I am weary and tired. It seems like only yesterday summer was just around the corner and now I’m looking at it through the rear view mirror. It was a good summer, a busy summer, but it was a summer where I haven’t taken the time to sit and be still. I know most of you won’t be able to understand my enjoyment in this but I was able to spend over three hours this morning simply sitting in my overstuffed office chair, listening to the storms roll through and pondering the things that God has been stirring in me over the last nine months. Three hours of quiet pondering time. What a treat. Just me, my thoughts and God. Oh, and coffee too!
In the last twenty years I have had a number of key extended periods of time where God has done some significant transformational work in me. We all have those key moments or events but what I’m talking about are extended periods of time of a year or more where the transformational process unfolded slowly and the transformational changes fused into my being. In the mid-1990’s my lessons learned were about trusting God and stepping out in faith. In 2004 the lessons were about identifying and living out the things that I said I believed and valued. It’s been in these last 8 or 9 years that it seems that I have almost been in a continuos time of transformation. Perhaps it hasn’t been so much about transformation, rather it’s been about identifying the person God has intended me to be. I have blogged about the beginning o
f this time and a stupid sheep. Who would have thought that God would use my response to a blog posting about a stupid sheep to send me into an almost decade long transformational process. I also have numerous blog posting about the other transformational moments in the pas 8-10 years.
In short this past decade has been about doctoral studies, the contemplative life (whole new vocabulary), spiritual direction, clearly identified life purpose/meaning/mission statement, a few ah ha moments, teaching, ministry, and training to become a spiritual director myself. Now that I have bored you with the context, if you are still with me I will be focusing on the last nine months and my spiritual direction training. You see this brings me back around to where I started, I’m tired and weary. Actually I have coined the term contemplation fatigue to describe my current state of being.
In January I began a year long online spiritual direction program through CenterQuest. We began with a week long residency in Malibu in early January and will wrap things up with a closing residency in LA right after Thanksgiving. Between these two residencies we have been doing a lot of reading, learning and reflecting (contemplating). I’ve learned new techniques and spiritual practices, how to listen, pray, and be still. As a natural contemplative this was all wonderful. I was gaining a new vocabulary to describe things that I have been doing for years but didn’t really know what to call it. It has been a wonderful adventure. At the same time, I have spent the last 8+ months contemplating and haven’t had the space to process all the things I am learning about myself thus leading to my contemplation fatigue and weariness. I’m not complaining, well ok maybe I’m whining just a bit, but through this all God has been revealing to me who He sees me as and who He wants me to become.
Out of all my ponderings I have discovered two new (now able to articulate) characteristics of who God has created me to be. One is a discovery of my contemplative voice. This is reflected in how I pray, how I ministry, how I view life, and how I tend to my relationships. I think the biggest thing about this discovery is simply being comfortable in being a contemplative in my current faith tradition. I see part of this voice as being one who translates the contemplative practices into practices that are better understood in my evangelical setting.
It is out of this voice that I am building The Sojourner’s Garden ministry that has been simmering for over 20 years. This ministry is designed to give people a place to come and be still in the middle of our busy metropolitan center. My desire to create an environment where one can come and tend to their soul and listen to that still small voice of God that at times can be drowned out by the noise and business of life. I taught a class this summer on Soul Care and had a dozen seminary students take the time to be still and allow God to minister to them. I want to be able to bring this some soul care to others. In conjunction with this is the ministry of spiritual direction where I find great joy in coming along side others and helping them hear what it is the Spirit is saying to them. To help them process what that still small voice of God has laid on their heart.
Even now as I write this I am realizing that there is only one theme that has come out of my months of pondering. It is the discovery of my different voices. The contemplative voice describe above is not new but I can now better articulate it but the other new voice has taken me my surprise. That voice is an artistic voice. To be more specific it is the voice of a glass artist. Erwin McManus in his book The Artisan Soul suggests we all have a creative side. Well, my creative side is coming out in glass art. I have had trouble making the connection as to why these two things were coming forth out of my ponderings. A couple weeks ago while processing these discoveries with my spiritual director I was able to connect them as both being invitations to the other to focus on God. It is my desire that my glass art draws people into the scared through the visual and the stories that go with it and that my contemplative voice offers people a safe place to be still with God. What I am seeing now is that I am developing one voice with two different – I don’t know dialects, vocabularies, languages? – but the same invitation to draw close to God and focus on Him.
So I guess that is why I am tired and weary. I have brought forth two new voices, well one voice with two distinct tones and a single simple invitation to take the time to sit and be still and focus on the invitation from God’s gentle whisper. This is as much a message to myself as it is an invitation to other to set aside the time to see what God’s invitation to you is.
