What are you looking for?

My first spiritual director was Renee. It took her and I quite a while to connect. I was enrolled in a program at the seminary I attended that required that I seek out a spiritual director, but I found that it was a complicated process. The first person, I simply couldn’t afford on my student income. The second person only wanted to talk about praying the “correct” way, which wasn’t a fit for my personality. But Renee…. Renee was amazing. 

Each month, Renee invited me into her home for over nine years. She would ask me the powerful question, “how is it with your soul?” and as the words unraveled all that was taking place in my soul, she would follow that question up with “where do you the Spirit moving in all of that?”

Renee retired a few years ago, at the age of ninety. I am now blessed with another fantastic spiritual director who seeks to help me go deeper into the interior of my spiritual life. 
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At its very core, that is what spiritual direction is. A place to be in a relationship with another person or people who help you recognize and respond to the voice of the Holy within your life - right where you are at this moment. 
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In worship on Sunday, we talked about the question that Jesus asked his first followers in the Gospel of John - “what are you looking for?” The truth is that we may not really know the answer to that question right away. But spiritual direction is a place for us to return to that question, again and again, peeling away the layers and finding the core of who we are in relationship to the Divine.