Seventeenth Visit to the Spiritual Director

I had Thursday off for Yom Kippur, so I rescheduled my August meeting with my spiritual director for that day.  And Thursday, off I went.  As always, the drive down and back is the most onerous part, and Thursday's drive home included flooding rains on the Turnpike, which makes the drive even more stressful.  Still, it was a good session.

We began by me bringing her up to date with what's been going on.  I told her that I return often to her wisdom about me being on my journey and others being on their journeys, and if I try to intervene and fix too much, I'm interfering with what they need to learn.  I told her that during the last 6 weeks, I had returned to that wisdom again and again, particularly with my spouse, who is not as overjoyed at the thought of selling our house as I am.

She asked me how I'm praying about it all, and I described my morning walks.  Then we talked about my seminary classes, the area that's bringing me the most unadulterated joy these days.

She was particularly interested in the spiritual formation class that I'm taking and the ways that it is similar to the classes that we've both taken to be certified spiritual directors.  We spent a lot of time talking about Covenant Discipline Groups, which is an integral part of the seminary class.  It's a group that takes on certain covenants to be faithful, like weekly church attendance, and meets weekly to hold each other accountable.  We talked about the ways that kind of class might be useful in a parish setting.

As we came to a close, I asked her about whether or not she would be at the upcoming WELCA retreat, and even though she's not attending, we talked about how we would interact if our paths did cross in that kind of setting.  She said she would leave it up to me as to whether or not I introduced her as my spiritual director.

We ended our session, as we always do, with her praying out loud for me.  It's becoming one of my favorite parts of our sessions.  

And I know that she continues to pray for me between our sessions, which is also something I treasure more and more.