Sixth Visit to the Spiritual Director

On Friday, I went for my sixth visit to the spiritual director.  So far, every visit has been somewhat different, so I try to go without expectations.  Each time we begin with prayer, and this time, we used a guided meditation app on my spiritual director's phone.  It was lovely.

The meditation asked us to think about times we had been afraid, and we discussed that idea.  These days, it's easier to make a list of what I'm not afraid of than of what makes me scared or anxious if I let myself really think about those things.  

The meditation asked us to think about God's protection, so we talked some about that.  In the past, we've talked about my belief that God is not a fix-it God.  I don't believe that if we just pray hard enough or in the right way, God will put everything to rights.

My spiritual director also knows that I want to fix everything for everyone, so we talked a bit about my intense need to fix, coupled with my belief that God doesn't have that same need.  I admitted the contradiction.

We talked about anxiety in other ways too.  I said that I could see myself getting anxious and worked up, and I could usually talk myself back from the edge of anxiety, but so far, I hadn't learned how to not let myself get anxious in the first place.  We talked about how having the anxiety feels like I've failed.

I suggested that I use it as a way to remind me to pray, to get centered again.  We talked about anxiety being like a cathedral bell, back in the days when cathedral bells rang regularly throughout the day, a bell tolling to remind us to pray.  We both agreed that we liked casting the anxiety this way--not as a personal failing, not as a reason to beat ourselves up, but as a cathedral bell tolling to remind us of a better way.

I have used that idea in at least one or two poems, but it's not original to me.  On Friday, I couldn't remember the poem that had first inspired it.  Could it have been the one about "Ask not for whom the bell tolls?  It tolls for thee"?  No--the one I'm remembering is Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," near the end, where the speaker snaps out of the spell of the nightingale's song:  "Forlorn! the very word is like a bell / To toll me back from thee to my sole self!"

We closed by comparing notes about where we are in our getting certified to be spiritual directors.  I had thought she was done with her program, but I think she's only just now finishing.  That's fine with me; I like having a spiritual director who's just a bit ahead of me.  And of course, she's been a pastor for most of her career, so this kind of mentorship isn't a brand new thing for her.

We ended with prayer, as we always do, and I made the long drive home.  As I drove, I let myself enjoy the peace that comes with this appointment that I keep.  And the lovely thing about a Friday afternoon appointment is that the peace lasts into the evening and through the next day.