Articles on Spiritual Direction
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Climate Change of the Heart
What’s the climate of our time? Judging from what I hear from the news, the world is coming to an end. From what I hear from YouTube celebrities, it won’t if I do “these five things (and number four will surprise me!).” From what I hear from my heart, I don’t even know where to…
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Judge Me with Love: A Spiritual Practice Inspired by Julia Child
Listen. Let me tell you something. I guarantee there is something beautiful and delicious about your life and it’s part of what makes this world good. Julia Child had butter and the desire to cook with it. Roses in that same buttery yellow are named for her. Those roses now grow in the dirt beside…
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Learning to Love the Questions
It took me over a decade to discern that I wanted to be a priest. I was introduced to the Episcopal Church halfway through my studies in seminary, and I knew right away that I had found a spiritual home after a long sojourn of not being rooted in a religious tradition. As I regularly…
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Nurturing Spiritual Directors as Contemplative Leaders
On November 11, 2022, the Shalem Board approved Vision 2025: Our Ongoing Hope. The Vision offers six guiding principles for attending wholly to one’s spiritual practice while traveling through what might seem like the barren wilderness of ordinary life. As Director of Shalem’s Nurturing the Call: Spiritual Guidance Program, I find that the fifth guiding…
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Meandering
My spiritual journey has meandered over the years. I grew up the youngest of seven children in a loving, traditional Roman Catholic family. My early faith formation taught me valuable lessons about the importance of spiritual community, prayer, meaningful rituals, and family. I’m grateful for those lessons. As a young adult, I wandered away from…
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Thrown Open Like a Window
All my life, I felt like I didn’t fit in. Raised Catholic and then married to a Methodist, I always felt like a square peg forced into a round hole regarding religion. I believed in a Higher Power yet recognized my belief didn’t fit within the established church and would jokingly refer to myself as…