Lunch With a Contemplative, by Mary Lou Logsdon

But ask the animals, and they will teach you;  the birds of the air, and they will tell you;  ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;  and the fish of the sea will declare to you.  Job 12: 7-8

 Mary Rose O’Reilley was the guest speaker at Sacred Ground’s Eat, Pray, Give luncheon on May 12.  She described in lyrical prose her recent four month experience in the wilderness, a journey into environmental spirituality.

Her small borrowed cabin was on an island on Puget Sound.  She spent the winter months there—with the rain. At night she listened to the sounds of prey.  The cabin’s floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the “edge of the abyss”.

Like many seekers before her, she fled to the wilderness to pray.  The isolation of her location, without car, television, or radio, and limited internet and phone service, was further from home than a Washington state address would imply.

A portion of her time included work at an intentional community that shared the island.  She assisted in the clearing of invasive species.  The seasonal rain, gray skies, and deep silence led to an experience “downward,” like going into the sea, where, in the deep, creatures live without sight and without light.  An encounter with earth is an encounter with death, desolation, and recycled compost.  All earth returns to earth.

Initially, she was nagged by questions that she had packed along for the journey.  What to do about house and home?  Answers were slow in coming and the ever-present questions nagged.   She finally put them down.

Her initial panic, the jarring reality of the wild of the wilderness, gave way to a deep silence, a silence where there is lots of nothing. In retreat time we let go of the foreground of our lives.  We know where we’ve been, we don’t know where we’re going. In that silent space, without doing something, eventually something shifts.

Mary Rose’s retreat experience was interrupted when her partner, Robin, brought his fiddle and came for a visit.  The initial plans for a week’s stay expanded to a month, and then to six weeks.  Like a she-bear awakened, Mary Rose met her intruder with a fierce protection for space and silence.  She admitted that it is true that you can be a contemplative and a jerk.

Robin challenged Mary Rose’s ideas of who she was, what God wants, and what is next.  Conflict that was easy enough to manage at home took on a new immediacy.  Within their thirty-year relationship, Mary Rose had learned to speak out in conflicts that used to make her mute.  Now she practiced quiet, not in the original muteness of the victim, but in the thoughtful wisdom that reins in that which need not be voiced.  In such close confines, it was necessary to look underneath these wild feelings to see what was truly going on.  No easy escape.  And then surrender.  The last two week’s of Robin’s stay were calm.

After Robin left, loneliness, archetypal loneliness, set in, existential loneliness that is an inescapable part of life;  the loneliness from which we learn to breathe, expand and let go.  The third stage of her retreat experience arrived, and with it, grace.  She reminded us that one knows grace when it happens.

The universal religious experience is one of unconditional love.   We have to find out what it is we are in love with.  We slide in and out of two ways of being:  we can look with the eyes of the mind, or we can look with the eyes of love.  The latter transforms us.  In that, love is a place where something can be born.  How to see with the eyes of love and be grounded in the real?    We need to embrace the world like a lover, moving in and out of contemplative space.  We are created to be environed, to sense a ring around us, connected and protected.

The loneliness gave way to a sense of wild freedom.   She became indifferent to the big decisions she had packed along.  She felt entitled to pitiful stability.  Modern life isolates us.  Living amidst trees is like a child with elders, a secure knowing that deepens silence.

Speak to the earth and it will lead you.  Ask the animals and they will teach you.

Mary Lou Logsdon guides people into the silence through Spiritual Direction and Retreat.  She is located in the Twin Cities and can be reached at logsdon.marylou@gmail.com . 

Pause More, by Mary Lou Logsdon

Pause more.

I probably didnʼt need to go to Boston and the SDI (Spiritual Directors International) conference to know that, yet it is what rang out so clearly over the three days. Pause more.

The speakers and rituals centered on Cultivating Compassion. We can cultivate compassion through listening, practicing mindfulness, recognizing the interrelatedness of the whole of life, daring to heal the rifts that divide us. In our hurried, fragmented world we need the gift of compassion desperately.

The conference plenary sessions were led by John Phillip Newell. Our very own Rabbi Amy Eilberg was the conference spiritual director. Rabbi Amy paused with us to savor and break open Newellʼs picturesque words and story-filled wisdom.

Relationship, harmony, and love are the yearnings of the universe, as well as universal longings present in all of creation. We are all interconnected, interwoven, interdependent. The actions and reactions of each of us ripple well beyond what we imagine to be our limited sphere of influence. We are becoming aware of the interconnectedness of the universe. A new consciousness is breaking through many fields of study, including physics, biology, psychology, cosmology, and theology.

Newell paraphrased Aung San Suu Kyi from Myanmar (Burma). In order for us to help compassion grow, we must have the courage to see, the courage to feel, and the courage to act.

We must have the courage to see our interrelatedness even in the midst of the fragmentation that dominates so much of our world. This fragmentation is driven by: fundamentalism, which defines truth in hard-edged terms; the enormous changes we are experiencing; and a world view that sees the sacred as separate from creation.

We must have the courage to feel the pain that is a part of life. We must recover songs of lament, to feel the brokenness that is a part of life. Life is shrouded in pain. We cannot hide from it. We must name the falseness of which we have been a part.

We must have the courage to act. We must not give up hope. Hope and action belong together. The future has not been decided. We can be a part of that future. We pretend that we can love God and not the earth or each other.

To call upon this courage, we must have a spaciousness to our lives, a place of calm from which to see, to feel, to move into action.

What can I do today? Pause more.
Mary Lou Logsdon is a Spiritual Director and Retreat Leader in private practice in the Twin Cities. She can be reached at logsdon.marylou@gmail.com.

 

Finding Middle Ground, by Vera Snow

EDITOR’S NOTE: This entry originally appeared on verasnow.com, and is reprinted here by her kind permission.

Right now, my favorite network T.V. show is The Middle on Wednesday nights.  It’s about a blue-collar/middle class family living in Indiana that falls short of experiencing the American Dream one episode at a time.  As much as the middle-aged mother tries to rationalize and sanitize the reality of a life with little money, three outrageously different kids, and a “man’s man” of a husband, she finds herself humbled at the end of every episode.  Not humbled in a defeatist kind of way, but rather in a way that leads her out of her head and into her heart.  Basically, striving to find a balance somewhere in the middle.

She models the idea of letting go and surrendering to the many things (and there are many) in her life that are simply out of her control.  She is a heroine in so many ways, because she never ceases to look her life straight in the eye, call it by name, and embrace all it has to offer, including the very ugly.  No matter how much she thinks her life should be a certain way, she always comes to realize that her life may not be perfect, but rather great just as it is!

This is the kind of radical acceptance that I strive for on a daily basis.  To accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can, and respect the difference between the two.  A kind of Serenity Prayer practiced in the Twelve Step Programs, yet profoundly empowering to anyone trying to live an authentic, balanced life.

So often, especially during this technological age, we are taught to think our way through anything and everything.  Yet, we often forget that we are so much more than our heads.  In fact, we have a whole body underneath that head that is hardly ever tapped for insight, perspective, and wisdom.  Many times the body is ignored and left dormant. A Sleeping Beauty of sorts just waiting to be awakened and made whole.

Not unlike Frankie Heck, from The Middle, life can sometimes bring me to this awakened state.  Of course, I usually have to be brought to my knees first, laid out flat, and then — and only then — will I give up the fight and finally accept the situation at hand.  Not a fun process.   Gut-wrenching actually!

This kind of leap of faith goes way beyond rational thought and takes over my entire body in a way that brings me back to my instinctual self.  The self that can no longer explain or rationalize things away, and resigns itself to being tired and hungry.  Tired of thinking everything to death, and hungry for a simpler process that comes straight from the gut!

This is the middle ground that Frankie Heck comes to at the end of every episode.  Through the laughter and tears that accompany her and her family from one messy week to the next, she always seems to land steadily on her feet.  No longer in a wishful thinking state, but in a state of unfettered awareness that changes her from the inside out, and surrounds her with an inner peace that clearly shines through and exudes: All is well — all has always been well — and all forever well will be.

How about you?  When have you come to a radical acceptance of something in your life?  What was it like for you and what did you learn from it?

Vera Snow is, among other things, a mother, a spiritual director, and an author.  Follow her at www.verasnow.com

First Light, by Ammie Gronert

Spring is a time of increasing daylight.  TPT has been playing “Chased by the Light,” a program featuring the photography of James Brandenburg.  Hearing him talk about his photography and capturing the light is a contemplative experience.  It started me thinking about light.

Spring is a time of light. I look forward to longer days and more light!

I associate Easter with sunrise services.  Two decades ago, Holy Week began to include an Easter service on Holy Saturday, really an ancient service revived by churches that used liturgy.  I remember the first Easter Vigil service I attended.   The church was filled with flowers and the scent of Easter was there .  There was solemnity and beauty, and many readings not used at other services.  I loved it in theory, but it never seemed like Easter.  After the evening service, when I came out of the church, it was dark!  There was no morning light.

Perhaps I had been programmed as a kid to think of Easter as an early service.  I remember being a teen and going with friends to a sunrise service or singing in choir at all the services, the first being early.  That was Easter. It is also about the light.

First light… that is when we are told the women went to the tomb of Jesus.  Matthew says,   “after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning.”  Luke says, “at early dawn they came to the tomb,” and Mark says, “very early, when the sun had risen”.  It’s about light, but it’s about more than light.  It is about something new, something happening.  Nature symbolizes it again and again.  For me the symbol is first light.

The women at the tomb weren’t expecting what they found.  That

First light, seeing your way in what had been dark

Seeing your way in a way that had been no way

Seeing possibility when there seems to be nothing

Having expectations shifted and shifted again

To a new reality.

I am including a picture of Spider lilies, taken in Glacier at the break of day.  The black water surrounds the white flowers.  When I saw the picture I called it “Resurrection.  “ The photographer is my husband’s uncle who has taken many pictures in natural settings.  Spend time with it and see what this photo has to say to you.

 

Ammie Gronert, MA/PS is a spiritual director with Sacred Ground. 

Trying To Happen, by Jan Stanton

Recently, I spoke to a group on the topic, “Affirming Our Gifts.”  Gifts, I suggested, are more than talents.  Gifts include our passions, dreams, beliefs, values, wounds, strengths, limitations, energy, intuition, creativity, relationships, and hopes. The list could go on; all that we are and have experienced are gifts.

I asked participants to take a few moments to get in touch with their own giftedness, and share a gift or two with the rest of the group.  One participant shared her love of reading.  After she reads a good book, she shares her recommendations with others.  Another woman talked about the gift of encouragement, a gift she acquired when, at a difficult time in her life, she needed encouragement.   Now, she readily reaches out to encourage others.

Then one participant asked, “Do our gifts change as we get older?”  She raised an interesting point, and after some discussion, the group and I concluded that yes, our gifts can—and do—change over time.   As we age, we learn from life and acquire new gifts that were simply not available to us at a younger age.   Then I thought:  If we understood this, could it change the way we typically view aging?  I think it can.

We usually think of aging as primarily—or only—a time of loss, and it is true that there are many losses that accompany aging.  Some losses may not affect our lifestyles significantly; others are more serious, even heartbreaking.  But are there gifts we own now that we didn’t have when we were younger?  If so, might we perceive aging as not just loss but also gain?

So I was thinking:  Suppose I take a piece of paper and set up two columns.  The first column could be called “I could and now I can’t” and the second “I couldn’t and now I can.”    In the first column I might write:  I used to run eight miles.  I used to have more energy.  In the second column I might say:  I have more appreciation for the beauty of nature.  I’m a better listener.

Yes, I thought, our gifts change because we change.  In fact, I like to think that we change into our most authentic selves, and as we grow, our vocation—the sharing of who we are—changes as well.   I like the words of James and Evelyn Whitehead, who said that vocation “is who we are trying to happen.”

How long does it take “to happen”?  I’m certain it’s a lifelong journey.

 

Jan Stanton is a Sacred Ground board member, chaplain, spiritual director, and speaker to various groups on the topics of grief and loss, aging, caregiving and spiritual health.  She can be visited at www.jan-stanton.com.

Glimpses of the Divine, by Barb Keffer

In the Hebrew scriptures, mountain tops were usually a symbol of a meeting place with God.  In Mark 9:2-10, Jesus leads Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. The dazzling white of Jesus’ clothes, the meeting with Elijah and Moses, and the cloud, a symbol of divine presence, all would have indicated that God was communicating that Jesus was indeed the Messiah they were expecting.

We, too, catch glimpses of the divine, even if we don’t literally climb the mountain–holding our newborn child, an experience of liturgy or nature that helps us know we are connected with something or someone larger than ourselves, a call out of the blue from a friend precisely when we needed it the most.  One man, an engineer I knew, had an experience that didn’t fit into his logical categories so he forgot it for fifty years until he was in his eighties, and he shared it with me. Having the background of scripture with which to interpret our experiences does give us some categories or metaphors to help us understand our experience, and perhaps read between the lines a bit to see signs of God.

Before my husband and I moved to St. Paul in 1973, I had a mountain top experience that lasted about six months. In prayer and in community, I had a profound experience of being loved by God. With that experience, I became bolder in expressing love myself, and was in kind of a honeymoon experience with God, willing to go wherever God might lead us. I still, thirty-nine years later, speak of that time, and of our move to St. Paul, as almost magical.  I had the sense of God guiding our next steps as my husband Charlie was hired by St. Thomas College as Academic Vice President at the young age of thirty-one. Our move in a month was easy.  We cleaned out the attic in one night, and had fun doing it. We said goodbye to dear friends with deep affection, and left nothing unsaid. The day the moving van loaded our furniture  and we started our trip, the scripture readings at Mass were about Abraham’s call to a new land. We left our home with a real-estate agent to sell with complete trust it would be sold. And with what I could only call a miracle at the time, we drove from Scranton PA to St. Paul in two days, with four children under six in a Dodge Dart, with no one getting crabby. I can still remember the joy and excitement we all felt as we rounded Spaghetti Junction in St. Paul, and saw the sun glistening on the buildings of our new hometown.  We were welcomed by St. Thomas folks and allowed to rent a home owned by Macalester College until we sold our home in Scranton, and could find another here. Everything was easy.  It was the profound experience of love, joy, trust, and ease that said to me this must be of God.   Like Peter in the story of the transfiguration, I didn’t fully understand what was happening, but I wanted to build a tent, or do whatever it took, to hold on to this state. I thought perhaps it was a new state of being that comes from regular meditation.

Jesus tells Peter, John, and James not to tell anyone about the experience.  Before the mountain top experience Jesus had made his first of three predictions of his passion, only to find resistance in the disciples. They were still immersed in their cultural expectations of a Messiah who would come in power and glory. Only when they traveled the road to the cross and beyond would they have a chance of understanding what kind of a Messiah Jesus was.  Likewise, I had a resistance to the message that Disciples of Jesus need to be willing to take up our cross and embrace suffering. I could say the right words, of course, but I wouldn’t have been expecting this glimpse of the divine to be a permanent state if I, too, wasn’t resisting the message of the cross.

After getting a glimpse of the divine, Peter, James, and John had to come down from the mountain.  We do too.  My mountain top experience ended when the normal grieving that comes with a move set in, and I realized it would take time to build the depth of relationships with people that I had left behind.  Charlie’s work took him away from home more than his old job had, and the second move into a house we bought happened just as the fall semester started and his work load picked up. The work of unpacking all of those boxes amid four small children with no one to talk to started to get the best of me.  I remember knocking on a neighbor’s door, who I didn’t know but I saw had kids, and asking, “Will you talk to me?”  God doesn’t save us from being human.

Though Peter, James, and John didn’t fully understand what happened on the mountain, I suspect at some level it strengthened them for the road ahead.  I wonder if it also strengthened Jesus, or at least confirmed for him that he was on the right path.

And though I had to deal with the realities of grief, loneliness, and the sheer exhaustion of unpacking all of those boxes while caring for four young children, the memory of those six months of profound love and joy sustained me through the hard parts, and I never doubted we had made the right choice.   St. Ignatius says, when you are in consolation remember the desolation, and when you are in desolation remember the consolation.   One follows the other. God doesn’t save us from the human experience, but those glimpses of the divine can provide the hope that we are going somewhere good, helping us move through the suffering to be transformed by it.

Barb Keffer is a spiritual director and licensed psychologist. She is married with four adult children and five grandchildren.  She helps people reflect on their spiritual journey in her home in Roseville.  She can be reached at barb@keffermail.com

Praying With Your Eyes, by Diane Gardner

Once again, Lent snuck up on me.  We’re already a week into the season, and I’m still casting about for a way to mark this special time.  As I sat at my computer, staring into space and wondering what to write for this blog, I remembered a practice offered by a publication of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet several years ago.  It’s a quiet, gentle and yet profound way to be in the world and I decided this would be my practice this season.  I share it with you in hopes it may be fruitful for you as well.

There is an ancient form of prayer called benevolent gazing.  It is a wordless prayer and consists merely in looking with love wherever we look – at morning rising in ribbons, at neighborhood streets, at sun peeking through clouds.  Most of all, it means to look with love into human faces, those close to us whose every frown and smile we know, and those whose face we see but once this side of heaven.  Bathe the mail carrier, the grocery store check-out clerk, your partner, your neighbor, fellow drivers, and all you see with the benevolence of your caring.

Pray with your eyes today.  Bless the day freely given you and all manner of people you see wherever you go.  Bless every gift this day of, O amazing grace.  When night comes, sit a little with your heart and the blessing eyes of God.

Diane Gardner is a certified spiritual director and a Commissioned Minister for Spiritual Direction in the United Church of Christ.  She is Sacred Ground’s teacher coordinator.  She welcomes new people to her spiritual direction practice and can be reached at dianegardner@comcast.net

A Surprising Assumption, by Vera Snow

Editor’s Note:  Thanks to Vera Snow for her kind permission to let us reprint this entry from her blog.

Lately, I’ve been surprised through my assumptions.  I guess by this age, I thought I could assume a lot of things about life.  Luckily, this is not so!

Recently, I went to a two-day retreat and thought I knew what I was getting myself into.  Not exactly, but I thought I knew where this retreat would lead me next.  Of course, that did not happen.

Instead, I learned something surprising.  I learned that I have not forgotten how to play.  In fact, not only have I not forgotten how to play, but it is second nature.  I learned that “imaginative play” is like “coming home” for me.

Living in my imagination was not just about having fun growing up, but a coping skill I learned as a child.  A way to escape the chaos that surrounded me.  I could escape to different worlds and become different people.  For instance, I could spend hours playing on a simple log and turning it into a balance beam that would turn into an Olympic competition which would in turn win me the gold medal!  Of course, the irony at the time was that I didn’t consider myself “playing” but rather living out a reality that I wanted so badly to be true.

Fast forward some decades, I am asked to “play” again with some sand play figurines amongst a circle of adults and suddenly, I am home!  I didn’t skip a beat.  Those figurines came alive as if they had never left.  They spoke, laughed, danced and told me secrets as if we had never been apart.  It was amazing and surprisingly integral to who I am.

Will I continue to play with sand and little figurines?  You bet I will!  Every chance I get.  Once home, always at home.  I’m just glad I found it sooner rather than later.

How about you?  When was the last time you were surprised by an assumption?  What did you do about it?  What did you learn from it?

 

Vera Snow is, among other things, a spiritual director, a writer, and a mother.  Not necessarily in that order.  You may reach her at vera@verasnow.com

 

The List, by Merry Sawdey

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The following article appears in our current publication,  Join the Journey

During the time I was doing the Ignatian Exercises, an image came to me. God and I are sitting on a beautiful hillside on a warm, sunny day—the kind of day you dream of in February. God is sitting next to me in a lawn chair, legs stretched out, arms resting on the arms of the chair. I’m comfortably ensconced in my chair. There’s no place we need to go, nothing we need to do. It’s enough to sit here enjoying ourselves. I don’t have to prove anything, earn anything, justify anything, explain anything. I felt a molecular change come over me as I felt this image move through me—that God loves me right now, in each and every moment, knowing me inside and out, accepting me with joyful love.

I only came to that image when I understood that I could take anything to God. Anything. My anger, frustration, complaining and whining, judgments, blame and finger-pointing, resistance and stuckness, my arrogance and bullheadedness. All of it. I didn’t have to clean myself up and put on my prettiest ruffly dress to get an audience. This image is one of grace, and blasts away my beliefs about having to earn God’s love by good behavior.

As I began to take more of my difficult emotions to God, I realized how powerful it was for me to truly listen to myself and acknowledge the truth of my own experience. Some situations and feelings that had been stuck began to ease. I gained more clarity, more resources for ways to work with my swampy and stuck places. I gained more practice in letting go. Those of us in spiritual direction—giving or receiving—know the power and importance of listening. But it hadn’t occurred to me to collaborate with God in giving that kind of listening to myself.

When I go more deeply into the dark places, I can bring understanding, compassion, and even appreciation. Many times those feelings of resistance or stubbornness are resourceful aspects of myself that were trying to solve a problem or take care of myself in difficult times. Now, maybe I can see how a particular tool doesn’t work as well as I thought—or at all, but expressing gratitude for my own creativity and resourcefulness helps me to let go and move on. Sometimes I feel that it’s far more powerful to transform or tame a dragon than it is to destroy it.

Reflecting with God on these hard places makes it easier for me to let go, because curiosity and understanding help to diminish the grip of the darkness. And I came to realize that, sometimes, whatever I let go of leaves a kind of vacuum or empty space, like an empty shelf or freshly dug bed of dirt in the spring. Sometimes I’m able to breathe into that empty space and just feel the freedom of not being pole-axed by anger or judgment. Sometimes, though, I find it useful to ask, “What do I want instead? How do I want that space to be filled?” I think about feelings or qualities that I’d like to invoke that would fill the spaciousness, maybe with laughter or healing. I think of these qualities or feelings as aspects of God or human expression of the Divine.

I started making a list of these qualities: presence, whimsy, compassion, rhythm, freedom, honesty, wisdom. I compiled quite a list and continue to add to it as I find new words. I use this list in prayer each day to reflect on how I want to be in the world, what form my expression, work, and play might take. On a day I’m cleaning off my desk, I might reflect on the quality of release. On a day when our family is spending time together, I might consider whimsy, generosity, and laughter. I like to journal about what the word means to me, what resistance or negative feelings the word brings up. I find that some words, like simplicity, have both a light and a dark side. There’s the aspect of simplicity that feels clarifying, and the aspect that feels tight. On some days, qualities like humor or patience seem rather far-fetched.  Some words, like surrender and obedience, are difficult for me. And it’s not unusual for the nuance and connotation of any word to change from day to day, depending on my mood and perspective.

The practice, though, is to begin to choose the quality of my day, to listen for my desire, to ask God’s collaboration in creating a day where I feel awake and conscious and a creative participant in my response to the circumstances I encounter.

The step that is crucial is where God and I spend time reflecting on what is true for me in the present moment. I can’t skip over or ignore feeling tired or upset or frustrated. The creation of something new depends on knowing where I start. It’s easier to let go of the stubborn bits if I acknowledge them and honor them for the information they bring. It’s much easier to climb out of the swamp if I bring kindness, compassion, and insight to my reflections. As Mary Oliver wrote:

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.”

 

Merry Obrecht Sawdey is in the Spiritual Direction Formation Program at Sacred Ground. She is also a Kindermusik educator, writer, book artist, Godly Play teacher, and general enthusiast. She lives with her son, husband, two dogs, and two cats in Cannon Falls where, among other things, they foster dogs for Pet Haven of Minnesota. 

 

Driven Into Lent, by Mary Lou Logsdon

“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”      (Mark 1:12-13, NRSV)

The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. This was no limo ride with plush seats and oversized windows. This drive feels more like a can of hydrogen strapped to His body, propelling Him forward. Immediately. Now.

Iʼve been driven, dragged, and disciplined into Lent. I donʼt get a limo either.   I remember Lents when it felt like I was driven by an old rattletrap car, like the Studebaker Lark I drove the summer after my freshman year in college. It leaked oil and often overheated. The ride was slow, worrisome, and given to frequent stops and re-starts.

There were too many years when I was driven by a self-improvement list that was longer than a five-year-oldʼs letter to Santa. I have had years when the drive resembled a carousel, round and round and going nowhere.  While we are in the amusement park,
I can see the roller coaster drive too, lots of ups and downs with great relief as it comes to an end.

I have been driven into the Lenten wilderness by the mournful bugle call of “Taps.”  Someone or something has died and I am lost, sad, and alone. The dark welcomes me.  It is just what my soul needs.

I have even scheduled my own ride into the wilderness, like a taxi that picks me up for an early morning flight. I know I have decisions to make or demons to meet or fears to challenge. As Ash Wednesday approaches I reconsider, but the cab is on its way and I canʼt find the phone number to cancel. As I enter the wild, I slowly get out, pay the fare, and watch my cab turn into a pumpkin. No escape now.

Once I am in the wilderness, I start to notice signs of new life. Little green shoots appear under decaying leaves, rotting tree trunks, or lingering snow. As my soul adjusts, I sense new life elsewhere. The buds on the branches swell, the birds call for a mate, the streams gather melting waters. The winds bring fresh smells of renewal.

None of us escape time in the wilderness. It doesnʼt always match the liturgical season; it isnʼt often convenient. Sometimes we are accompanied by others. Sometimes we go alone. We do know since the Spirit is driving, the Spirit is with us, just as the Spirit waswith Jesus. I wonder how the Spirit will drive me into the wilderness this year. How might the Spirit be driving you?

Mary Lou Logsdon companions people through their wilderness times in spiritual direction. She also leads retreats focused on liturgical seasons and other topics. She can be reached at logsdon.marylou@gmail.com or 651-583-1802.