Gentle Conversation, Deep Transformation
with Spiritual Director Teresa Tillson
Gentle Conversation, Deep Transformation
with Spiritual Director Teresa Tillson
The truly spiritual life is not an escape from reality but a total commitment to it.
~ David Benner
An Invitation to the Spiritual Journey
Welcome to those of you who feel restless, broken, depressed, cynical, anxious, or in pain. Perhaps you have come close to your own death or someone else’s, or experienced loss of job or love or security. Perhaps you desire something more and don’t know what that something is. Some of you have tried running from your pain into busyness, drugs, shopping, video games, work, divorce, obsessing over your children or any of the countless ways people use to avoid the invitation to go deeper. If you are lucky you are aware that these distractions aren’t working for you.
Congratulations my friend. Consider that you may be invited deeper into relationship with God and your own soul. This may feel like bad news. I felt that way when my spiritual advisor said, with a delighted grin, “Ooooh goody look what you found! Psychotherapy stuff!” Who me? No, no. I have nice parents, and a good education, and a good life, and that is for other less lucky and more (or perhaps less) virtuous people, not me. This was nearly 40 years ago, and the story is starting to get really juicy.
No one who is satisfied sets out on a spiritual journey. Some are propelled by great desire, others by dissatisfaction, and some by pure pain. Whatever propels you is your mighty friend, no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient it appears.
We have many names for this process. Grief, depression, anxiety, midlife crisis, and failing to grow up and act like an adult. And it may well be all these things. Here is one more name that could help. My teacher, Sister Ellen Stephen, suggested I was being invited on a spiritual journey. Of course it can feel more fleeing from an army of demons into any refuge you can hide in. The Hebrew people were pursued into the Sinai desert by the whole Egyptian army and one pissed off Pharaoh. Jesus was driven (Driven!) into the wilderness immediately after being baptized and having an ecstatic vision assuring him of God’s pleasure. What’s up with that!?
Rejoice and be glad. Great is your reward in heaven, for that is where you are being invited to go. By heaven I mean the kingdom of God that Jesus told us is right here and right now among and within us, not some other place, but right here and right now. You are being invited to become more fully alive. And like all places worth getting to the journey takes some effort and leaving your comfortable, familiar chair. It requires the willingness to start even though you can’t see the way and are likely to get lost more than once. Rarely does anyone get to heaven without a trip through the wilderness and encounters with big scary monsters you would just as soon not find.
Consider inviting your monster to sit down. Offer it tea. Ask its name. You could be surprised. I know I was surprised the first time I dared to turn and ask the dark, nameless, terrifying thing that clawed at my heart, “who are you, and what do you want?”
By all means avail yourself of every life-giving treatment you can find. Good food, exercise, medications, and psychotherapy have saved many, including me. In addition, consider that you may be called into the process of becoming a full-grown spiritual adult. Looked at this way the pain invites you on a journey towards greater health, not just finding whatever drug, therapy, or distraction will take the pain away.
Congratulations and welcome. This is a journey worth taking. Go gently my friend.