Faith formation and sacred conversations are the focus on the faith journey through spiritual direction, retreats, books, and other resources.
All in Spiritual Direction
No doubt about it, church is being redefined both in the present moment of quarantined living, but also in the near-term and long-term identity of the church. I think this is a good thing.
Whether wanting to write more consistently or pray more intently and personally, here is a way to reflect on my day or week as a practice of searching heart, mind, and soul.
In this season of unrest, much is being dismantled within us and around us, leaving us to wonder about new definitions, structures, and perspectives on life. Wondering and wandering are the gifts of spiritual direction.
In a world that labels self-care as selfish, or a waste of time, we have to fight the inner voices that try to convince us that we don’t deserve to spend time tending to our own soul.
Just one week prior to the murder of George Floyd on May 20th, I posted a three-part series on Active Listening. I have consolidated this message into one post for easy access to these tools in one place. Learn how to receive, reflect, and respond as a tool for peace
Following your heart desire is fine, assuming you know what that desire is. How do you listen for and discover that deep down desire?
What is your heart’s desire telling you about yourself, about your present situation, about the future? Does it feel like calling, or does it lead you away from God toward habits of self-comfort?
What is a rule of life? It’s a beacon light to guide our actions, disciplines, and decisions by giving voice to the core values. It aligns our commitments with our convictions in a more integrated, holistic perspective of what matters.
A rule of life or, as I like to call it, a “liturgy of days” is not a list of things to do to live your life. It was never intended to be a prescriptive method of living, but rather a descriptive statement of your highest values, a guidling light in how you live your best life.
Do you ever wake up with words of a song stuck in your head, or more importantly, in your heart? The old hymn Abide with Me has lodged itself within me recently, asking me to pay attention to it.
A listening heart and an attentive mind is the greatest gift of hospitality anyone can offer to another person.
What do I talk about with a spiritual director? Exploring some core questions leads us to new discoveries about ourselfes and about God. A recommended resource from Henri Nouwen helps identify the questions we all ponder throughout life.
Bearing witness is a bit of an old fashioned phrase that asks us to attend to someone or something, be it a
circumstance, an event, or our own inner thoughts. Such a call is counter-intuitive to our western ways of progress. But this watching awareness, partnered with prayer stands at the intersection of heaven and earth.
The third element of active listening is responding our of silence, after prayerful listening, receiving and reflecting.
Reflecting as an active listening tool is much different than reacting to what someone says. Reflecting mirrors, clarifies, wonders along with the speaker.
In a highly distracted world, it takes intention to truly listen to another. Three key elements include receiving, reflecting, and responding.
There are many beautiful metaphors for spiritual direction. My new favorite is that of a musical conductor, blending all the voices, harmonies, tones, expressions of the divine score. What are your favorite metaphors?
Retreat. it’s the battle for soldiers to pull back, to stand down, to disengage from the front line and find refuge away from the battlefield. This is no different than the spiritual call to retreat, to step away from the grind of daily life, to unplug from the connections that continually speak into our souls.
If there’s one gift I’ve received during the days of the coronavirus quarantine it has been the gift of abiding. With busniess, churches, entertainment and recreation closed, literally all roads lead home. And at home, along with the rest of the world I say put.
Liminal space refers to the time and space between two things. It’s an architectural word for those in-between functional places that get us from one place to another in a building, like a doorway or a hallway. But in life sometimes we get stuck in those metaphoric doorways and hallways rattling doorknobs of locked doors counting the minutes until we are out of this space.
