Every month, I sit in a chair, my phone beside me, as I dial a number in Auburn, Alabama. I wait until Julie picks up, and she quietly begins a Trinitarian prayer. I breathe deeply as the truth of who God is -- Father, Son, Spirit -- washes over me.
For nearly six months, just that simple act of another soul praying for mine has been incredibly humbling. It helps to have someone whisper the truth when you feel unsure of the truth yourself.
Last summer, while I was in London, I learned about the practice of spiritual direction. It's something I was vaguely familiar with, thanks in part to my brother's theological training and Jordan's own practice. He regularly meets with a priest in Tallahassee, and although I knew it was something that brought him peace, I didn't see myself engaging in the same methodology. (Distrust of authority, etc., etc., etc.)
While in London, though, I sat at the feet of Emily Freeman; her spiritual direction as we traipsed around England opened my eyes to this unfamiliar ritual. Who knew someone calmly and quietly asking you questions about your soul would be so meaningful and helpful and kind?
My friend Morgan -- who I also met in London -- uses the word tender a lot, and now I find myself using it, too. And that, I think is really what the act of spiritual direction is: tender.
Every few weeks, Julie and I meet to talk about my spiritual life. It is, in Julie's words, different from therapy, different from an annual physical. She is helping me think about my soul in the ways my doctor helps me think about my body, and my therapist helps me think about my mind.
It feels like other than maybe my parents and Jordan, no one has ever really checked in on my soul in this way. I don't think we talk about the soul like we do our bodies or our minds, and in the conservative Christian tradition in which I was raised, spiritual growth and soul care is really of the "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" variety. (It should be noted, by the way, that I am good at that version of spirituality. A checklist? Great. Homework? Awesome. Leave me alone to trust me to do my thing? Even better.)
With Julie, there are no bootstraps. There is rarely homework. Instead, Julie leads me in prayer, reminding me immediately of who God is. Afterward, we sit in silence for a few moments until I'm ready to proceed. That silence is awkward, because we cannot see each other, and I thought lack of facial recognition would make spiritual direction impersonal, unnecessarily challenging. But instead, Julie listens to my voice and to my breathing, and as it turns out, there's a lot there. And those few awkward moments of silence? They're often the only truly peaceful minutes I experience in my hectic, noisy days.
As I begin to tell her about my life and all it has held in the weeks since I've last spoken to her, Julie asks questions. She murmurs in agreement, in comfort, in thought. She points me to Scripture. She helps me see God everywhere, in country fusion classes (God's playfulness!), in long walks (Jesus' traipsing alongside the disciples!), in the chaos of my calendar (the Spirit's hovering over the unformed world!), in unkind criticisms (Jesus' naysayers!). I see Him places now I never saw Him before.
Growing up, some of the spiritual leaders I trusted most often insisted on keeping God within the confines of our church building, or within the parameters of our denomination. I never liked that; it never sat well with me. But in adulthood, when God began to feel absent from the church buildings I found myself in, I grew scared. If He wasn't there, where was He? Somewhere along the line, I'd lost the truth I knew in childhood, and it's Julie who helped me realize it again: He is in oh-so-many places. And over the past few months, when there has been discord and dysfunction and a serious lack of peace, I've been so glad to occasionally look around and find God at story time, or line-dancing at the country jamboree. Church, as it turns out, is also a lot less pressure-filled this way, because perhaps I've seen God throughout my entire week, instead of just relying on one equally-imperfect day or institution in which to find Him.
On Monday morning, I cleared off my dining room table and met with Julie. She prayed Father, Son, and Spirit. I held my hands open and sat and breathed. She asked me what was constricting my soul and where I've been able to experience freedom. She talked about finding God in my pain, but also in anticipating the good He might bring from it. We talked about Lent and social media, and we laughed a little, and I cried about unlearning some of the false narratives of God and self-worth I'd mistakenly picked up somewhere or another.
So you can see, I suppose, how the best word for spiritual direction is tender, how it is a truly vulnerable act, to crack open my soul and let someone else take a look. It is tender and it is hard and it is good, and it has saved my life many times over.
