bodily, regulating practices, then maybe it will expand my capacity to stay grounded in the midst of the chaos happening in the world.

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Adding support for the nervous system

Your nervous system is this incredible network of nerves, your brain, and your spinal cord that controls how you respond to your environment2. It is a highly sensitive and remarkable communication system. Your nervous system is what enables you to see, to move, to speak and to feel3. Your nervous system is also finely attuned to the obvious and not-so-obvious threat and safety cues in your surroundings. Threat cues are signals that you’re in harm’s way, and safety cues are signals that you are protected and secure. Your nervous system’s number one job is to keep you alive, so it’s always scanning for safety and security, as well as threat and harm. It’s amazing.

What’s tricky about the times we’re living in is that a quick glance at your phone can send your nervous system into a full-blown threat spiral. You can be sitting in a cushy Airbnb holding a small computer (your cell phone) in your hands, but your body feels like it could be harmed in any given moment. It’s a painful aspect of the human experience in these times. So how do we add support for our nervous systems so that when we are triggered by the news, we can come back home to ourselves? Here are some things practicing:

1. Noticing when it happens. By simply noticing that I’ve been triggered by the news, I am able to reclaim a bit of my emotional energy and self-control. I mostly notice I’ve been activated by how fast I’m moving. My heart rate also increases and my drive to get all of the details is heightened. If I’m hastily jumping between apps and rapidly searching for more information, then it means I’m not functioning in a grounded, regulated state. When this happens, it helps me to just say to myself, “This thing is activating me and it doesn’t feel good.” By noticing this, I can then make a choice about how to respond instead of following the fight-flight-freeze script my body hands me.

2. Breathing deeply. Nothing starts to reground me better than taking deep, deep breaths. It may take a few rounds of breathing before I feel it in my guts, but wow, leaning into the breath is one way to help my body know she’s safe. Quick and shallow breathing happens when you’re running from a bear. Deep and slow breathing happens when you’re getting a good night’s sleep. By slowing down the breath, and breathing as deeply into the belly as possible, and taking as much time as you need to feel your heart rate slow down, is a great next step after noticing you’ve been activated by something you read online.

3. Walking and talking it out. For especially distressing news, noticing and breathing are helpful, but they don’t always resolve the angst. Walking it out is an invitation to move your body. You can go for a walk, do some dancing, practice yoga—something to help the tension move through you instead of letting it continue to cycle inside of you over and over. Talking it out with someone who feels safe and grounded can also help your nervous system find security again.

4. Cherishing laugher, whimsy, and delight. Playfulness is one of the most vulnerable human expressions because it requires that you feel safe enough in your body and in your environment to embrace the fullness of joy. One way I’m learning to add support for my nervous system is by cherishing the moments I’m struck by the giggles, by the beauty of the world, or by the little tasks in my day that just make me happy. It may seem simple, but doing what you love creates resiliency. As the news gets wilder and as fears of the future loom large, keep creating and reveling in moments of joy.

These four practices are helping me stay engaged without losing my cool every moment of the day. I’ve also been experimenting with other wellness changes like cutting out alcohol, removing caffeine, wearing blue-blocker glasses when on screen at night, and getting really good sleep. These bigger picture lifestyle changes have also worked wonders and maybe I can write about those another time. I do still advocate for boundaries with media intake, but again, that’s not a luxury everyone can afford right now. I hope my reflections on these really simple practices helps you to add support to your nervous system as we move through these trying times.

With much love, and curiosity about how this lands with you,

Bethaney

P.S. I’ve been learning a lot about the role of nervous system regulation from this podcast, especially episodes 305 and 306. Enjoy!

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Links to Stay In the Loop

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/ Podcast
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It’s been a while since I’ve published one of these columns. Each one features a tip to help you practice slow living, a bite-sized nature reflection, a quote that made me pause, and recent media I’ve found interesting/challenging/compelling.

If you’re new and haven’t seen these before, you can check out the entire catalogue of the slow down (TSD) posts in this section on my Substack. It’s meant to be a practical, reflective, and fun. ☀️

the slow down tip

Write it by hand. I’m convinced one the best things we can do to care for our nervous systems and minds is to put an actual pen (or pencil!) to paper to let what’s inside get out. Whether its a to-do list, a sketch, a mind-map of floating ideas, or a letter to a friend, writing by hand is a grounding practice. It slows us down, makes us focus our attention, and while I’m not a scientist, I suspect it activates different parts of our brains than computers do.

Your slow down tip for today is to weave in the practice of writing by hand wherever it makes sense to you.

nature speaks

Mulch is garden magic. Its keeps the ground covered, which protects the soil and clay from the excessive sun exposure that kills off beneficial critters and bacteria. It breaks down slowly, allowing the earth to become pliable, soft, and ready for planting. It retains moisture, so freshly watered plants can drink of their daily watering slowly and over time. Mulch is an essential barrier, making sure that what’s planted has the right conditions to grow and thrive.

We received a huge mulch delivery a few weeks ago, and I was thrilled.

We used a company called ChipDrop. They coordinate with local arborists to deliver excesses of wood chips to the gardeners who need them most. Receiving this huge pile of hardwood and pine chips made my day and I was thrilled to spread the mulch around my recently planted perennial shrubs. Contemplating the sheer blessing of these chipped down of trees got me thinking, “What does good mulch look like for the soul?”

Nature Speaks:

What provides a needed buffer from life’s harshness? What helps us to slow down and soak in the nourishment we need? What protects the tender, vulnerable parts of lives? What might it look like to ensure we have the covering we need as we move our days?

The answers are likely different for all of us. I immediately thought of my husband, and my parents. I thought of the safety and sense of connection I feel in my home. There are likely other “mulches” in my life too. What are they for you?

quotable

“Because only in this yearning for ourselves [our true identity], for who we are called to become, can we truly experience our yearning for God.” — Mother Siluana Vlad in God, Where is the Wound? Healing Remedies for Today’s World.

off the shelf

For my birthday earlier this year, my husband gifted me the book Liturgies of the Wild by . His storytelling and meaning-making are compelling and rich. I’m only half-way through it and can’t wait to find conversation partners to hold this text with me. I think you should check it out by clicking here.

worth lingering over

• This podcast conversation on whether or not race should matter in college admissions.

• This other podcast that’s been a challenging, but insightful, resource as I’ve been deconstructing my political identity.

• This song by Noah Kahan, as its got me all in my feels about being from a small town and the desperation I used to feel about leaving.

Hello Dear Friends. This blog was originally published in October 2023. With so many new subscribers in our community of readers, I thought it good to reshare. Enjoy. ☀️

I picked up one book and put it down.

I picked up another book, and put it down. I grabbed my journal, walked around my house, and then decided that I didn’t feel like writing. I stood on my porch and watched the breeze in the pecan tree. My dogs, Bear and Isla, ran up to greet me. I kneeled down to snuggle them. My heart swelled with connection and warmth.

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I walked back inside, grabbed my iPad to watch some Netflix. Then the voices came, “That’s a waste of time. Be productive.” I felt frustrated. I was annoyed by my indecisiveness. I finally decided to just make dinner.

This entire series of actions unfolded in about ten minutes. Yesterday, I couldn’t focus to save my life.

Some days, I really struggle to find slow time.

I’ve missed blogging weekly.

There’s something life-giving about sharing words and being connected, so I decided to break up my every-two-weeks cadence today. Connection is something I’ve desperately needed as we move through the chaos, war and general anxieties of this moment in history. While blogging or sharing on Instagram might seem futile in the midst of tragedy, I’m learning the importance of witnessing one another in life’s unfolding, be it tragic or beautiful. Connection, even with those who annoy us or with whom we disagree, is what facilitates our sense of shared humanity. I’m learning to not take these experiences of connection for granted.

Not only are global conflicts and national politics requiring attention and care, but everyday life is happening too, right? We have doctor’s appointments and bills to pay. We have kids to love and schedules to keep. We have businesses to run and mouths to feed. Life is full. Finding slow time in the midst of this fullness is the work that’s cut out for us.

Slow time is the mysterious joining of heaven and earth. It is time beyond time. It’s not about the clock’s quantitative measure of progress. It’s about about a deeper cadence of creation, kairos, the soul’s knowing of eternity. It’s unhurried. It’s non-anxious. We can enter into slow time for a split second or for hours on end. It’s mystical and wonderful. And it’s fleeting at times, especially when the demands of life, work and the world are incredibly loud.

So what do we do? What do we do when our soul’s need for slow time bumps up against the fullness of what it means to be an adult human living on the earth? What do we do when our souls are cluttered, our minds are full, and our hearts are breaking? What do we do when our thoughts are racing so fast and our bodies are so restless that we are too distracted to decide how to fill ten spare minutes of time?

Here are three choices that met me with slow grace yesterday:

One—accepting the reality of the moment. Instead of trying to fix or change my state, and instead of continuing to beat myself up for “wasting time,” I accepted my condition. My condition included being sad about the conflict in Palestine and Israel. It included being annoyed by my own sense of powerlessness, and then being critical about my self-centeredness. I was tired because I didn’t sleep well the night before. I was anxious about lab results from my doctor. And I was frustrated because my desk was full of clutter and I couldn’t prioritize my work. This was my condition.

Human beings have hard days. Human beings have limits. Human beings drop the ball and make mistakes and say the wrong things. It happens because we’re human. Accepting our condition, even our chaotic ones, tends to still our inner waters, which then makes room for clear thinking and decisive action.

Two—being present to the normal stuff. I made dinner, welcomed my husband home from work, asked about his day, shared about mine. We talked a little bit about the world, a little more about our community, and a little bit more about some decisions we have to make in the next few weeks. It was totally normal. Boring even. But it wasn’t on a screen, which is profound. Too much screen time, even noble screen time spent advocating for justice in the world, tends to warp our sense of reality. We spend so much time online that we forget the basic skills of presence and attentiveness, of curiosity and good questions. Of sharing vulnerably and of being seen. Being present to the normal stuff of life keeps us rooted as the storms of chaos come and go.

Three—watching the sunset. One of my favorite things about my husband Alex is that when he sees something beautiful, he has to share it. So when he went outside to collect the eggs and saw the beginning of the sunset over the hayfields behind our house, he poked his head back in to say, “Hey, the sunset is beautiful out here.”

I stopped what I was doing, put on my shoes and walked outside to see the sun’s warm, golden light as it filled the sky. I only watched it for about five minutes because a timer went off reminding me to pull the acorn squash from the oven. But those five minutes, watching the sun, reminded me of what slow time is all about.

War will come and go, leaving tremendous destruction and loss in its wake.
Sickness will come and go, marking our lives in innumerable ways in the short-term and for the long haul.
Friendships will come and go, shaping our lives, breaking and healing our hearts.
Life changes. Change is constant. We cannot control this.

And yet, the sun does rise and the sun does set.
And the moon waxes and wanes.
And the birds migrate south and the Sweetgum leaves blanket the ground.
And the mornings go from warm to cool to cold to cool to warm again.
This is slow time.
Always pulsing, always inviting us into her story.
Watching the sunset for few moments invites us into time beyond time.

These three choices nourished the roots of my inner life and prepared me to show up to my work and the world with a bit more capacity today. I offer them here for you, in hopes that you too are able to find moments of slow time as you move through the days ahead.

Please comment to let me know: how are you finding slow time in this season? How are you doing in the midst of all that happening in the world? Please let me, and us, bear witness to you in the comments below. This is how we remember that in all things, we are not alone.

Much love,

Bethaney

Also, I don’t use an editor, AI or human, to review my posts, so you may bump into a typo here and there. I do my best to catch them all, but I may have missed something. Thank you for your grace. Enjoy!

Our lives transform from the outside in, and from the inside out.

This isn’t a novel idea, but go with me.

Our inner lives are formed by what we do with our bodies and our time. What we eat, where we go, how we move—they all shape our inner reality, the peace we do or do not feel, the energy we do or do not have, and the love we do or do not carry for others, as a few examples. Our outer lives shape our inner worlds.

And vice versa. In the gospel written by St. Luke, we have a record of Jesus saying, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

I understand this to mean, at least in part, that whatever is within us overflows into how we live, the words we speak, and into the care we do or do not give to those around us.

Our inner lives and outer worlds are inextricably linked, and as we change one, we certainly influence the other.

I’m coming upon the anniversary of my being received into the Orthodox Church, and it has me thinking a lot about this inner-outer life dynamic. To become Orthodox is a whole life reorientation, from the outside-in and from the inside-out. Every aspect of what it means to be a person is baptized into the death of Christ, and resurrected into His life, that is, the liturgical, sacramental, and ascetic life of the Church. The liturgical life features our services of collective prayer, veneration, and worship. The sacramental life features those mysterious ways in which God’s presence is made real in our lives and in the world. The ascetic life speaks to how we limit and restrain ourselves, often bodily, in order to make room for the uncreated energies of God to meet and transform us.

With this anniversary around the corner, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect and share with you three ways my life has changed since becoming Orthodox. This list is far from exhaustive, but they all point to ways the inner life and outer life of faith dance together to bring healing to the body and soul.

Change #1 - On God

“God” is no longer an abstraction. God is a person: Christ.

This is by far the biggest transformation I’ve seen in my life and worldview. Following my deconstruction of evangelical Christianity, and my slow fade into New Age spirituality, “God” stopped being specific and became the very vague, obscure notion of “the divine.” When I would say, “God,” I was referring to an ethereal force, or energy, not to anyone in particular. This meant that I was praying to and interacting with a spiritual entity that I couldn’t possibly know or understand. And conveniently, it also meant that this vague spiritual entity, lacking in defined personhood, had no expectations of me. I didn’t have to actually change anything about my life in relationship with “the divine,” because “the divine” was an abstract force. It was an idea, an essence, that made me feel good (on the surface) and was content to let me devolve into a soul-corroding belief in my own self-deification. That is to say, I became my own god, and “the divine,” being a non-specific, abstract, vague force offered no challenge to my own little kingdom.

The thing that sucks about this is that I’m not God. I’m also not “a god.” I am person. A creature. A human being. And while I believe humans were created to become God-like in due time, it was never meant to happen apart from the One who created us.

I’ve been in a slowly moving Orthodox Bible study, unlearning much of what I once understood the the Bible to even be. Coming into a deeper understanding of what the Bible is and how it was understood by the earliest Christians has been transformative. I come from a sola scriptura background, where the Bible was treated like a god in its own right. Holding the text in that way never made much sense to me. In the Bible study I’m in now, we hold the text less like a strict set of rules dictating a worldview, and more like an unfolding story of a people group finding redemption through their continual encounters with the grace of God, culminating in the person of Christ.

One of the most striking stories I’ve been sitting with is from Genesis. This won’t be new to many of you, but its the story of Adam and Eve and their choice to pursue God-likeness apart from the One who Created them. I’m not an Orthodox scholar, so be gracious with me as I attempt to unpack this.

One of the ways we understand Adam and Eve as persons, in Orthodox tradition, is that being newly created, they had an immaturity about them. They were instructed to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil not because God was holding out on them, or tempting them, or testing them to make sure they’d choose him with their free will, but rather because he wanted them to wait until they were ready. He wanted them to grow in wisdom and understanding. He wanted them to have the knowledge when they were ready to hold it with depth, perception, and care. He created Adam and Eve, human beings, to become like him, and that process would take time.

Human beings are not static or fixed. It is our nature to evolve, grow, and change. The same was true of Adam and Eve. They needed to grow up first, and the time for them to have that specific fruit from that specific tree would come. Why else would it be in the garden?

When I began to understand this, it made so much sense. God set a boundary with his beloved creation just like any parent who has ever told a child “no” because their kid wasn’t yet old enough, mature enough, or discerning enough to steward that for which they’d asked. It’s good leadership. It’s love.

Adam and Eve’s shortcut, their grabbing for a power that God would have given them in due time, was tragic for a million reasons. Some would even say it was a traumatic event, one that we replay over and over again, even now, every time we decide to reach for our own power, security, or divinity apart from Christ. The tragedy here isn’t a moral failing, per se, but is rather the loss of our own understanding of our true personhood. When we set out to make a god of ourselves, or a god of other created things, we miss out on the richness, vibrancy, and depth for which we were designed. We also end up missing out on the healing and restoration our soul’s long for most.

All this possibility for connection, depth, healing, and even true justice, flows not from an abstract, nameless deity. It flows from God made flesh, dwelling among us, restoring our full personhood and teaching us how to live. We don’t have to fumble through life, leaning on a patchwork spiritual ambiguity in order to be okay. God has been so kind to give us countless, specific insights to who he actually is. We can know God. He has made himself know to us.

I’ve quoted Fr. Turbo Qualls a few times here and there, and I recently heard him say something else that I can’t get out of my head. He said, “People in America, in contemporary America, have already heard about Christ. They’ve already heard about Christianity, but what they haven’t experienced is the promises of Christianity.”

As a person who deconstructed and left behind so much of the evangelical Christianity I grew up with, this quote resonated with me as true. I left the evangelical church because I was longing for a depth and transformation, for both myself and the world, that I just wasn’t able to apprehend in those contexts. I then practiced new age spirituality for a while because magic, though dangerous, extractive, and toxic for the human soul, is real spirituality. But in time, I learned that it was a counterfeit version of the very good, also real, deeper spirituality that God intended for me and for all of us. This good, real, and deeply healing spirituality are the true promises of Christianity. I’m only beginning to enter into the river of this ancient faith and way of life.

If I were to give a TL;DR for this post, it would be this:

God is a person. The person is Christ. He loves us more than we can imagine.

Thank you for reading. This is the end of part one of this series. Part two will get to you when life affords me the space to write it. It will be all about how political identity is no longer central to my worldview. Fun stuff. See you then.

Hello Friends,

You’ve likely heard it said, “For everything, there is a season.”

I know this to be true, especially in the creative life.

There are times of fresh starts and new beginnings, times of abundance and harvest, times of transition and letting go, and times of rest and retreating.

On Thursday, April 30th at 7:30 PM ET, I’m hosting a free, one-hour virtual workshop on creating and living with the seasons. In this session, we’ll explore what seasonal living means for you as an artist, writer, journaler or all-around creative person.

You will experience:

• A framework for living and creating that is rooted in nature’s rhythms

• Thoughtful reflections to deepen your own self-reflection practice

• Connection with likeminded writers and creatives

• A gentle pause to attend to your inner world

Drawing on themes from the book, A More Beautiful Way to Live, join us for an engaging session on what it means to be a well-rooted writer, especially in a fast-paced, chaotic world.

Here are the workshop details:

Date: Thursday, April 30th
Time: 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM ET

This virtual session is free, hosted on Zoom, and will not be recorded.

Register at the link below.

I hope to see you there! 🌿

Register for Well-Rooted Writer

About Your Facilitator

Bethaney Wilkinson is a writer, facilitator, and spiritual director rooted in rural middle Georgia, where she lives with her husband Alex and their two dogs, Isla and Bear. She has an MA in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and a BA in educational studies from Emory University. She is the author of The Diversity Gap: Where Good Intentions Meet True Cultural Change and A More Beautiful Way to Live: Nine Practices to Unlearn Habits of Anxiety, Fear, and Urgency.

Hello Friends,

The days and weeks after a book release, at least for me, are equal parts relief and remembering.

The relief is a deep exhale. It’s like I’d been holding my breath for months as my inner landscape filled with questions like who cares? and who’s going to read this? and what if they hate it? While I hoped the book would be helpful, there was also a part of me planning for the worst, so the time leading up to publication day was filled with doubts. Thankfully, those doubts quieted as book release day came and went. I wrote what I wrote, I said what I said, and the book is what it will be. I’m in the practice of accepting such reality of things. It keeps me steady.

Then there is the remembering. Remembering the little pieces of myself I placed on the shelf while I waited for this one thing, the book, to take flight. Remembering the questions I wanted to explore and the ideas I hoped to linger over, the projects I wanted to start and the conversations I wanted to have. Remembering dreams, ideas, and possibilities, all seeds, sitting back patiently, awaiting their time to take up space in the little garden of my life.

I imagine this is the way with things, for all of us, when we press pause on one area of of our lives in order to invest our best energy into a different area. Like trees in winter time, or sprouts in spring, most of us can really only do a few things well in any given season, meaning most else must be knocked a few rungs down the ladder of priorities.

This lesson has been coming to me full force as of late as pressures from my full-time job ramped up rather unexpectedly. I’ve been navigating a torrent of anxiety and difficult choices as I hold the responsibilities of leading an organization alongside my vocation as an author. And these difficulties have brought when them all the things I worked hard to buffer my life against, namely sleepless nights, racing thoughts and fearful ruminations. These two big and important things, my work and vocation, are sitting alongside other big and important things, like my family and faith and the need to rest. It’s been harder than I thought it’d be. I’m praying for wisdom because I really don’t know what I’m doing. I thought I’d have these things figured out by now.

In A More Beautiful Way to Live, I write about how the most challenging seasons of our lives often carry the wisdom we need most. As I find myself just past the huge milestone of releasing my book, and holding these difficult professional dynamics and responsibilities, here are some of the questions I keep coming back to in hopes of finding my footing and tapping into my roots, even in the midst of disorientation, anxiety, and fear:

• What is this moment teaching me? What am I learning?

• What uncomfortable truth or reality do I not want to see? What am I avoiding?

• What can I anchor into? Or who? Who has my back no matter what?

• What’s the worst thing that can happen? If that happens, how can I respond? (This question is a doozy, I know, but in a weird way, it helps because even the worst thing I can think of is often more manageable than I imagine it to be.)

• What can I do? Where do I have agency, power, and choices? Even choices that are uncomfortable or costly?

And then, alongside these questions, are prayers:

• God, I need you.

• God, help.

• God, even for this, thank you.

Life can be a stern teacher. We reach new heights and we achieve great things. We encounter huge roadblocks that alter our course. We do our best, and we succeed. We do our best, and we fail. We plan and plan and even still, things we don’t see coming bring us to our knees. This seems to be the way of things.

So we nurture our roots. We lean into reality. We find sustenance in our love and care for one another. We water our lives in prayer. We wait for God. We try again tomorrow.

I pray you find sweet relief, moments of pause, and deep exhales as you move through your days. I pray that even as life’s pressures rise, you find strength and direction in the remembrance of who you are and of what you value most.

Until next time,

Bethaney

I’ve long cringed at the word “infertile.”

In fact, I hate it.

A few years ago, while on retreat with dear friends, one of my loves looked at me, tears in both our eyes, and affirmed that whether I had children or not, I was leading a fertile life. I understood her meaning instantly. Her words weren’t a consolation but an affirmation of truth, a statement of fact. Fertility has many faces. There are countless ways to rear young, to bear fruit, and to sustain others. So I hold my friend’s words close. Her loving wisdom has carried me.

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This is a last call for you to join me and my friend, Krissy Kludt, as we hold some creative and contemplative space to welcome the Spring Equinox. We’re hosting a free, online event called tender starts: a mini-retreat on the vulnerability of new beginnings.

It’s this Thursday, March 19th from 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM ET.

Register to Join Tender Starts

About the Event

Spring is on its way. As we welcome this season, and the gifts of renewal it brings, we also hold this newness lightly, knowing that emergence is often a vulnerable time.

New life is beautiful, but fragile. Seedlings spring up from the ground in hopes of receiving the nourishment and warmth they need to become all they’re meant to be. We hold our hopes and dreams close, tender, waiting, never knowing for sure what will come.

Emergence always carries a risk. Opening ourselves up to new life also opens us to disappointment, grief and loss. How do we hold our hopes and ourselves tenderly as we step into spring?

In this free mini-retreat guided by poet Krissy Kludt and writer Bethaney Wilkinson, we’ll reflect together on the tenderness of beginnings through poetry, meditation, journaling prompts and (optional) sharing. We’d love to step into this new season with you.

Please note: This is a live event and it will not be recorded.

The Zoom link will arrive the week of the event from krissy@writingthewild.org. If you do not receive it, please check your spam folder! Email krissy@writingthewild.org with any questions.

About Bethaney Wilkinson:

Bethaney Wilkinson is a writer, facilitator, and spiritual director rooted in rural middle Georgia, where she lives with her husband Alex and their two dogs, Isla and Bear. She has an MA in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and a BA in educational studies from Emory University. She is the author of The Diversity Gap: Where Good Intentions Meet True Cultural Change and A More Beautiful Way to Live: Nine Practices to Unlearn Habits of Anxiety, Fear, and Urgency.

About Krissy Kludt:

Poet Krissy Kludt is the founder and executive director of Writing the Wild. Her debut poetry collection I Could Walk Forever and Know So Little released March 5, 2026 from Green Writers Press March 2026. Her work appears in anthologies The Nature of Our Times (Paloma Press 2025), Taking Liberties (Cutthroat 2025), and Stories from the Trail (Wayfarer Books 2024), and in other publications, including Terrain.org, The Wildness We Tend, and Humana Obscura. She lives in the Driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin.

Register to Join Tender Starts

Thank you for hosting me, Beth, and thanks to those of you who attended live.

Much love,

Bethaney

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[Hello Dear Friends, before diving into today’s post, I wanted to let you know that I’ve officially unpaused paid subscriptions. That means that if you were a paid subscriber as of December 2025, your paid subscription to The Inner Terrain will resume. You can manage your subscription within your Substack account. If you are new to The Inner Terrain and would like to become a paid subscriber to support my work, you can do that at the subscription link below. Much love!]

Pollen dusted the world in yellow and an early spring storm rushed in, just yesterday, and washed it all away.

Spring time is here, and it’s meeting me with delight and contemplation.

Delight because there’s nothing quite like watching the world come alive after a long winter’s rest.

Contemplation because I’m about halfway through my first Orthodox Lent, and the bright sadness of this time of year has me filled with questions about personhood, the shedding old forms, the grief of goodbyes, and the tender hope of awaiting resurrection.

You know, simple stuff.

To ground myself in the midst of big feelings, changing weather, and the labors of everyday life, I’ve found myself playing with poetry. With the haiku form, to be exact.

What I love about writing in haiku is that it’s simple and quite focused. I need not worry so much about word choice, beyond the modest syllable count of five-seven-five. There’s something whimsical about saying as much as one can say, as beautifully and unassumingly as one can manage, in a few short lines.

So in praise of springtime, here are few haiku I drafted this morning as I waited for my day to begin.

Oh—and if you feel so inspired, it would mean the world to me if you drafted your own springtime haiku and left it in the comments. What a fun harvest of delight and contemplation that would be for us all.

Haiku #1

the new buds open
purple and pink kiss the ground
my hallelujah

Haiku #2

skies crack and rain falls
storm-fear rises in my chest
chimes flail in the wind

Haiku #3

I have changed my mind.
Unlearning sets in, will I
remember Love’s name?

Haiku #4

It’s pollen season.
Yellow dust reminder: LIFE!
Sneezes, too. Spring’s here.

Upcoming Events

Join me today (3/13) at 3:00 PM EST for a Substack Live conversation with . We’ll be discussing what it means to live more beautifully and to embody resistance to empire. Join us at the link below.

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Next Thursday (3/19), join me and poet Krissy Kludt for tender starts: a mini-retreat on the vulnerability of new beginnings. There will be poetry, meditation, and journaling time. The event is free, but you’ll have to register to attend. You can do so below.

Register for Tender Starts

I sat in the sun today, wearing shorts and feeling the warmth of springtime on my skin.

The liminality of this time of year is palpable. The mornings and evenings are still cool enough to require covered toes and long-sleeves, but the brightness of daytime beckons us outdoors, skin-exposed, ready for sunshine.

I’ve been watching closely as the daffodil bulbs I planted last fall find their way, growing tall as they break up through the pine mulch blanketing their bed. I’ve been walking through my flower garden, looking and waiting for new buds to open in their own time. I’ve been dreaming of veggie gardens and baby chicks, and thinking through ways to protect our growing things from our rambunctious dogs’ carefree, but at times destructive, play time. My mind’s eye has been fully oriented towards springtime and the fresh, tender beginnings new seasons often bring.

As I welcome this change in weather, I find myself celebrating achievements and lamenting disappointments all at once. Today, my newest book, A More Beautiful Way to Live, is officially out it the world. I’m so proud of it. I poured more of myself into the project than I thought I would. Now she’s here. Complete and real and waiting for readers. My hope is that this book will find the anxious, tired, and weary ones and meet them with insights and practices that bring connection, healing, and some measure of peace. If that sounds like you, you can buy your copy here and and check out a few of my upcoming online events below.

Today is also the eve of my 36th birthday! I’m so conflicted as I cross this threshold. On the one hand, I’m grateful for getting older. To be alive is a blessing, and my life is filled with goodness, creativity, and true love. I’m grateful. But on the other hand, I’m beginning to fear the future that isn’t shaping up like I thought it would. I had this vision for my life, these expectations about what my 30s, and soon-to-be 40s, would hold. Now I find myself thrust into the unexpected and painful labor of making peace with an existence that is so very different from the picture I had in mind.

I write in A More Beautiful Way to Live that one of the defining characteristics of embodying this “more beautiful way” in the world is the ability to accept and receive one’s life as it is, as its been given. This is important because so much of the stress and strain we experience comes from resisting the hard things that come our way. In resisting the pain, suffering, and disappointment, we find ourselves striving, numbed out, or overworking, all in an effort to force our preferred version of reality into existence. In my experience, even when this forcing “works out”, there’s almost always a cost to one’s health or relationships. Not always, but often. Learning to accept and receive our lives as they’ve been given may sound like resignation, but it’s not. Accepting and receiving our lives as they unfold is about surrender and trust, allowing even the painful parts of our stories to bring forth the medicine our soul’s need most.

I’m in the practice of this even now, as I hold these rich gifts (a new book, a new birthday!) right alongside the sadness I feel about dreams not yet fulfilled. There is purpose, I think, in this in-between place. There is a special grace, a dispense of divine presence, right here in the liminality of life’s beauties and life’s losses.

It’s been tempting for me, over the years, to imagine “a more beautiful way to live” as a sort of escape from reality. Lord knows there’s so much pain and anguish I’d like to flee from. But escaping is not what a more beautiful way is about. The invitation of any real contemplative practice is to build one’s capacity to face reality head on, no matter how challenging such a confrontation may be.

My aim over the coming days and weeks is to go gently and to celebrate as fully as I’m able. I’m looking forward to online conversations with dear friends about my new book. I’m waiting patiently to see if and how this book lands in your lives. It all feels very…Spring-like. Tender, budding, vulnerable, new.

I pray that you, too, are able to go gently into the coming days and weeks, no matter what comes your way.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. I hope to connect with you soon.

Bethaney

Upcoming Online & Book Launch Events

Substack Live with Kaitlin Curtice

March 3rd - 4:00 PM EST
Author and poet Kaitlin Curtice will be hosting me for a Substack Live conversation about themes of slowness, ritual, and beauty. Join us!

Substack Live w/ Kaitlin Curtice

Substack Live with Beth Silvers

March 4th - 10:00 AM EST
Author and co-host of Pantsuit Politics, Beth Silvers, and I share a birthday, March 4th! In celebration, we’ll be having a Substack Live conversation about my new book. Come hang with us.

Substack Live w/ Beth Silvers

Tender Starts: A Mini-Retreat with Krissy Kludt

March 19th - 7:00 PM EST
In-keeping with the rhythms of the natural world, poet Krissy Kludt and I will be hosting an online contemplative event on the themes of tender, new beginnings. It’s called “Tender Starts.” It’s a free event featuring poetry, meditation, journal prompts and gentle invitations to connect with likeminded folks.

Register for Tender Starts

Hello Friends,

Today I’m thrilled to share with you a poem by my dear friend Krissy Kludt. Krissy is one of those writers whose way of seeing sparks wonder and reverence for the natural world, and for our place as humans within it. She is a thoughtful facilitator, a great question-asker, and someone whose voice and creative leadership give me courage to keep showing up to the task of writing. I’m excited to share this poem with you because it is one many which you can find in her debut poetry collection, I Could Walk Forever and Know So Little, which is available for preorder now.

Before I share her words with you, I also want to invite you to join me and Krissy for a free, virtual Spring Equinox event we’re hosting on the evening of March 19th. It is called Tender Starts: A mini retreat on the vulnerability of new beginnings. It will be a time of gentle reflection as we welcome the change of season, both within us and in the world around us. You can learn more and register to join us here.

Register for Tender Starts

YES

by Krissy Kludt

you see, my love,
what feels like culmination
is only the beginning

you have been torn from your skin
drawn through the passage
set to burning
given wings
and now in the joy of this consummation
in the ecstasy of flight
you may not remember your love
for the ground under your feet

fly!
fly until you cannot
fly until your wings are weary
fly and then you may settle, lightly
on a rock, and rest

this is only the beginning, love
this wind will blow for a long time

and when you catch your breath
just slip again from the ledge
and let the rising air take you

you have only just been born

An excerpt from I Could Walk Forever and Know So Little, coming March 5, 2026 from Green Writers Press. (Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

Available now for preorder from Bookshop.org.

About the book:

Set among the oak-dotted hills and granite heights of northern California, I Could Walk Forever and Know So Little distills moments of communion with the natural world into spare, lilting language. The poems traverse ordinary days and periods of loss; they are elegy and wish. They examine motherhood and daughterhood and turn to the living land as source of solace and nurturing. Each poem reaches for reverent wakefulness, “to attend / to know how shadows move as sun shifts / to notice every fiddlehead who rises, startling.”

About Krissy Kludt:

Poet Krissy Kludt is the founder and executive director of Writing the Wild. Her debut poetry collection, I Could Walk Forever and Know So Little, is forthcoming from Green Writers Press on March 5, 2026. Her work appears in anthologies The Nature of Our Times (Paloma Press 2025), Taking Liberties (Cutthroat 2025), and Stories from the Trail (Wayfarer Books 2024), and in other publications, including Terrain.org, The Wildness We Tend, and Humana Obscura. She lives in the Driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin.

Get more from Bethaney Wilkinson in the Substack app

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Preorder A More Beautiful Way to Live

“They’re manipulating you!”

I wanted to yell these words from the rooftop as I swiped through my friend’s Instagram story. She’d shared a reel featuring a woman supposedly yelling at federal immigration officers from her Minneapolis garage. While the video was clearly evocative, it was also clearly generated by artificial intelligence. The movements were unnatural; the immigration agents were standing awkwardly still—like robots, not like people—and the way the camera panned back and forth looked exactly like a series of other artificially-generated videos I’d seen posted online.

Great, I thought to myself. Not only do we have the difficult realities of immigration enforcement to contend with, but now we have truly fake news in the mix. It’s messing with our emotions, stoking outrage, and feeding the chaos machine.

I went back-and-forth about whether or not to tell my friend that she was sharing artificially-generated content with her fifteen thousand followers. She’d reposted from a much larger account, a supposed news outlet, that perhaps hadn’t adequately vetted the information. The outrage churn was in full swing and I felt powerless to do anything about it. I was annoyed, not with her, but with the enterprise that makes such propaganda possible. I resolved to let it go.

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Fast-forward two days, and another dear friend, a person I respect and admire, had also shared a video. This one featured a Black police officer, supposedly in New York City, shouting at a federal immigration officer, loudly proclaiming that the federal officers had no place in his city. The comment thread was popping, full of NYC residents pumping up this officer with statements like, “That’s my city!,” and “Let’s go!”

Unfortunately, however, this video was also generated by artificial-intelligence. Not only were the federal agents standing awkwardly still and failing to move in ways that human bodies typically do, but if you looked closely at the NY police officer’s arm badge, the text wasn’t in English; the alphabet featured some Cyrillic text.

The icing on the cake for this video is that I later saw the exact same one, featuring an NY police officer saying the exact same script, wearing the exact same uniform, with the exact same awkwardly-standing immigration officers, with one exception: the NYPD officer was Latino, and not Black.

The Instagram page churning out these fake videos of police officers, baristas, and clergy “resisting” immigration officers has over three-hundred thousand followers. Is this a bot page or a real person? I have no idea. Are the followers real or bot-generated? I have no idea.

What I do know is the three videos I’ve described here (the woman, the Black police officer, and the Latino police officer) were all shared and reposted by my actual friends and peers. The videos may not have featured living humans, but they were shared and amplified by living humans as if these scenarios really happened. The information comprising this content may have been artificial, but their impact on actual people—on our minds, our souls, and our actions, was very much real.

Concerning, right? What are we to do?

I’m bothered by all this on multiple levels. I’m annoyed by the fact that there’s no regulation or accountability for those who create and disseminate this artificially- generated content. I understand that it’s a relatively new technology and that it takes time to create infrastructure, policy, and ethical guidelines related to how we use technology in the world. For example, Instagram has existed for years and we’re just now getting around to common sense legislation that protects children and minors on social media. I understand it takes time, and unfortunately social and political pressure, to get corporations to do the right thing. But even still, I’m distressed by all the chaos, harm, and manipulation that will unfold while we wait for such pressure to build and for these needed changes to arrive.

I’m also saddened by the fact that we have so few resources, as social media users, to discern when we’re being duped by technology. I’ve only just begun cultivating an eye for this sort of thing. A few months ago, I stumbled upon a video in which an interviewer asked a group of young people if they could tell the difference between a real video and an AI-generated video. My mind was blown by their responses, and my own, as we all failed to tell the difference between the artificial and the real, over and over again. I am by no means immune to being manipulated by content created by artificial intelligence, so I’m doing my best to pay attention, to ask questions, and to take nothing at face value. I hate that it’s come to this place where I can’t trust my own eyes, or even my own reactions, but it seems to be par for the course where social media and online engagement is concerned.

I’m also aware, and disheartened, by the fact that some people are okay with spreading artificial political fodder if it aligns with their worldview. In fact, for some, this is exactly how they think we ought to be using AI—to tell whatever story gets people worked up enough to do their political bidding. While I’m assuming my friends reshared fake content unknowingly, I’m willing to bet there are many who reshare AI-generated political content knowingly because they want to convey a particular worldview and because they want to manipulate the emotions of others. Truth ceases to matter in a political environment where the primary objective is to win at all costs.

I find myself asking, again, what are we to do?

Our options are few. We cast our votes and we hope for the best, but the machine itself—the one harvesting and perhaps exploiting our attention, our emotions, our psychology, and even our compassion—is larger than all of us. We have very little influence here. It’s important to recognize our limitations because it focuses our energy and helps us to right-size our responses. We cannot do everything. We cannot fix it all, but we can make some choices about the little lives we lead as the chaos machine grinds onward.

We can resist manipulation.

When we see news stories and videos pop-up on our feeds, we can ask questions, like Is this vetted? Where did this come from? Who wants me to believe this. Why might they want me to believe it? Even if the content does align with our own political values, we still have a responsibility to be good stewards of the information we encounter and share with others.

In the wake of the 5-year old boy, Liam Ramos, being detained by immigration officers, the internet went haywire. Of course, the story was tragic and scary in its own right, and I’m grateful for the work many have done to ensure his safety and wellbeing. However, in the onslaught of information and reporting, I read one piece where an author stated that he was “…pulled from his mother’s arms,” which is horrifying and worthy of condemnation, if it were true. But it wasn’t. He was not pulled from his mother’s arms.1

While this detail may seem silly or unimportant, in the grand scheme of things, when media outlets traffic in misinformation and disinformation, it’s more important than ever that we ordinary people remain rooted in reality, even as we advocate for our values on the social and political stage. We must resist being manipulated and we must resist the highly-rewarded temptation to manipulate others through what we share online.

We can stop feeding the machine.

We can refuse to feed the chaos with our input, our reshares, and our hot takes. We can simply stop posting, and if the grace to do so finds you, to leave these platforms altogether.

I fail at this all the time. Staying quiet is not easy. I’ve felt the weight of the guilt that comes with not posting when something horrible is happening. I’ve sat with the fear that I’m complicit in said horrible things because I haven’t shared about it on my Instagram feed. And honestly, if whether or not I post online is the measure of my goodness, my civic engagement, or of my care for the marginalized, then sure, call me complicit.

But what I’m learning how to do, the muscle I’m hoping and praying to build, is one in which I can withstand the short-term guilt that comes with my online silence because I’m aiming to live in service to values that will outlive the news cycle. It’s tough because my very soul has been formed by social media to believe that online engagement is the only engagement that matters. But with God’s help, I will extract myself from this engine and learn new ways of connecting, learning, and advocating in the world.

This option is available to all of us. It’s hard because the pressure to perform our virtue is real. The deep need to feel that we are the “good guys” on “the right side of history” is real. The pull to demonstrate our commitment to the marginalized is real. I get it and I’m in it with you. But I’m daily, now, reminding myself that this machine doesn’t care about me, or you, and it exists to make money off of our outrage, grief, and compassion. The sooner we opt-out of it, the better off we’ll be.

We can tend to our inner lives.

In the midst of January’s uprisings in Minneapolis, I asked a priest, one I've learned a lot from, about how Orthodox Christians ought to respond in the face of state-sanctioned violence. Given my upbringing as an American, Protestant, evangelical woman, revolution and resistance run in my veins. But as a new Orthodox Christian, one seeking to be formed no longer by the patterns of American culture but by the patterns of the ancient, traditional Christian church, I’m learning another way to be in the world. I had to seek advice on this.

The priest’s response was both predictable and challenging. Predictable because he called me back to the daily practices of Orthodox Christians around the world. Challenging because its a life wholly lacking in the building of social and political power.

He told me to keep the church’s fasts. He told me to pray. He told me to give alms. He told me to live a life of repentance. He said it is through these things that Christ will heal and transform me, and in so doing, make it possible that Christ might work through me to heal and transform the world.

It’s counter to nearly everything we’ve been taught, especially in American life, to embrace our limits and to believe in the sufficiency of one simple, quiet life lived in devotion to God above all else. We fear that if we are not doing more, being more, pushing more for change in the political realm then we are complicit, we are failures, and that we are the enemies of progress. In a sense, this may be true. But what I found in the priest’s offering here was an invitation not to look away or avoid the harmful and harsh realities of life, but to instead take up the rigorous, daily work of partnering with God to heal those impulses in my own soul that create harm and harshness in the world around me.

I hold these things in tension. I pray for wisdom. I stumble through keeping the fasts. I’m learning to unclinch my fists in hopes of practicing generosity. Are these things enough? I don’t know. I’m learning to trust God.

We are not powerless in the face of the chaos machine. We do have choices. Our choices may feel small in the face of artificial intelligence, tech overlords, political pundits, and shameless billionaire elites. But we can resist manipulation. We can pull back from feeding the machine itself. We can tend to our inner lives with faithfulness and humility, all in hopes of becoming agents of blessing, healing, and lasting change.

Thank you for reading, and for leaning into these tensions alongside me. Please share your thoughts, ideas, and opinions below. I’d love to hear from you.

My next book, A More Beautiful Way to Live, is available for preorder wherever books are sold. If you’re on Goodreads, you should also check out the book giveaway we’re doing. You can learn more and enter the giveaway by clicking here.

Preorder: A More Beautiful Way to Live

She still believes the tales of American valor and the simple narratives of social progress:

• “all people are created equal”

• ”we judge others based on the content of their character”

• ”our diversity is our strength”

This little girl is still hopeful that our better angels will win over our demons, and that the people in charge have a plan to keep us all well and safe.

It’s been an interesting few weeks of helping this little girl inside come to terms with reality. I’ve resisted it for a long time because I’ve wanted to preserve her innocence, and to protect her. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, good or bad. It just is. I suppose, on some level, I’m grieving the fact that my country, again, is failing to be the morally upright place I once believed it was becoming.

The evolving perception of Dr. King’s legacy

As we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this week, I find myself frustrated on multiple fronts. I once looked to MLK Day as an invitation to remember all the good we were aspiring to as citizens of the United States. I loved his story. I loved the complexity of his life. I loved the movement he gave voice to and the liberties his sacrifices afforded me as an American woman descended from people who were enslaved on this land. His story challenged me, inspired me, and gave me hope.

Over the past ten years or so, like with so much else in American society, my vision about Dr. King’s legacy has been blurred. The simple narratives held by the little girl inside of me have been disrupted.

On the one hand, I’m grateful that “MLK Day” is still a federal holiday because if there’s one thing the past year has taught me, its that these symbols are fragile. We got this day in 1983 due to one man’s stroke of the pen, and we could lose it just as easily. I’m doing my best, even in the complexity, to not take today for granted.

On the other hand, I’m agitated by those voices on both the left and the right, to speak in purely binary political terms, who have devoted their public work to dismantling Dr. King’s legacy. These deconstruction efforts have taken on a variety of forms. There are those who believe Dr. King was not progressive enough; there are those who think his personal moral failings undermine the totality of his work. There are those who question his integrity as a person of the Christian faith; there are even those who question the merits of the Civil Rights Movement as a whole.

It’s not these particular critiques or debates that bother me. I appreciate a good mental exercise as much as the next person. I see value in asking big questions and pushing back on ideas. Discourse and debate are meant to be pillars of democratic society. What I find troublesome is this persistent need to deconstruct and dismantle everything, all the time. I can’t help but wonder if and how this thread of social, political, and religious deconstruction is tied to our felt sense that our democracy is on the verge of collapse. We, and by “we” I mean people across the political spectrum, have taken a sledgehammer to all our foundations—culturally, socially, historically, institutionally—and we wonder why the house is caving in.

We’ve forsaken nearly everything that makes for a coherent culture and society, namely a shared story of who we’ve been and who we’re becoming. We move through our days believing that we owe nothing to other people, especially those with whom we disagree. We cut off close relationships due to differences of opinion. We demonize fellow citizens rather than seeking to understand them. We let fear and hatred of the other run roughshod over our communities. And, rather than looking inward or changing our minds or considering that we might approach things differently, we scapegoat and cast blame. All while maintaining an unrelenting, unyielding belief in our own righteousness.

I use “we” very intentionally here. Dr. King’s words come to mind: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” There is no winning in a country like ours if and when we aim to “destroy the other side.” To sign off on their destruction, whoever “they" are, is to secure to our own destruction.

As I consider the actions of our federal government as of late, I’m deeply concerned. On a personal level, I, like many of us, am worried about my neighbors, family members, and friends. I’m worried about the wellbeing of places I love. I’m worried about our ability as a country to maintain some semblance of a functioning government that doesn’t topple into tyrannical disarray. It’s concerning and in many moments, I feel quite powerless. But even in this, I don’t want to give myself over to the energy of dismantling and deconstructing everything. I want to give myself to the work of renewal, regeneration, creativity, and of restoring broken foundations.

As a person of faith, two points of creative and foundation-building possibility are becoming increasingly clear in my mind. The first is the acknowledgment of spiritual reality, recognizing that the challenges we’re facing require spiritual solutions. The second point of possibility is in the remembrance of the saints.

On spiritual reality

True transformation, at every level of society, is only possible with the regeneration of the heart. We were created by Love, and in love, to live in perfect communion with ourselves, one another, and with God. We were made for communion, not only sacramentally but relationally. This is why so much of the chaos of the world wears on our souls, minds, and bodies. We were not created for death and destruction. Our hearts ache and our souls grieve because we know, on a deeper level than we often name, that we were not made to endure these types of tragedies. We know the world is not as it should be.

What’s tough, however, is that oftentimes, our approaches to addressing the death and destruction we see are functioning on a purely material plane. By “material” I mean, operating as though matter1 is all there is. We think that if we reconfigure our laws, if we vote for the right candidate, if we create the right economic conditions, if we move around the players on the board in just the right way, then we will achieve utopia. Then we will find peace and connection. Then we will return to the garden from which humanity came and communion will be within our reach.

But the communion our souls long for—that intimate and rest-filled connection with ourselves, one another, and the divine—is not a material reality. At least not exclusively. It’s also a spiritual one.

You would think that as a Christian, I would feel much more comfortable writing about spiritual reality, but I hesitated multiple times before typing it out. Somewhere along the line of my spiritual formation, I stopped believing in cosmic forces of good and evil. I reduced my worldview to a flat, wholly secular, materialist perspective—even as I persisted in calling myself a person of faith. I lived like an atheist, or like an agnostic person, at best. “God” was a good and inspiring idea, but he wasn’t a particular or active person in the world. As such, “spiritual reality” became irrelevant.

Writing about spiritual reality also runs the risk of being a bit embarrassing. I’ve been that person, rolling her eyes or casting negative judgments, as others talk about angels and demons, cosmic evil and cosmic good. In modern society, these concepts are foreign and foolery at best and dismissed as toxic and harmful at worst.

But everything has changed for me. I do believe in cosmic good and cosmic evil, and I do believe harmful forces beyond this plane conspire for the destruction of all things good, true, and holy. Just as I believe substantially more powerful forces are working beyond this plane to invite humanity to partner with the Holy in healing our lives and our world from the inside out.

Acknowledging spiritual reality, and taking it seriously, demands a response from us, which is one reason I think we avoid it. With material reality, at least as far as politics are concerned, we assess the world and we make decisions about which side we’re on. We decide how we’re going to engage and what we’re going to sacrifice for what matters to us. For some, we shape our entire personality, values, and worldview around our political and social affiliations. They become our identity and our actions flow from that identity.

A similar process is required when we start to take spiritual reality seriously. If there are cosmic forces of good and evil—God, spirits, angels, and demons—then we have to learn about them and make determinations about which side we’re on. We have to assume that our spiritual and religious choices are not benign, but that they are in fact matters of life and death. Most of all, and I think this is where we modern folks get really stuck, we have to humble ourselves and make peace with the fact that we are not gods. We are small. We are creatures. We do not know everything. We do not understand everything. We cannot trust our every impulse and claim. We have to submit ourselves to something bigger, something higher, and something beyond our intellectual reach.

Acknowledging spiritual reality is a pathway of possibility for us in these times because it enables us to find our place in the cosmic story that’s unfolding. Much like being a student of history gives us perspective, being awake to spiritual reality gives us a more humble orientation to all thats happening the world. I think often of the words of St. Paul to the church at Ephesus,

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”2

It’s tempting to interpret this line from a purely materialist point of view, determining that St. Paul is merely talking about the rulers of the empire. Fair enough. But to acknowledge spiritual reality invites us to consider that perhaps, we are, in fact, not wrestling against flesh and blood. It invites us to consider that the tools we need are spiritual tools that equip us to adequately wrestle against the principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and against spiritual wickedness. Perhaps the tools we need are repentance3, humility, and prayer—all tools that the early church cultivated in full even as they faced immense resistance, chaos, fear, and destruction on the material plane. They knew that the material world was only one part of the story, not the whole of it, and they oriented their lives around this reality.

I find tremendous hope, possibility, and agency in the fact that even as horrible, tragic, and concerning losses unfold all around us, we can order our spiritual lives in such a way that we are on the side of cosmic good. It is a costly choice, as we have to set down the tools of modernity, i.e. politics, economics, and activism, and we must pick up the tools that make for true transformation of both society and the soul, i.e. repentance, humility, and prayer. I have only found these tools in adequate measure within the sacramental life of the Church. The only way I’ve found into the sacramental life of the Church is through submission to the person of Christ.

On remembrance of the Saints

“Christ became a person for our sake because we can’t love an abstraction.”

Fr. Turbo Qualls, St. Mary of Egypt Orthodox Church
Kansas City MO

When I first began learning about the canonized Saints of the Orthodox Church—and as I began reading their stories of devotion, asceticism, martyrdom, service, and sacrifice—I felt angry. I felt like I’d been lied to for years. Embodying all the values of the Christian faith had always felt like a lofty and unattainable goal. Even as I grew up up in the church and devoted my young adult life to the faith, I felt like truly following Christ was out of reach and a bit of a fool’s errand. It was too costly, so why bother? At times, it seemed cruel that God would expect such difficult commitments from us without giving us the resources we needed to fulfill those commitments.

Upon encountering the lives of the Saints, however, I realized that God had not been holding out on me. I realized that through his Church, it’s sacramental life, and holy tradition, hundreds and hundreds of legacies of faithful, ordinary believers from around the world had been preserved, along with the practices of remembering their stories through iconography and loving veneration.

This hit home for me in a deeply personal way. My longing to experience a meaningful connection to ancient African religious tradition was fulfilled as I encountered the lives of St. Mary of Egypt, St. Anthony the Great, St. Macarius the Elder, and St. Moses the Ethiopian. My deep need to understand how Christ uniquely meets and empowers women was met when I learned of St. Nina of Georgia, St. Catherine the Great, and of the Theotokos, the God-bearer, also known as Mary, Mother of Our Lord.

In their stories, and countless others, the Church has preserved these blueprints for what it looks like to lead lives of repentance, healing, and surrender to the Cosmic Good who is healing and restoring the world.

This faith is fully incarnational. Flesh and spirit, material and spiritual—they come together and they dance. The incarnation is first fulfilled in Christ and then multiplied in the humble, powerful lives of the saints. And then, by way of the sacramental life of the Church, the possibility of this holistic incarnation is then extended to us. Through repentance and surrender, if God wills it, we too can become saints in our own time.

I’m realizing that every culture, if it is to sustain, has to have saints. We cannot enflesh an abstract set of ideals. We need real humans who we can point to as an embodiment of who we might become. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at least for some time now, has been one such person for American culture. The cultural movement, from across the political spectrum, to dismantle, deconstruct, or to at the very least redefine his legacy, points to a society that no longer knows who it is, what it values, or where its going. Whether this undermining of Dr. King’s legacy is a cause or a symptom of our societal fracturing, I’m not sure. But I do know that it, at the very least, affirms that our coherency and viability as a culture is on tenuous ground.

Only God knows if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a saint in the way I’m talking about sainthood. I don’t know and I’m not trying to make that case. What I am hoping to convey is that as American culture is experiencing an identity crisis, I’m finding hope and possibility in remembering the lives of Saints who defined their material reality in light of the spiritual reality of Christ’s lordship.

One of the Saints whose story has been especially helpful to me as a woman of color living here in the United States is that of St. Olga of Alaska4. She is the first North American, Native American5 woman canonized as an Orthodox saint in the U.S. and hers is story of immense faithfulness, humility, and quiet devotion as she served her community. She was a midwife who journeyed alongside women through labor and loss. She was known to be a safe place for those experiencing trauma, abuse, and harm. She mothered thirteen children. She worked as a seamstress, sewing socks and garments for those in need. She was also a priest’s wife, fulfilling the manifold duties of partnering with him in his ministerial vocation. Since her repose, Orthodox Christians seek her prayers as she’s known to be the healer of the abused and broken.

Mother Olga, pray for us!

I don’t imagine that one ounce of St. Olga’s life was easy. From all I’ve read, it was immensely difficult. I can’t imagine what her inner terrain must have been like. But I do know that she’s gone down in history as one of the most faithful Christians of modern times, and I know, through the Church, her memory will be eternal.

As the legacies of our American icons and heroes are challenged, redefined, or even erased all together, perhaps we are being invited to anchor our lives into something, and Someone, grander than what our secular, modern society has to offer.

There’s a part of me that feels sad for the little girl inside who is growing up and confronting all the ways the world is much darker than I ever imagined it to be.

It’s like Frodo leaving the Shire6 or Will waking up the in The Upside Down7. But there’s an even greater part of me that feels thankful for the many ways I’ve been invited to pay attention and find my place in the spiritual and material work of being fully human—flesh and spirit—in this time.

May we live wide awake to the cosmic story unfolding all around us and within us.

May we remember the lives of the saints who, in Christ, are showing us the way.

About This Episode

In this conversation, Bethaney Wilkinson and Tracey Gee explore the themes of desire, restlessness, and personal growth. They discuss the importance of recognizing and embracing one’s desires, the role of community in navigating these feelings, and the significance of self-awareness and experimentation in personal development. They also touch on the challenges of dealing with disappointment and grief, and how these experiences can ultimately lead to deeper understanding and fulfillment. The conversation emphasizes the need for permission and agency in pursuing one’s desires while balancing personal aspirations with the realities of the world.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates

• 01:52 Exploring Restlessness and Change

• 06:01 The Power of Desire

• 09:55 Navigating Permission and Agency

• 14:03 Building Safety in Pursuing Desires

• 17:50 Self-Awareness and Strengths

• 22:03 Balancing External Demands with Personal Desires

• 24:55 Finding Control Amidst Overwhelm

• 28:33 Embracing Experimentation in Life

• 32:03 Navigating Disappointment and Grief

• 37:12 Desire-Based Goal Setting

• 43:17 Practices for a Grounded Life

Keywords

restlessness, desire, agency, community, uncertainty, self-awareness, experimentation, disappointment, grief, goal setting

Takeaways to Contemplate

• Restlessness can be a powerful signal for change.

• Desire is often seen as selfish, but it can be generative.

• Naming our desires can help us reclaim our authenticity.

• Community can provide safety in exploring our desires.

• Disappointment can teach us about our true desires.

• Experimentation allows for growth and learning.

• Self-awareness is crucial in understanding our desires.

• Navigating uncertainty requires practice and patience.

• Grief and disappointment are part of the journey towards fulfillment.

Links Galore

Learn More about Tracey Gee here and access her guide to desire-based goal setting here.

Preorder my book, A More Beautiful Way to Live, here.

www.bethaneywilkinson.com / hello@bethaneywilkinson.com / @bethaney.bree

Hello dear friends, I have two quick notes before diving into this email.

One: I’m pausing all paid subscriptions starting now and for the foreseeable future. I won’t be keeping a regular publishing schedule in 2026 (more on this later) so it seems reasonable to pause payments for a time. If you are a paid subscriber, there’s nothing you have to do. Substack will handle it for you. If and when I decide to resume paid subscriptions, I will certainly give you a heads up.

Two: This post was originally shared in December 2023. While we’re a few days past the Winter Solstice, I’m still contemplating what it means to dwell in darkness for a time, especially as we welcome the light and joy Christmastime often brings. I hope you enjoy this reflection, and Merry Christmas. 🎄✨

As a girl, I was terrified of the dark.

I especially disliked being outside alone at night. This didn’t happen often. There would be the occasional need to run out to the car, after the sun had set, to grab whatever I’d left behind earlier in the day. Given that I grew up on the outskirts of a small town, there were no street lights, no lights from neighbors’ houses, and even our porch light didn’t illuminate much beyond the porch itself.

The only way I knew how to endure my fear of being out there was to run to the car as fast as I could, collect whatever item I needed, and then dash back to the house with all the speed my little body could muster.

Mission accomplished, I’d think to myself. I made it back into the light.

Darkness is an experience most of us avoid. With good reason, I suppose. Unless you’re a nocturnal creature, finding your way in the dark is difficult. The raccoons, the opossums, the bobcats and the foxes move with total confidence under the darkened hues of a night sky. I wish I was more like them.

Darkness also evokes uncertainty. We step into the shadows any time we lean into the unfamiliar or unknown. In doing so, we’re certain to bump up against things we didn’t even know existed inside of us, much like running into furniture in a poorly lit room. We do our best but without illumination, we can’t always know if we’re making the “best” or “right” choices. This can be a nightmare for those of us who are addicted to illusions of control.

Darkness is intriguing because even with all the discomfort, fear and uncertainty it brings, we need it. Like seeds need the black hiddenness of the soil and like human life needs the dark covering of a womb, newness emerges from the darkest of places.

Surely, I’m not telling you anything new here. It’s a tale as old as time itself,
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.1

Creation mysteriously flows from the hidden and uncertain places.
Somehow, and in some way, the darkness makes room for new life.

In his book, The Dark Night of the Soul, Gerald May explores how the obscurity of “dark night” experiences makes room for transformation.

He says,

“In speaking of la noche oscura, the dark night of the soul, [John of the Cross] is addressing something mysterious and unknown, but by no means sinister or evil.
It is instead profoundly sacred and precious beyond all imagining. It is the secret way in which God not only liberates us from our attachments and idolatries, but also brings us to the realization of our true nature.

The night is the means by which we find our heart’s desire, our freedom for love.”

The liberating activity generated in dark night seasons doesn’t necessarily make said seasons comfortable or easy. In my observation, quite the opposite tends to unfold. And yet, there is the possibility that if we let the darkness, the uncertainty and the periods of not knowing have their way with us, then maybe we’ll find our way to an inner freedom from the attachments and passions that cause ourselves and others so much harm.

Of course, this is a mystery. It requires a degree of surrender and trust. Trust that the hardest things we walk through won’t last forever. Trust that even in the midst of profound loneliness, love holds us. Trust that the trouble won’t last always.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re approaching the longest night of the year.

As we inch closer to the Winter Solstice on December 21st, darkness blankets even more of our waking hours. Because of electricity, we can often move through this darkness relatively unfazed. But what might it look like to enter in to the long dark night? To be shaped, changed and perhaps liberated by it?

We enter humanity’s long dark night when we stay present to the horrors and genocide facing the Palestinian people. When we keep watch, raise our voices, and pray.

We enter more fully into our own dark nights when we surrender to the painful disorientation of all that we cannot control, refusing to numb or hide.

What might it look like to stand under life’s dark night skies and to resist the temptation to run back inside? What safety and what wisdom might we find out there?

I ask these questions because I’m living them. As someone who still very much so fears the dark, I’m wondering what it might look like to trust the hidden processes of Love that make for growth, transformation and healing.

Every so often, I have a sleepless night.

Worry takes my brain by storm and it’s as though my very best evening routine doesn’t quite grant my spirit the rest she longs for. I’ve made peace with this, as it just seems to be the way of things.

On my most recent sleepless night, I found myself lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, annoyed that my dog was also restless in his crate. But what can you do? Getting up and working at 3 AM seemed ill-fitting. Talking to someone wasn’t an option. All I could do was lay there and wait. So I laid there and waited. And waited. And waited.

And then, surely enough, a glimmer of light broke through the window. I knew that at least for a time, the darkness was over.

I hope and pray that however you’re moving through these midwinter days, that you have what you need to be wholehearted and well. If you find yourself in the midst of a night that is dark and long, may you also find grace to lie there, to wait, and to trust in a coming dawn.

Be well, friends. Take it easy and take care.

Bethaney

In the Loop

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The idea is simple enough: you take off, on foot, towards some place of importance, and with proper guidance, you’re supported in encountering yourself, others, the world, and the divine along the way. I intend to go on more pilgrimages if life allows, because the one I just completed a few weeks ago was truly special.

Lesson from the birthplace of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

A little over two weeks ago, I set out on pilgrimage to Concord, MA, the home place of Louisa May Alcott and the place where she wrote the beloved text Little Women. I gathered there with twenty-three other women, also fans of the story, who committed this time to lingering with Little Women as a sacred text. The experience was curated and hosted by Common Ground Pilgrimages, a creative and thoughtful team that makes opportunities for folks to apply sacred reading practices, like lectio divina1 and others, to secular texts. It’s like a book club, walking club, and contemplative retreat all wrapped up into one experience.

This was my second time visiting Concord. I had the pleasure of going a few years ago with my husband and his parents. Walking to and through Orchard House, the Alcott Family home, was a transcendent experience for me then. As a long time lover of the Little Women story, it filled me with a tender joy to walk through Louisa’s home and to see all that made her life there. Learning, up close, about her devotion to her craft as a philosopher and writer was inspirational.

Upon this more recent visit, what I found most striking was how extensively Louisa’s life was filled with duty and caregiving responsibilities. She wasn’t just a lofty intellectual daydreaming by day and crafting texts by night. She carried the weight of providing for her family on her shoulders, and in many ways, she wrote to provide for them.

Her family devoted to an array of progressive social movements, namely the abolition of slavery, the suffrage movement, and equitable educational access for all people. They pursued these social objectives at great personal cost to themselves, marking their lives with persistent economic precarity. History tells us that Louisa wrote Little Women, specifically, not as an act of creative delight, but out of obligation and financial need. Little Women is the story her publisher saw a market for, so it’s the story she wrote. While the book generated enough income for her to take care of her family, and enable her to be a patron of artists in her community, writing it was largely a business decision.

Initially, this awareness took the romance out of the text for me. I was wearing rose-colored glasses and I wanted Little Women to be forever held in time as this sweet, uncomplicated story. But upon reading the book as an adult, and encountering the real mess and complexity of Louisa’s life, I came to see her reality as life-affirming.

We are all carrying countless responsibilities, be them social, relational, or financial. We often carry these under immense pressure with no certainty or guarantees. Our task, like Louisa’s was, is to do the best we can with what we’ve be given.

As writers there are no perfect days or seasons from which to create and share our craft. Like Louisa, we show up to the work in the midst of caregiving, loneliness, and chronic pain. Sometimes we get to create what our hearts love, other times we create what the market is asking for, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of here. Everything belongs, and sometimes, meaning will be made of these challenging realities long after we’re gone.

Noteworthy: The Emerson-Thoreau Amble

We walked the 3.5 mile, round trip, path between the homes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. If I’m remembering correctly, Emerson owned a 14-acre parcel of land, which includes Walden Pond. Thoreau’s shack, the one from which he wrote, was settled on Emerson’s land.

As history tells it, the two men, each a writer and philosopher in their own right, would walk this winding path between their homes, conversing and learning and sharing as friends do.

One of my favorite moments from this part of the pilgrimage was when we, as a group, walked in silence. It was quiet and cold. All I could hear was the sound of leaves crunching under our feet. I didn’t know how much I needed the quiet. It helped me listen to my own soul and to capture how this place and time was shaping my inner world. It was holy.

When was the last time you walked in silence?
What would it make it possible for you to go on a silent walk in the coming days or weeks?

Noteworthy: Cape Cod, Remembering Beth

The theme of our pilgrimage was “Grief & Hope.” One cannot linger with Little Women without holding space for how much Beth March’s death marked the March family forever.

I was privileged, on this pilgrimage, to be journeying alongside women who’d lived through immense loss, and the accompanying grief. Women who’d lost one or both parents. Women who’d lost siblings. Women who’d lost marriages and friendships. Women who’d lost pregnancies. Women whose stories, bodies, and souls carried worlds within them. It was remarkable, and sacred, and I cherish every moment I got to walk with them and hold their losses alongside my own.

Remembering Beth March at Cape Cod was a way we got to remember our own goodbyes. As Beth says to her sister Jo when they speak of death while sitting at the shore, “It’s like the tide, Jo, when it turns it goes slowly--but it can’t be stopped.”

Loss is inevitable.

I’m no expert on grief, but I am aware that as we slip into December and to the end of 2025, there are many bits of life that will not carry on into the future. There are longings that weren’t fulfilled this year and may never be. There are relationships are changed forever and will never again be what they were. There are endings, many endings, that are final and complete, and our task is to make as much peace with this as we are able. I hold this as an invitation to say goodbye, to let go, and to trust that meaning will be made in due time.

What are you grieving as we near the end of this calendar year?
What are you letting go of? What might it look like to honor this release?

Thank you for lingering with me as I’ve reflected on my time with Little Women. I loved going on this pilgrimage and I’m inspired to see where this spiritual practice of walking might take me next.

With gratitude for your readership,

Bethaney