Boundary-making is hard work. Boundary-keeping is even harder. This week, I have spoken with two women in their thirties and I have called them to strengthen their boundaries. We’ve talked about what they knew the Lord is not asking of them. And then we talked about why they were doing those things anyway. Boundaries, I … Continue reading
Consciously claiming the desire to…be in or with something almost compels us into control. Gerald May, The Awakened Heart. I want to be with him. I have tasted and I have seen. And now I echo those words: to die is gain. I don’t want to live in shadowlands where presence is absence and Word sheer … Continue reading
The experiences of acedia and of dark night are similar. So similar, in fact, that I have spent years wrestling to tell them apart. And as the time and sand have banked up around me, breathing now getting harder, I am come closer to naming their difference. I am come closer to naming their difference … Continue reading
Part of my formation as a spiritual director has involved writing a number of learning journals, one of which required focus on images of God and of self. In a season in which silence and seeming absence has been most of what I know, imagery – and the kataphatic more generally – is difficult, contested … Continue reading
The prophet [Elijah] is constantly in search of God, and constantly surrendered to the movements of the Holy Spirit within him and without. He gives himself up, and that is his whole occupation. It is for God to dispose of him, to detain him in solitude or to send him thither and yon. Pere Marie-Eugene, … Continue reading
In morning, his brooding heaviness. There in the summerhouse where he meets me. And in my stillness I hardly knew it, this localised weight with which he rested there. Until I stepped out from under its intensity, wandered up garden into house. Then I knew, gait stumbling as tears from nowhere threatened. He was there, … Continue reading
She is right, I suppose, this friend of mine. She called it divine intentionality. And she asked if I knew that’s what it was. But I had no straight answer to that question. For how do you affirm divine intentionality in relation to a process that has removed the channels by which once you knew … Continue reading
It seems as if the apophatic disciple parts company with most of the people of God, embarks on a solitary journey where everything that might be useful has to be given up, and ends up in a place where nothing can be seen and about which nothing can be said. But…[a] true encounter with the … Continue reading
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is … Continue reading
Being misunderstood is a corollary of the prophetic. Those weren’t that friend’s exact words. But they’re close enough. And, oh, how I hate being misunderstood. My heart thrives on being known, on living from a place of openness. Yet, lately, it’s been different. Ever since Jesus’ words last year, those ones about presence to him … Continue reading
The Art of Steering 