Welcome!

If you are here to explore working with a Spiritual Director, you may well be in the right place. Explore the site -- go to the GETTING STARTED (FAQ) page where many of your questions may already be answered; read the blog and listen to how you feel; follow some of the links to learn more; find out a little something about my background. If you'd like to contact me -- either to set up an appointment or ask a questions, there's a contact form on the right side of each page that you can use to MAKE A CONNECTION.

Most simply, though, the spirit of my practice can be summed up in these words (adapted from Robert Mabry Doss): For those who come here seeking God ... may God go with you. For those who come embracing life ... may life return your affection. And for those who come to seek a path ... may a way be found, and the courage to take it step by step.

Monday, February 18, 2019

The Great Question

If you have ever worked with a spiritual director before, or are doing so now, there's a question you've probably heard:

Where is God in this?

I suppose you could say that this is the question of the spiritual life.  Where is God -- in this experience, this relationship, this feeling, this crisis, this confusion, this moment.  I often try to describe the difference (in really general terms!) between a therapist and a spiritual director like this:

  • When you visit a therapist while in the midst of a crisis, let's say, the therapist is going to try to help you to understand it and/or to figure out how to get through it to the other side.
  • When you go to a spiritual director while in the midst of a crisis, the spiritual director is going to try to help you find where God is (where the Holy is, where the Sacred is, where Love is) right there in the midst of it all.

Hence, where is God in this?

A friend of mine from Japan once told me that there's no way to ask the question, "Where am I?" in Japanese.  He said that no Japanese person would ask a question with such an obvious answer -- "Where are you?  You're here, of course!"  According to this friend, the question you ask when you're lost in Japan is, "Where is here?"

Similarly, I suppose the question "where is God in this ...?" has a pretty obvious answer, too -- "Here!  Everywhere!" I guess, then, that what we're really asking is, "Where do you see, or where are you experiencing, God in this ...?"

This way of asking the question allows for an extremely common answer that some folks seem to think is an inappropriate one, no matter how true it is:  "Where do I see God in this?  Where am I experiencing the Sacred right now?  I don't!  God is nowhere to be found!"  That doesn't seem very "spiritually advanced" to a lot of people.  Maybe even you.

When the author of Matthew recalls the words Jesus spoke from the cross he includes these words in Aramaic, ""Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?"  The author of Mark remembers this too, that while Jesus was dying he quoted the 22nd Psalm -- "My God, my God ... why have you forsaken me?"

 If Jesus can look around and not see God, if Jesus can feel abandoned by that Holy Love which is the foundational reality, it should certainly be okay if you or I feel that same way.

 Pax tecum,

 RevWik
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