The questions I'm living right now
Notes on summer, vocation, healing, and the work of spiritual direction
Hello friends, I hope you are well.
Life has been rich lately, filled with verdant landscapes, laughing fits, prayerful liturgies, and plans for the future. The view from my office window is an inspiring one. The wild indigo is going to seed, the wild bergamot is widening its reach, and the sunflower seeds meant for the birds have taken root and chosen to become flowers instead. The ground is littered with little yellow blossoms; false dandelion, they’re called. And a stubborn cowbird remains decidedly perched on the bird feeder on my window pane. Delightful. Peace washes over me as I take it all in. God is good to give us this wild and glorious world to call home.
This blog post is more of a check-in than anything.
Writing has come slowly as I’ve been holding big questions about the nature of my work in the world, questions like:
What might it mean for me to approach my writing as a ministry, and not a business?
And, who am I called to write to in this season? What do I want to say to them?
I’m also swimming in questions about vocational spiritual direction and pastoral care, wondering:
What is the ultimate aim of spiritual direction? Knowledge of self? Knowledge of God? A dance of something in between?
And, in what ways might spiritual direction facilitate deep healing and recovery, say from addiction, trauma, or sexual abuse?
Religiously, I’ve been wading more deeply into Orthodox tradition, craving a richer understanding of what makes for healing both in our own souls and in the world. My reading list has exploded with texts like Orthodox Psychotherapy, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives, and God’s Path to Sanity. I haven’t read these yet, but they’re on their way to my house as we speak. The questions I’m carrying are:
What does it look like for me to be a spiritual caregiver within this ancient tradition, as laity and as a woman?
What does healthy accountability look like, and require of me?
And, what training do I need to hold space for people who are carrying the fragmentation of the human experience in their souls and bodies? How do I become a healing presence? What new skills do I need?
There was a time in my life when questions like these would have undone me. They would have filled me with anxiety and the desire to control outcomes. Life, however, has taught me the goodness of lingering with these questions, of living them as Rilke1 said. To live these questions feels like slowly breathing them in, and then out. It’s holding them like smooth stones between my fingers, contemplating as I turn them over in my hand. Living these questions looks like conversing with my husband, my friends, and my priest about this sense of calling rising up from my insides, blessing the largeness within me2. Living these questions looks like taking my time and trusting the next steps will unfold when they’re ready.
My work is changing.
I feared this for a time because as an author, I thought my work had to look like one thing. I imagined I would only feel accomplished when I achieved that particular vision. But I’m learning, and accepting, that true faithfulness, in the Christian sense, is not about reaching a specific destination so much as its about remaining in touch with the Holy Spirit’s leading in the here and now. I can’t know the ultimate vision for my life’s work because I’m not God, but I can be attentive. I can follow the threads of the questions that have pricked my soul. I can notice, and fan the flames of those possibilities within.
What’s Coming Next
As change abounds in my inner world, it will be some time before observable newness breaks up through the soil. These things take time, as they should. I will continue writing as life affords me the ability to do so. I have a few pieces I hope to craft and share over the course of this summer, so pray for me, that I would be disciplined and creative in those endeavors.
I’m still hoping to welcome a few more women into the practice of spiritual direction. If you’re still learning about what spiritual direction is, I recently read this beautiful conversation that illuminates some contours of the tradition. As a spiritual companion (i.e. director) I’m especially eager to support,
women who are, or are considering, returning to the Christian faith after a time away from organized religion
women seeking vocational clarity and alignment, or who need support with harmonizing their commitments in order to avoid or recover from burnout
women who are leaving and healing from their time in the occult
Black women who are recovering from racial trauma or a fractured sense of racial, ethnic (and perhaps political) identity
women who want to remove their inner obstacles to deeper union with God and want to unravel the habits of heart that are inhibiting their love for others
As a spiritual director, or companion, I cannot promise healing. Only God heals. But I can walk with you, ask you good questions, help you find language for your own story, and listen with you for how Christ is inviting you to grow.
Lastly, I’m seriously considering training as a trauma-informed coach, and the classes would begin this September. Coaching has always been an informal part of the way I’ve supported people and organizations, but I’m not certified and I happen to be one of those people who, for better or for worse, believe that certification matters. While I’ve completed a robust spiritual direction training program, as well as an intensive breathwork facilitation training program, both of which included some trauma-informed care education, I’d like sharpen my understanding of how to support folks who’ve experienced really hard things, especially in their spiritual and religious lives.
So again, I ask for your prayers as I find my way.
The sun is a bit higher in the sky than when I first sat down to start writing.
I’ve seen a few brown thrashers hop along in search of sustenance. The wild bergamot has begun straining, ever so slightly, under the heat of the midday sun. My dogs, who don’t love the southern humidity, have made their way inside and fallen asleep at my feet. The cowbird is still here, wanting only God knows what. I’m now turning my attention to emails, spreadsheets, text threads, and managing my team. Soon it will be time for lunch, and then dinner, and then a vespers service at our local parish.
A full life.
Glory to God for all things.
In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
In Book of Longings, one of my favorite authors, Sue Monk Kidd, coined the phrase, “Bless the largeness inside me,” as part of this prayer: “Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart. Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. Bless my reed pens and my inks. Bless the words I write. May they be beautiful in your sight. May they be visible to eyes not yet born. When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice.”