direction

I'm waiting for the clock to tick so that I can leave for Spiritual Direction. I'm meeting with a new person today, recommended by a dear friend who has the same sort of spiritual troubledness as I, a similar functional/dysfunctional relationship with this Church who holds both our vocations. I asked him, "can she handle my angst?" and he said "she can." So here I go.
I met with another SD who came at his recommendation, for many years- really, on and off, for over ten years. At some points, we met twice a month, sometimes every six weeks, sometimes not for months or a year at a time, because it is my way that I don't go when things are good, or, in the case of my Dark Year, very bad.
Mary blew my mind in our first visit, when I told her how ambivalent I was about even being there- I had this decision to make (I guess you could say I still have this decision to make...) of whether or not to stay in this Church... and I thought, if she's Catholic, she'll encourage me to stay, and if not, she won't. But she said..... sit down, ready? She said....
"Your decisions are between you and God."
Well.
She left me with a scripture passage to work with, that of Jacob wrestling with an angel. It fit. After that visit I looked it up, did a little research as I am wont to do, and found an article that mentioned that Jacob wrestled with God, and... lost. It was my story, too.
Over the years she pulled me back from the ledge of faith many times, helping me cry, showing me to the bathroom when I had to throw up (pregnancy), and loving me. On a silent retreat that did change the trajectory of my faith life, she was my director. At the end of one of our sessions that weekend, she said "I love you." and my heart grew three sizes.
She's left the Church now, I think... and has, I guess, left me too. I don't know why, and (obviously) I'm grieving, but I think it's probably time to start with someone new, see what's out there for me in a different heart, and, since I think God is calling (shoving) me toward becoming a SD myself, it'll be good.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tiny Desk Confession

There is nowhere to kneel here, no kneelers at all, not even in the chapel. It's because this is a nursing home, for nuns. I joke about how I love coming to Mass here because it all happens from a seated position. Not everyone can stand, so no one does, until it's time for communion (and then, those of us who can, approach the altar, and communion is brought to the seats of those who can't). I've been reading about grace and how God loves the worst of us, and raging about how ridiculous the other retreatants are, walking slowly and dreamily as if to dedicate how very at prayer they are, how silly the woman who pulled her chair up to gaze at the nativity scene, filled with impossibly white holy family members and wrong-sized animals, and that breather. I ventured out of my room to the community room with my book about the unlovable whom God loves so much, found a cozy chair by the window, and settled in. Eventually The Breather came in, crossing the great room breathing
Read more

Google Catholicism

When my pastor was new to our parish, we decided to co-teach a series during Advent, on the Gospel of Mark. I suggested he go first, because I had never seen him teach, and didn't know what he expected as far as co-teaching went. After that first session, I remember saying to him, "our teaching syles are... very different." He chuckled, and said "styles, ha." I think he thought that there was only one way to teach, and I thought that for a long time, too. Leading Alpha (after 20-something years of ministry) taught me about not teaching. In Alpha, we forbid our small group leaders from teaching. We coach them to, when a guest asks a question, turn and say "oh wow, that's such a great question. Does anyone else wonder about that?" It's the hardest thing to teach people. Adults, especially, who volunteer at church expect themselves to be able to answer questions, to be able to dole out sage wisdom whenever the opportunity arises. When my pastor
Read more

Process

One takeaway from my retreat weekend is this: write more. Here's what this looks like for me. 1. As soon as this decision is made, stop writing completely. 2. Tell someone you're going to write more. 3. Think about writing a lot. 4. Tell someone else you're going to start writing more. 5. Google: "How to write" 6. Find several promising articles about writing, leave them open for days, but do not read them. 7. Decide a dedicated writing space is needed, think about that for a while. 8. Drag a wambly old desk out of the garage, wipe the dust off it, and put it in the dedicated space. 9. Drag out an old laptop and breathe life into it. It's too slow to actually erase programs from — if you waited to clean it up, you'd never get any writing done. 10. Write a dumb listicle about not writing, and go sit on the couch.
Read more