On Being Tied to Others

Recently, I had an experience that was pretty visceral. I was feeling pretty beat up and insecure, and I put out an SOS call to my spiritual director, Elaine. Thankfully, she had some time to connect with me by phone that day, and after pouring out my woes, I landed on an image to describe the way I felt. 

In the image, I was three years old with a ponytail on the top of my head, and people were grabbing me by that ponytail and banging me around at whim. 

Ouch. Pretty visceral, right? 

What absolutely broke my heart was seeing my own response inside that image. I was flinging my arms out wide in a desperate attempt to grab the leg of the one(s) flinging me around, trying valiantly to grab hold and hang on tight, as if to say, “Love me! Care for me! Approve of me! Want me!”

Ouch again. This is me in one of my most vulnerable places. I struggle with things like this.

Thank goodness for Elaine. She asked if Jesus was there, and he was.

I wouldn’t have seen Jesus if she hadn’t asked me to notice him. 

But when she asked me to notice Jesus, there he was, sitting on a set of steps in front of a brownstone walk-up residence off to the side. All that flinging and flailing was happening in the middle of a neighborhood street, and Jesus sat quietly on the brownstone steps, facing the street, watching the scene unfold before him.

I found it interesting he didn’t try to rescue me. He didn’t get off the steps and interfere in the incident. Instead, he looked at me with calmness and knowledge in his demeanor and his eyes and simply communicated, “You don’t have to take that.”

It was like I had a choice. Really? 

So I gave it a shot. I disentangled myself from the abusive swinging and banging around, and I went to sit by Jesus on the steps. And as soon as I sat down, it was like I came back into possession of my whole self. I was 32 years old, inhabiting the fullness of my story, my life, and my body. 

I was whole and pulsing with aliveness. Jesus and I sat shoulder to shoulder, looking out on the neighborhood street before us, and talked like two adults who know, love, and respect each other. 

Do you struggle with something similar — being tied to the whims of others, enslaved to their approval or treatment? What might it be like to receive the full acceptance and respect of the companionship of Jesus instead? 

A (Small) Glimpse into Formation

In the Look at Jesus gospel immersion course I’m teaching right now, we’re enjoying the privilege of doing just what the course title suggests: looking at Jesus. And when I look at Jesus, I can’t help but fall in love. 

Here is God, hanging around on earth with all kinds of people full of earth and grit. And he doesn’t recoil. Instead, he touches them. He invites them to share his meals. He takes time each day to teach them about the kingdom of God and spends vast amounts of time healing their battered and broken bodies. 

In short, he shows us that God is about coming to where we are and being with us. And not just being with us, but giving us more than we had before.

When I first began learning this aspect of Jesus — I mean, really getting that it was true — I fell completely in love with him. Never had I experienced such love and acceptance. Jesus comes to me. He doesn’t expect me to come to where he is.

What’s more, I noticed that we moved. If I was laying on the floor, curled up in a ball, Jesus met me there. He didn’t hurry me off the floor. He didn’t condemn me for being there. He met me. 

But eventually, I did sit up. Or stand up. Or walk. Or move around.

I learned, through an ongoing process of experiencing this over and over, that Jesus moves with me at a pace that is natural and required to bring about my growth. It’s not forced, but it does happen.

I’ve also learned along the way that there’s a point when something shifts. 

After a time of being with Jesus in this way, being built up inside his love, becoming rooted and established in it, receiving all the love and acceptance he has to offer, the natural course of events begins to push us outward.

We go forth into a new territory, and in that territory, we are much less focused on ourselves.

It’s not so much about Jeus meeting us where we are anymore (although that will always continue to happen throughout our lives as we keep growing). Instead, it’s about us meeting other people where they are, just like Christ met us. And it’s about venturing out to meet God at our own initiative, too. 

It’s about loving God and loving neighbor. And it starts to just happen.

I think this happens because of the love of Christ compels us.

When we truly experience love, it roots us down, and that gives us the strength and room to grow branches outward. We start to grow outward, much less focused on the inner work of growing down roots from a tiny seed, because that’s what we were ultimately made to do.

But it’s a process, and each stage of that process is necessary and beautiful.

Where in the process are you?

Understanding Increases Through Largeness of Heart

I’ve been continuing to read my way through 1 Kings, and the story of Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, keeps teaching me so much. This morning I read the following: 

“God gave Solomon wisdom — the deepest of understanding and the largest of hearts.”

— 1 Kings 4:29

The word understanding shows up quite a bit in the Bible, and it is especially present in the book of Proverbs — which, unsurprisingly, was written in large measure by Solomon. Littered all over the pages of the Proverbs, for example, we read exhortations like the following:

Get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding. 

— Proverbs 4:7

Wisdom and understanding are somehow linked, and very closely so. 

But how are largeness of heart and understanding linked? That largeness of heart was included in the description of Solomon’s wisdom gave me pause. I’d not considered such a connection before. What does it mean, really, to have the deepest of understanding or the largest of hearts, and how are those things related to wisdom?

I thought then of the story in 1 Kings 3 where two prostitutes show up in Solomon’s court and argue over their two infant sons. One of the sons has died, and the other one still living is the object of both of their desire. Solomon is asked to sort out which woman is the true mother. 

I’ve always loved this story because Solomon solves it a bit like a riddle. Since the women can’t agree, he orders the baby boy be cut in half and both of them to receive half. It’s a crazy dictum, but Solomon knows what he is doing. He knows that the real mother of that baby would not bear his being cut in half. She would rather save his life than see him brought to harm, and she would rather the other woman have him if that meant she could keep him from that harm. So when the woman who couldn’t bear to see that happen spoke up, Solomon knew she was the boy’s true mother, and he gave the boy to her. 

This tells me about Solomon’s “deepest of understanding” in the sense that he could see deeper into the matter than his own life experience would normally teach him to know. He understood the heart of a woman — and of a mother, really — even though he was not a woman or a mother himself. 

In this way, Solomon evinced largeness of heart. 

Upon reflection, I think largeness of heart has to do with the ability to hold another person’s experience inside yourself. It’s an ability to contain more than yourself inside yourself. It’s about having room for more than just you. Your heart, instead, is large. It expands. It can hold more. 

And in holding more, the capacity for deeper understanding follows. And in that deeper quality of understanding, wisdom is found.

Take Me as I Am

I was at the contemplative eucharist service at our church last night, and the Iona chant we’ve been singing recently is a simple verse that begins with the words, “Take, O take me as I am.” 

I couldn’t help but notice how appropriate those words are for me to sing right now. Lately I’ve been struggling with powerful emotions I’m not used to feeling. They rise to the surface in sudden moments, and words flit through my mind or stumble out of my mouth that seem so unlike the person I’ve known myself to be. 

In some ways, I see these emotions as quite helpful. They’re helping me know my heart in a deeper way than I’ve known it before. I’m becoming aware of things that matter to me, and of ways I’m being invited to change and form and grow and interact with the world around me in different ways than I have before.

But in other ways, the power of these emotions scares me. I’m not so sure they’re wholly good. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. Maybe they’re both. (That’s probably the case.) But the part that doesn’t feel the holiness of these emotions is the part that drives me to my knees before God, begging for mercy and wisdom. 

I’m so aware of my frailty and fallenness. 

And so this simple chant, asking God to take me as I am, provides great comfort. It reminds me that God does take me as I am, that God does meet me in this place, that God does love and accept me right here, even as the formation process of these emotions in me is yet unfinished. 

I’m so thankful for that grace. 

What is it like for you to invite God to take you as you are, right in this very moment? 

Continued Thoughts on Personality and Silence

On a previous post, I shared that I have an extroverted friend who is helping me think about God in new ways.

We’ve been continuing our dialogue on introversion and extroversion, and I’ve been learning so much from him about how an extrovert can connect to God in meaningful ways. He’s been kind to share with me, for instance, some pretty amazing examples of how he connects to God that involve group discussion, podcasts, corporate worship experiences, and even exercise. 

Isn’t it amazing that God is bigger than our own personalities? I love that. 

I also love the way two readers here, Terri and Sara, helped me think more deeply about whether silence is the place we grow and heal. They were so wise to say that something being the case for one person doesn’t necessarily mean it is the case for everyone. I think this is so true, and a good reminder for all of us.

I know that for me in particular, being the contemplative introvert that I am, it can be easy to relate to the healing, nurturing side of silence and contemplative prayer. The words of Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton, in particular, are so instructive and encouraging to me. They seem to speak my native language. 

But for someone like my extroverted friend, dialogue with other believers or experiencing the church in corporate worship can also be vastly healing and nurturing. God can be just as present and accessible in those places as he is in a hermitage or monastery or prayer closet. 

All of this has gotten me thinking about the many dimensions of God and his vast personality.

God’s being contains all of the proclivities and preferences that we as humans experience and exhibit. So no matter who we are or how we experience the world, we can find some measure of God there. 

Isn’t that kind of mind-blowing?

I love how vast God is. 

PS: Speaking of Terri, she wrote a beautiful reflection on how silence removes the usual barriers between us and our neighbors, which I found deeply edifying and helpful. Highly recommend!

What Is It Like to Consider Going Home?

I’ve just begun reading a new book by Ian Morgan Cron called Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me. It is “a memoir of sorts” by the author and begins with an epigraph by Wendell Berry that says, “When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.” The first chapter begins with a quote by Robert Lax that says, “Sometimes we go on a search for something and do not know what we are looking for until we come again to our beginning.” 

Pretty powerful quotes, aren’t they? 

I’m pleased to share that the rest of the book is quite powerful, too — at least, what I’ve read of it so far. It is the author’s attempt to wade through the “harrowing straits of memory” in order to make peace with his history and sail more freely into his future. 

Right up front, the author says this about doing this kind of excavation of our histories:

“Home is where we start, and whether we like it or not, our life is a race against time to come to terms with what it was or wasn’t.”

What do you think of this idea? 

Speaking from my own experience, I find it to be true. Pretty much the entirety of my adult life, from age 19 to the place I stand now at 32, has been an exercise in going back to my beginnings to make sense of them and find healing, peace, and wholeness. 

I wrote on my personal blog last night that the first big chunk of years devoted to this excavation brought pain, anger, regret, and grief. I did not find peace for many years, but I knew, all along, that peace would be found on the other side somehow. In my experience, God had clearly invited me to visit that excavation site and hunker down for quite some time.

The excavation is still happening, really, and probably will be underway the rest of my life. But the biggest chunks of history discovered and explored in those earliest of days are now, thankfully, in the polishing phase. That is something for which I regularly give thanks.

Going home takes work. It’s hard. It hurts. But I can’t imagine a more worthwhile endeavor, especially when the invitation is offered and then lived out in the presence of Jesus. 

What is going home like for you? Does the notion appeal to you? Scare you? Turn you off? Have you ever visited the excavation site of your history with Jesus as an excavation partner in the process? 

Becoming a God-Listener

Since April, I’ve been privileged to work alongside a team of people developing an online resource that offers hope to people who need a glimpse of God’s light in difficult places. It’s been such a meaningful and gratifying project to be a part of, and I’ve learned and grown so much through the experience. 

The project will wrap up in a few short weeks, and so I find myself asking one particular question with increasing regularity these days: What’s next? 

I’ve lived a rather unconventional life the last several years.

I left a full-time career in publishing in 2007 to pursue a path of contribution in the lives of people seeking their way. This led me, unexpectedly, to a ministry of spiritual direction and writing about the spiritual life and life of the heart. I have loved every moment of this journey and am so thankful for the way God has directed my steps along this path. 

But it has not been easy. 

It has required an immense amount of faith.

A lot of this journey has included that question: What’s next? Sometimes the work God has given me to do as I’ve trod this path of learning and growth has been freelance writing and editing; other times he’s given me special projects, like the one I’m currently finishing. 

God has been faithful, but each stepping stone has asked — and still asks — for my faith to believe it will emerge from the water at just the right time for me to step upon it. 

I find myself in that place of faith-testing yet again these days. 

Last week, I took a step forward to pursue a potential opportunity beyond the bounds of this current project, and I learned that potential opportunity wasn’t going to work out after all. I was disappointed. And it landed me back at that question yet again: What’s next? 

I texted my spiritual director, Elaine, about the lost opportunity and my disappointment that day. She knew I’d been exploring the possibility, and she had prayed with me recently about it. When I told her that I hoped God had something else in store and that I keep asking him to show me where to go, she responded:

You’re a good God listener. 

Her response encouraged me. It reminded me of the ways I’ve listened and heard and followed God’s lead before.

And then, over the weekend, I stumbled on the following prayer in 1 Kings from King Solomon. When he assumed the throne of Israel after his father, David, had died, God asked Solomon in a dream what he wanted as he began to rule the kingdom. Solomon responds: 

Give me a God-listening heart so I can lead your people well, discerning the difference between good and evil.

— 1 Kings 3:9

That prayer from Solomon has stuck with me the last few days. Give me a God-listening heart. It is my intent to lean deeper and deeper into that prayer. I want to follow the ways God wants me to go in this life of faith I lead. 

So here’s to faith. And to God-listening in the midst of it. 

The Role of Silence

Yesterday I asked what it’s like for you to experience silence. Today I want to share with you some words about silence that I read recently and hear your perspective on them: 

Some have said silence is the first language of God. It is in silence that we grow, we heal, and we open to God. 

I’m curious: what do you think of these statements? 

When I read these statements, I can’t help but consider each statement in its own right.

First, there’s the statement that silence is the first language of God. It makes me think of how God spoke the world into being — that he used words to do so. When God speaks, he creates. So before creation, there was just God, communing with God’s self.

It makes me wonder: does the Trinity require words to commune with itself?

Perhaps there is simply an all-perfect knowing that God has with God’s self that doesn’t require words at all.

And then there’s the statement that it is in silence that we grow, heal, and open to God. What do you think about this? 

I know that, for me, it is in silence that I’m able to get in touch with what is most true inside of me. When the noise of the outside world and the noise of my own internal chatter have quieted down, I can get in tune with what is true and then offer that to God. 

But I also know that conversation brings growth and healing, too.

Prayer can certainly look like a silent opening to God without the use of any words, but it can also be a conversation. Even in normal life, in conversations with soul friends, I experience growth and healing not just in a silent sitting together, but also through our conversations. 

Or perhaps the growth and healing of those conversations actually happens in the after-moments — the moments of taking in what was spoken about, of letting it sink in deep. 

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this.

What do you think of this notion of silence being the first language of God? What is your response to the idea that silence is the place we grow, heal, and open to God?

The Experience of Silence

I’ve shared here before that Kirk and I have been attending a contemplative eucharist service on Sunday nights over the last few months. It’s such a refreshing place to gather in silence with other pilgrims and be present to God.

It’s a very simple service: there are some prayers we all say together, as well as a reading of the Gospel and a simple song. The rector blesses the bread and wine and invites us all to partake in the eucharist.

But other than that, there are extended periods of silence. Between each segment of the service, there is silence. Before the service begins, we gather in the silence. And when the service ends, we are asked to depart in silence. 

I wonder: do you find silence easy or difficult?

It’s so rare to find bits of quiet in daily life, isn’t it? Even when we’re alone, it’s easy not to experience silence with all the ways we can stay connected to information and conversations online. 

When I find a moment of quiet, I experience it as a blessed relief.

However, I know that for others, silence can be disconcerting and somewhat unsettling. The silence is so … silent. 

What about you? How is it for you to experience silence? Is silence something you value in any way?

You Needn't Be Scared of Him

I think it’s easy to think about God and be scared of him. Or even to think about Jesus, God made human, and be scared. After all, this is God we’re talking about. He’s holy and righteous. He set the world spinning. He gave us a moral conscience and cares about right and wrong. 

This morning, as I looked into the eyes of Jesus, I saw him acknowledging this — how easy it is to be afraid of him. 

But I also saw him asking me to tell you that you needn’t be afraid. 

There’s a story in the Chronicles of Narnia about Aslan the lion. He’s a huge lion with all the strength of a thousand men, and he can be quite ferocious, especially when confronting evil or protecting what is lovely.

And yet he befriends young children. He gives his own life to save the wayward one of them. He walks and talks with them, and they absolutely love him. 

There’s a line in that story about this lion named Aslan. They say: 

“He isn’t safe, but he’s good.” 

It’s so easy to equate safety with goodness, isn’t it? At least for me, it’s easy to equate the two. But that’s not what Jesus offers. He offers his goodness. He offers our best. He gives us the truth, even if the truth is hard to look at. 

But he’s good. He’s full of love. 

Do you ever feel scared of God? What scares you about him? What is it like to consider the invitation of Jesus not to be afraid? 

He Completely Understands You

There’s this meditation prayer that Kirk’s spiritual director uses whenever they meet for a session, and Kirk often opens our prayer times together at home with it. It goes like this: 

Be still and know that I am God.

(pause)

Be still and know that I am.

(pause)

Be still and know.

(pause)

Be still.

(pause)

Be.

Last night, before we prayed together over the week, Kirk began our time together with this prayer. And as I took in that very first line, Be still and know that I am God, I couldn’t help but settle into the relief of who God is. 

God completely understands everything about us.

There’s no need for debriefing or creating context because he has always been there. He has seen every moment and knows every thought and feeling. He knows the reasons certain things worry us or distract us or confuse us. He knows the certain things that excite us or put us over the moon. 

There’s such relief in that, isn’t there? 

What is it like for you to experience relationship with a God who completely understands and already knows? 

What Prayer of the Heart Looks Like

Hi, friends.

I want to begin by acknowledging the quiet in this space recently. I’ve been committed to writing in this space five days a week for you, and I still expect to maintain that rhythm here for the foreseeable future. But over these last couple weeks, life has caught up with me, and I’ve had to occasionally acknowledge the limits of my humanity once again. 

One thing is true: I’ve missed being present in this space each morning of the week with you.

This morning, though, I had the chance to sit quietly at my desk for the first time in several days. As I sat there, I could hear my mind buzzing like a lawn mower and whirling things around inside like a big and powerful leaf blower. But I sat quietly with all that internal mind-noise, glasses off and eyes closed, and let my mind descend into my heart. 

This is what prayer of the heart looks like for me. 

My mind, with all its buzzing and snapping, floated down into my heart and slowly settled. There, I saw my heart fold open, a bit like a water lily resting on a lily pad, opening to the honest truth of myself and opening to the presence of God with me. 

There is such a difference between the experience of the whirring and snapping of my mind and the experience of this prayer of the heart. I noticed that difference this morning.

When my mind is buzzing and plowing around, it’s like I’m talking to myself, trying to remember everything I need to do or dimly aware of the feelings surrounding me. I talk to myself about those feelings in my mind, telling myself: I feel sad. I’m overwhelmed. I’m scared. 

But in prayer of the heart, I talk to someone — God, specifically. 

When I open my heart like a water lily, laying my heart bare before God, and tell him what I think and feel, it’s an experience of relationship.

I feel sad. I’m overwhelmed. I’m scared.

It’s quite different to tell someone, with such vulnerability, what you are feeling, isn’t it?

What is it like for you to express the truth of yourself to another person? How is that different than expressing it just to yourself?

What Brings You Joy and Life?

We’ve been spending time in some difficult places lately, haven’t we — getting to know the cavernous workings of our hearts, discussing wounds, and talking about the darkened hallways we sometimes find for safety and protection.

Today, I want to talk about life.

Joy.

Places of beauty and enjoyment in our lives. 

Do you have any places like that? 

When you examine your life, where are the places you lose track of time, fully enjoy and savor the moment, or find yourself in touch with what matters most to you? 

For me, it happens in these moments: 

• When I write
• When I see sunlight bouncing on water
• When I share a meaningful conversation with Kirk
• When I stare at Diva
• When someone makes me laugh
• When taking photos on my iPhone
• When planning ideas for the Look at Jesus course
• When thinking about nonviolence and how the heart learns to love
• When perusing my Instagram feed at the end of each day

What about you? What moments and activities make you feel most alive and grateful and in tune with life and the present moment?

Registration Open for Look at Jesus Course!

Hi, everyone!

I’m excited to open registration (at long last!) for Look at Jesus: a Gospel immersion course. Below, I’ve shared a short preview video, registration details, and a list of FAQs about the course. 

I hope you will choose to join us for what I am sure will be a meaningful time of exploration and dialogue!

xoxo,

Christianne 

Course dates: October 18-November 26

Course length: Six weeks 

Course fee:$70 $35 (one-time reduced rate for pilot class)

To register, see below!

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Frequently Asked Questions 

What will be covered in the course? 

In this 6-week course, we’ll read all four Gospel accounts in the Bible — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — and reflect on what we’re noticing about the main character in each account, which is Jesus. Opportunities will be provided for both personal reflection and group discussion throughout the course.

What kind of coursework will there be, and what is the time commitment?

We will read one Gospel per week for the first four weeks, and you can complete that reading on your own timetable. Two reflection postings will be offered each week (on Tuesdays and Fridays), and you can reflect upon and respond to these questions at your own pace, as well. In the last two weeks of class, several personal reflection exercises will help you pull together your thoughts and experiences in a meaningful way.

What sort of interaction can I expect to share with the course instructor and other participants? 

A video post by me, the instructor, will be shared at the start of each week. I will also post two reflection questions each week, and everyone enrolled in the course is welcome to respond to these questions in a shared comment space. Our course classroom will also include a discussion board forum where you are welcome to share additional questions and thoughts with the rest of the enrolled community. (Participation in the discussion board forum is, of course, optional.)

Do I have to purchase any extra materials for this course?

Besides a copy of the Bible, a computer, and internet access to access the course, no other books or materials are required. 

Do I need to be a Christian to take this course? 

No, you do not. This course is open to anyone who wants to get to know the person of Jesus a little bit more. (But please note that the course is being taught by a Christian instructor with a distinctly Christian perspective and spirituality.)

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I hope you’ll join us! 

To enroll in the pilot course that begins October 18 — at a 50% discount of $35 — click on the button below. (You will be redirected to Paypal.)

[[PAYMENT BADGE DISABLED]]

After you register, you will receive a welcome e-mail from me with additional sneak peeks, goodies, and get-to-know-you questions.

If there are additional questions I can answer for you about the course, leave them in the comments below or e-mail me at christianne118 at gmail dot com. 

xoxo,

Christianne 

How Might You Cultivate Joy and Rest This Weekend?

I’ve shared here previously that Kirk and I have begun practicing a day of rest on Sundays, at least as much as we are able. I find myself now looking forward to that day at the end of each week because I know it will invite a time of slowness and — if I’d like — even a bit of creativity into my experience each week. 

As I look ahead to this weekend, I’m anticipating putting the finishing touches on the registration process for the Look at Jesus course. (Registration will open this weekend!) This is exciting, as it means finalizing the video I’ve been planning for you that spills the beans on the course details — just one example of creativity that will inculcate joy for me this weekend. 

What might joy and/or rest look like for you this weekend?

The Infinite Patience of God

Hello, friends. 

This morning, as I held the recent reflection series we just completed in my mind, I talked with God about why that series was important. Besides what we discussed about how God feels about our hearts, why was it important to discuss it in such detail at the time that we did? 

I thought about the city image we’ve been discussing here for a while, and then was reminded of a more recent post offered here about a darkened hallway and the entrance of the light of Jesus into that place. Do you remember that post? 

In it, we talked about the intent of Jesus to come to you in the places you are. We talked about his desire to find you. But what happens when he does? 

On that post, one of our community members, Lisa, offered a beautiful and perceptive comment about the quality of experiencing Jesus in a place like that: 

That image of Jesus offering light … is hugely powerful for me. There is such gentleness and safety in it — not a God who forces, but who invites, and waits patiently, with love and peace in the waiting, and not condemnation or guilt. 

Isn’t that beautiful? I’m so glad she shared that she has come to experience Jesus in that way. 

Also as part of her comment, Lisa mentioned a book called Stumbling Toward Faith by Renee Altson that includes a meditation on the parable Jesus told about the ninety-nine sheep and the one that was lost. In that meditation, Renee identified strongly with that one lost sheep and, when found by Jesus and invited back to the fold, she felt herself unready to return. Renee ends the story, Lisa says, by sharing that the shepherd, Jesus, “sat and waited with her for a long time.” 

The shepherd, Jesus, sat and waited with her for a long time … until she was ready to take the next step. 

On my personal blog, Lilies Have Dreams, I’ve shared recently about a long and intentional journey I took with Jesus through the woods. It was a season of deep formation for me — a time when I learned some new truths about my heart, grew in a lot of ways, and experienced pain and joy at varying increments. 

What often stood out to me during those several months I traveled through the woods with Jesus was the infinite patience he displayed as he journeyed with me, no matter where on the path we found ourselves. Whether I was struggling to receive a new truth, grieving newly discovered pieces of my heart, or basking in the joy of God’s grace and presence and love — whether I experienced light or darkness at any point on the path — Jesus stayed with me and was fully present and waited every single time.

There was never any pressure or expectation to hurry up and get to the next step of the journey. He just stood and waited with me for as long as I needed. 

As you journey into discovering the truth of your heart, what is it like for you to consider receiving the infinite patience of God with you in each discovery? 

Learning Your Heart: Spiritual Direction Helps, Too

In this short series on “Learning Your Heart,” we’ve been talking about some of the practical ways we can learn to get in touch with the reality of our hearts, since Jesus demonstrated over and over again — as did the prophets and teachers of the Old Testament — that it is the heart God truly cares to know inside of us.

Before stepping into the final suggestion of this series — that of meeting with a spiritual director — let’s take a minute to clarify what is meant by the word “heart.” It’s a word that gets commonly thrown around, isn’t it? It can be easy for us to think the heart refers to something sentimental or overly feely inside ourselves.

But let me be clear: that’s not what Jesus meant by the word at all.

By “heart,” Jesus is referring to the absolute core of who you are.

The heart, as Jesus described it, is the place inside of us that holds what we know, feel, and believe in the deep-down places, even if those things contradict what we might say and even tell ourselves we believe, know, and feel. 

I love that our hearts are not a mystery to God. Although they may be a mystery to us, and although what we discover there may embarrass or repulse us, it never surprises or repulses God.

God is interested in our getting to know the truth inside ourselves so that we can bring that into real relationship with him. 

It’s in the truth that real relationship happens.

So, this short series has been offered as a place to start. We’ve talked about paying attention to those subtle intimations that flicker into our awareness but rarely keep or capture our attention for different reasons. We’ve talked about collecting and reflecting on key moments in our lives that made a deep impression or formed us in some way. We’ve talked about practicing prayer of the heart. We’ve even talked about therapy. 

Today, to close out the series, I want to offer one more suggestion that can help you attend to the landscape of your heart, become aware of what’s really there, and bring that into relationship with God.

This suggestion is spiritual direction. 

You may have heard of spiritual direction before and wondered what it is. Is it mentoring? Counseling? Some strange way of submitting yourself to an authority who tells you what to do in your spiritual life? 

It’s actually none of those things.

Spiritual direction, plain and simple, creates a space for you to attend to your relationship with God.

It offers space to reflect on how God has been present to you in your life, or perhaps to consider ways God has not been present in the ways you had hoped. It creates a place to notice and talk to God about these things. And a spiritual director is someone who provides a listening, discerning, compassionate, caring presence and gives you the room to notice and connect to God in these ways. 

I can’t tell you how helpful I have found spiritual direction to be in my own life. I’ve been meeting with the same director for several years now, and I am so incredibly thankful for the room she creates for me to notice, connect with, and talk to God. Even though I have a faithful prayer life and my faith is an integrated and vibrant part of my daily life, I still meet with her once a month (and sometimes twice a month) and plan to meet with a spiritual director for the rest of my life. I have found it to be just that invaluable a part of my life.

I’d encourage you to consider spiritual direction as a regular part of your life, too. And if you are looking for a space to simply talk openly and honestly about your relationship with God or concept of God and your interior life, you are welcome to contact me here. I’d love to provide such space for you.

Are you familiar with spiritual direction? Have you ever met with a spiritual director? Do you have any questions about spiritual direction that you’d like to ask here? 

Learning Your Heart: Sometimes Therapy Helps

Here is something true.

Once you acknowledge those subtle intimations and allow yourself time to collect and reflect on key moments in your life, a whole new and unexpected world begins to open up. You become more in touch with the breadth and depth of your story, and you begin to disentangle yourself from what is merely expectation versus truth. 

You strike out on the path of greater self-awareness, and here’s the difficult part: sometimes the path gets quite thorny indeed.

Who are we? What roles have we played in the world and the lives of those around us? Are those roles true? Are they healthy? What do we believe about God? How did we come to believe those things? Do those beliefs align with what is really true about God? These are just some of the questions that present themselves as we allow those subtle intimations and key moments a voice in our lives, and let’s be honest: these are great, big questions.

This is where I’ve found that therapy can be quite helpful. It creates a safe place to sift through the pieces of our lives with an eye toward greater self-awareness, conviction, and healing, and it provides for a safe and concrete relationship in which to take small steps deeper into the truth of who we are.

Sometimes the help of a trained professional can be the greatest, most generous gift we give ourselves. 

I have been there. It’s not something I’m ashamed to admit, nor is it something I’m shy to recommend. Making sense of our world and the truth of our inmost beliefs and deepest experiences on our own can be confusing and overwhelming, and sometimes we can do more harm than good to ourselves when navigating these waters on our own or only the help of well-meaning friends.

Therapy is not for everyone, and it’s certainly important to find someone who is competent, caring, safe, and professional for this kind of working relationship. But the bottom line is this: you don’t have to navigate the territory of your story and your heart all on your own.

What are your thoughts on therapy? Is it something you’ve found helpful in your own journey? Do you have misgivings or hesitations about it?

Learning Your Heart: Practicing Prayer of the Heart

One of the richest ways that I’ve learned to connect to the truth of my heart over the last several years is through what Henri Nouwen calls prayer of the heart. 

In his book The Way of the Heart (which I highly recommend — it’s a simple yet tremendous book), Nouwen distinguishes between prayer of the mind and prayer of the heart.

Prayer of the mind, he says, is what happens when we merely talk to God or think about God. Both of these activities are done from a place of detachment. We talk to God about things on our mind or things we’re trying to work out. This becomes a pseudo-form of prayer because we are, in effect, merely talking to ourselves. And thinking about God creates no engagement with God at all. What we think is prayer is more intellectual exercise or the creation of theological propositions. Who we are at our core has not shown up at all.

Prayer of the heart, however, is a different experience of prayer altogether. 

Prayer of the heart happens when the truth of who we are encounters the truth of who God is. 

How does that happen?

Nouwen gives us a helpful mental image of what this looks like. He quotes one of the desert fathers, who said:

“To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all-seing, within you.”

— The Way of the Heart, p. 73

What a great and helpful image this offers us! When I practice prayer of the heart, then, I actually imagine my mind descending through my body and landing every so slowly in the place of my heart.

My mind is often a jumbled, monkey-mind mix of thoughts and anxieties and projections and fears and to-do lists and questions, all colliding together and struggling to find any semblance of resolution or rest. But when my mind and heart begin to dwell together, the reality of who I am, in all my fullness, is present. The truth of myself is laid bare. I become aware of who I am and what is truly there.

And there, I find God standing before me, encountering this fullness of the truth of myself.

He sees me, and I see him. Here, we share a conversation.

We begin to engage in relationship.

Can you take a few moments and practice this prayer of the heart? Imagine your mind — everything within it — descending through your body and coming to rest in the place of your heart. Lay bare the truth of who you are in that moment. Then imagine the Lord God before you in that place. Allow him to see the truth of yourself, and allow yourself to look openly back upon him. What is this experience like for you?

Learning Your Heart: Reflect on Key Moments

Last week I shared that we’re going to do a short series here about how to get in touch with the truth of our hearts, so as to bring our hearts into greater authentic relationship with God. The first post encouraged you to acknowledge those subtle intimations that flit into your awareness on occasion, asking for your attention but which perhaps get pushed away quickly because they disrupt the status quo. 

Today, I’m going to invite you to begin collecting and reflecting on key moments. 

I’ll go ahead and warn you right now: this is a big one. Not only is this likely the most illuminating step you can take along this road to learning the truth of your heart, but it also probably takes the longest to do. In all seriousness, this process can unfold over a period of several years. 

Be patient with yourself. Be patient with the process. This is not a race. It’s a lifelong — and really, an eternity-long — relationship with God we’re about here. 

The purpose of collecting and then reflecting on key life moments is that those moments reveal what we’ve taught ourselves about life, ourselves, other people, and God. In those moments, we ingested experiences that became messages — usually at the level of our subconscious — about who we are and how life works. 

It happens in a split-second, but it leaves a life-long mark. 

In those moments, we got disconnected from our hearts. The messages became the main thing — the means to our survival — and our hearts got left in the dust. 

All of this sounds theoretical. What does it look like in real life? I’ll give you an example. 

Three key moments happened in the context of my childhood elementary school experience. One happened in first grade, one happened in second grade, and one happened in third grade. In all three instances, different classmates caught me off-guard in moments of real vulnerability and proceeded to humiliate, mock, or degrade me. 

Taken on their own, these moments may have taught me nothing more than the cruelty certain people can have in their hearts and wield upon others. But collectively, they taught me something much more substantial that I proceeded to carry with me for many years: I’m not safe. Stay on your guard. Don’t let anything catch you unaware. People are cruel. They will degrade and diminish you if you don’t keep them from it.

As a result, I cut myself off from vulnerability. I turned off the pain and turned on the super-attentive and watchful self. I proceeded cautiously through life. My mind became a whiz at crafting contingency plans and sizing up situations from all angles before letting myself proceed into them. 

I became a machine of sorts. 

We have to go back into the archives of our memories and start collecting those key moments. And once we collect them, we need to reflect upon them. 

What are those moments for you? How did they impact you? What did they teach you? How did they affect the way you lived your life from that point forward?