In preparation for the upcoming meeting, we were all asked to write an essay about what spiritual guidance we are receiving to be a person of contemplation, a person of action, and a person who builds community. Here is what I wrote:
A few years ago my spiritual director noted I was
experiencing the longest dark night of anyone she had known. Any sense of God was fleeting and nebulous. My work at a national association had become
poisonous to my emotional and spiritual health, and I focused on surviving. I
saw no alternative, while yearning to be in ministry as a spiritual companion for
more than a few people.
Like many middle managers, a corporate restructuring two
years ago eliminated that work, and I was handed a three month severance
package. Within weeks I followed a newly
emerging curiosity about being a hospice chaplain. Doors quickly opened to my starting Clinical
Pastoral Education (CPE) as a volunteer chaplain. Within the first two units of CPE, I moved
through my grieving the loss of a career, while learning to be with those at
the end of life. My time with Kathy, my
spiritual director, turned from the desert of the dark night to surprise and
hope, mixed with anxiety and fear. As
Kathy wryly noted one time, God gave me what I wanted, though not the way I
expected.
Weeks after losing my job I was also invited to join the
SDI Coordinating Council, after being turned down just months earlier. It was affirmation in the middle of
desolation. I began integrating two
parts of my life that had been kept separate, applying over two decades of
experience as an association manager to a new and very different organization, SDI,
which has been central to my growth as a spiritual director.
Taking a third unit of CPE last autumn I explored the
differences and overlaps between the roles of chaplain and spiritual
director. Dan, my supervisor and I had
numerous discussions about when and how my responses pointed to one or the
other role. Dan challenged me to stop
asking questions because they led the other person to move into his or her
head. My image of how to be a spiritual
director has been deepened and challenged.
After that third unit Dan invited me to apply for a CPE
Chaplain Resident position for a 15 bed hospice facility. My first response was “Yes!” followed by an
immediate “Oh Shit!” Taking that to my
spiritual director, Kathy pointed out my resistance to the call, which I had
been unwilling to admit. I did apply and
will start in August, earning money after two years using up savings.
Now I am able to be more fully available and vulnerable
to those whom I companion. I am aware of
how much brokenness I experience with each person, each one seeking in her or
his own way, to know how to be in service to the broken world around us. The two years of deepening into my own
vulnerability, pain, and brokenness allows me to offer a safer place for those
I companion to express, name, and begin healing their own brokenness and pain. I am full of gratitude to be God’s presence
for them.
