Articles on Spiritual Direction
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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…
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Spiritual Companionship at the Time of Death
The ministry of spiritual companionship can be so rewarding and evokes a sense of the reciprocity inherent in giving. Graduating from Shalem’s Nurturing the Call: Spiritual Guidance Program gave me the needed credentials to serve as a hospice chaplain with Louisiana Hospice & Palliative Care in Opelousas, LA. (Chaplain credentialing requirements vary among agencies.) I…
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Beyond the List of “Shoulds”: Receiving God’s Invitation
“Many times today I will cross over a threshold. I hope I will catch a few of those times. I need to remember that my life is, in fact, a continuous series of thresholds: from one moment to the next, from one thought to the next, from one action to the next. Help me appreciate…
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Answering the Call
How did I get here? How did a singer and voice specialist end up as a spiritual director – much less the director of Shalem’s Spiritual Guidance Program? I’ve asked these questions a lot over the past year while stepping into my new role within SGP. I share the following reflections upon my own spiritual…
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Expanding Into a New Call
“This I know: My life is in your hands. I have nothing to fear. I stop, breathe, listen. Beneath the whirl of what is, is a deep down quiet place. You beckon me to tarry there. This is the place where unnamed hungers are fed, The place of clear water, refreshment. My senses stilled, I…