what is spiritual direction?

what the heck am i doing? what is spiritual direction?

take on spiritual disciplines.

spiritual disciplines.

the fall.

.... a really good marriage is just as costly as a genuine interior life with God. it is probably almost as rare, too, and for the same reasons. This is why others ... have seen real human love as the essential road to God for most people. We learn in flesh and blood circumstances the real meaning of love; we also discover that even the deepest human love leaves us somehow incomplete unless it is rooted in God, who can ground a love which is total self-giving and survive beyond death. (pg.122)

prayer is the loving that flows from a deeper and deeper knowing (pg. 91)

i had to learn to seek the God of consolations and not the consolations of God. (pg 104)

the joy of experiencing God in prayer is not an end in itself, but is the water by which the virtues are strengthened and brought to full flowering. -pg 77



-quotes from the book: "when the well runs dry," by thomas green.


why...am i so blessed to have studied these words and thoughts? how overwhelmed my heart has been from all the books and ideas i have contemplated and taken in the past few years. may i let them sift through me and impact my heart the ways in which you desire, Lord. one cannot go unchanged though this process... soften my heart to your hands that desire to shape and form me to be and experience things more fully and humanly. may we have eyes to see the water that may be trickling in our souls which point to a promise of the abundant springs of life promised to us. may we hold to that hope those abundant springs exist and not become content with the mere trickle. teach us to be with you...and not seek you for merely consolation.

“Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure”


“Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity.”

“For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.”

-henri nouwen

crazy.

i realized something today. i realized how much i've matured in the past three years. yes, my friend kate informs me that my boobs have grown. but... i also mean matured internally. i haven't yet, 'arrived,' as one never really does. but, i have moved in significant ways towards becoming more differentiated. meaning...i don't get my identity based off others perceptions of me. i had made all these walls around me so that no one could touch me. but, that meant i really only felt myself behind closed doors. that's when i felt like no one was grabbing at me and pulling me towards their expectations of me. but, now i find myself standing up for my self. i have a better understanding of who the "person" that is my self is. i can say no. i don't have to respond uber nice to people all the time. is that the mark of a mature christian? uber niceness? i think not. my mind is spinning... but in a fascinating way. i am sad for all those people i've hurt in my past as i heaped these impossible expectations upon them. sin is quite a deep and detrimental thing. life isn't as black and white as we sometimes hope. maybe in the situation no one is right...or wrong. how can that be? i'm not sure. but, i do know that God is with each person in the midst of it. not making everyone "feel better," and "look nice,".... but in relationship with each person. in the deep with them. can we experience this? are we venturing to those places with him? what does this look like? what am i talking about?


“When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope” -nouwen