Category Archives: Practice

Jan 08 2024
Gratitude, Insights and Inspiration

Hope, Joy, Peace and Love in Each New Day

On this 7th day of the new year and Epiphany Sunday, I recall with gratitude the lighting of advent wreath candles…the celebrating of Christ’s birth…and the Three Wisemen following a bright believable star mile after mile to welcome and worship Christ, the newborn King. 

And so I share with you the following prayer for the year ahead:

Gracious Lord Jesus, 

There’s a hope that comes from being grateful for 

God‘s strength and consolation.

There’s a joy that comes from rejoicing in the hope of

God‘s unexpected invitations.

There’s a peace that comes from hoping against hope in 

God’s precious promises.

There’s a love that comes from seeking peace with God, 

and letting go of all the rest.

There’s a freedom that comes from welcoming a new year…

…trusting that the light of Christ’s hope, joy, peace, and love  

will guide us each new day. ~Amen and amen! 

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Sep 14 2022
Insights and Inspiration, Practice, Spiritual Direction, Supervision

Today, if your hear his voice…

Today, if you hear his voice…~Psalm 95

Has one line of Scripture ever stopped you from reading any further? 

Is “today” truly this day or the day the psalm was written?

What are the implications for “if you hear his voice”?

As a spiritual director, I am forever encouraging others to pay attention to what God is saying and doing in their lives. Listening to the Lord is not easy. And new each day you and I face the challenge of both hearing and responding well to God’s voice.

Our prayers often echo the psalmist’s pleas for help in recognizing God’s leading. In John’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples what to expect when listening for the Lord’s voice.

Let me set this before you as plainly as I can. If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen instead of going through the gate, you know he’s up to no good—a sheep rustler! The shepherd walks right up to the gate. The gatekeeper opens the gate to him and the sheep recognize his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice.  ~John 10:1-5a (MSG)

First there is an awareness of Jesus walking along the spiritual landscape of our lives with us. With patience and perseverance, a distant hope becomes a gateway for God’s goodness and mercy. As Jesus walks us right up to that hope, we will know its a place of beginning again because the opening is named “_your name’s__ way out.” 

I have no idea if today will be the day Jesus, our Shepherd, calls your name or mine. However, I do know today is a good day to begin again paying more attention to our Shepherd’s leading than the rustling of doubts and dilemmas. 

They won’t follow a stranger’s voice but will scatter because they aren’t used to the sound of it. ~John 10:5b (MSG)

Slowly and evermore surely, I recognize God’s voice as a benediction of familiar words of hope!
I pray you do as well.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. ~Romans 15:13


If you are a spiritual director, how can recognizing Jesus voice in your own life equip you to listen well to others?

If you have a monthly spiritual direction practice, how can your spiritual director help you face the challenge of listening to and responding well to God’s voice? 

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Mar 31 2022
Learn, Practice, Wisdom

Keep Vigilant Watch…

Keep vigilant watch over your heart;

    that’s where life starts.

~Proverbs 4:23

Day by day, I have been praying this proverb. If you walked into my house, you would eventually notice all the hearts and surmise correctly I was initially drawn to the word heart in this verse. In their own way, these decorative reminders help me pay attention to the stirrings of my heart. However, by the middle of the month I found myself pondering the phrase “keep vigilant watch.”

How do we keep vigilant watch over our hearts on a consistent basis? When I realized how many times a day I glance at my Apple watch, I decided to replace the message app with the heart monitor app. Now the little heart icon on the face of my watch keeps me more attentive to my feelings than to the number of text messages I have.

When I made this switch it never dawned on me I might really need the heart monitor. But just last week before the start of a meeting, I thought I was getting a phone call. However, the vibration on my wrist was so intense I immediately looked down to see my heart rate was 130 beats per minute. My anticipation of what might transpire was affecting my heart, mind and body more than I knew. I was so relieved when the words of this old familiar hymn came to mind:

Be Thou my vision / O Lord of my heart / Naught be all else to me / Save that Thou art / Thou my best thought / By day or by night / Waking or sleeping / Thy presence my light*

The health of our physical bodies, the quality of our emotional lives and the spiritual state of our souls begin and end with how well we pay attention to the beats and stirrings of our hearts. 

All spiritual practices start with being keenly aware of how God is at work in our lives. This awareness equips and enables us to live authentically and lovingly with God, ourselves and others. It takes courage to keep vigilant watch over our hearts. Madeleine L’Engle writes the following:

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are, to see through plastic sham to living, breathing reality, and to break down our defenses of self-protection in order to be free to receive and give love.**

To that end, may the Lord of our hearts help us to always keep vigilant watch over our hearts. 

If you are a spiritual director, how are you keeping watch over your heart so that you can help others do so also?

If you have spiritual direction practice, what are you keenly aware of that you can bring to your director to process?

*Mary Elizabeth Byrne, translator. Be Thou My Vision. (Public Domain, 1905)

** Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art (New York: Convergent Books, 2016), 58.

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Jan 14 2022
Gratitude, Practice

Simply Begin Again

As always, a new year begins again. And I am still reflecting on one particular Christmas letter. Initially, I was caught off guard by the authenticity of the young woman I met several years ago and spent time with before she moved to another state. Moreover, I am inclined to keep her letter at the ready to receive the gift of inspiration for my own practice of what the apostle Paul’s encourages in three short verses of 1st Thessalonians:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; 

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. vs.16-18

The following is a portion of the letter (I left out their names and the place). I invite you to consider how you would adjust to unfamiliar living circumstances.

We are entering our 4th year of living here! I still rely way too much on GPS to get around, and I am constantly surprised when I make it to my intended destination! (Honestly, this happened in California too! HaHa!) The weather still keeps us guessing daily, but the predictability of the season changes is just so magical to us. The crisp winters, the awakening of spring, lush green summers, and my favorite – the colors of fall! Seriously, it looks like the most amazing confetti when the leaves hit the ground! I sound just like a travel brochure don’t I!!?!…We do miss everyone in California, but I guess you can say we really have hit our stride this past year. Isn’t it amazing how life can surprise you like that? In 2020 we actually didn’t think we would last another year here. We realized that our original vision of what our life would be like here did not match reality. This was a hard realization, but we both decided we were going to change our thinking and adopt an “attitude of gratitude” for our space and surroundings. Well, here we are Happier!

I am amazed by this couple’s year long adoption of an “attitude of gratitude.” Most often I create a long list for whom and what I have deep gratitude. But this couple was grateful for one thing all year: the space and surroundings of their new home. It was intentional. It was life-giving. And like any spiritual practice, I am sure they had to do as Benedict of Nursia reminds us:

Always we begin again. 

This is a new way to begin again. Simplifying the practice of gratitude by giving thanks for one “thing” at a time be it a person, place, thing or even a pandemic can be life-giving. And I am convinced it includes being generous and gracious with ourselves to “always begin again” with the hope that we will be happier and even rejoicing always!

If you are a spiritual director or in spiritual direction, consider how simplifying gratitude might be incorporated into your spiritual directions sessions?

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