As the new year gets underway, I’m looking forward to beginning another year of spiritual direction.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, spiritual direction is a partnership in which one Christian helps another grow in a personal relationship with God, usually through regular one-on-one meetings. The meetings are tailored to each individual’s needs and can include anything from scripture study, prayer and reflection to discernment, goal setting and accountability. My husband Pete and I have been working with specially-trained Dominican Sisters. It’s important to point out that, for us, spiritual direction has been a supplement to – rather than a substitute for – church. 

Several factors led me to seek such direction – the transition in focus and priorities prompted by my retirement; the “time is limited” epiphany that comes with aging, losing loved ones and developing chronic health problems; and the internal tug-of-war over my personal values brought on by the increasing divisiveness and polarization in our society. When Pete saw how much I was benefitting from the process, he decided to embark on a spiritual direction journey of his own.

I can’t help but regard this decision as a “God thing” that came at exactly the right time for us. Since beginning spiritual direction, Pete and I have lost what feels like an unbearably long list of loved ones. COVID-19 upended our lives relentlessly for the better part of two years. Just as everyone else was emerging from the pandemic, we got hit with a stage 4 cancer diagnosis (Pete) and the aftermath of a heart attack (me). As we struggled to cope with a world turned upside down, spiritual direction proved to be exactly what the doctor ordered.

Where I’ve been

I began my own spiritual direction journey by learning how to address those pesky doubts about God’s existence that creep up from time to time – mostly by going outside and immersing myself in nature, which constantly reassures me of the presence of a Creator. I’ve also explored a variety of prayer techniques ranging from meditation, prayers of petition/intercession, prayers of thanksgiving and nature prayer to writing, photography or journaling as forms of prayer.

After about three years of spiritual direction, Pete and I decided to try something completely new and became Dominican Associates – lay people who embrace the Dominican Sisters’ traditions of prayer, study, community and ministry. Associates may undertake individual volunteer ministries in their own churches/parishes and communities, or they may join the Sisters in their ministries by providing logistical support. As the Dominican Sisters told us during our training sessions (and I just love this): Associates “respond to God’s call to share the Gospel by preaching it through the witness of their lives.”

One of the Sisters’ activities that proved particularly attractive to Pete and me was their efforts to combat racism, and we decided to join their anti-racism task force’s Associates Committee. Our involvement in this group, which brings together people of different races to discuss how to address racism both in ourselves and in our society’s institutions, has proven to be an amazing learning experience.

Another of my commitments as an Associate has involved doing my part to preserve and protect the environment through my own habits, such as better recycling, environmentally-friendly gardening and lawn care, creating flower beds for pollinators and reducing our household’s use of fossil fuels. We’ve had extensive landscaping work done – turning our flower beds into a welcome center for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies. As a bonus, the yard is looking beautiful! I like to think of this project as “God’s work, our hands,” and have found gardening to be enormously therapeutic.

Other goals I’ve worked on as part of spiritual direction have included taking a more intentional look at our finances and investment decisions, and – of all things – decluttering.

Our financial “inventory” started with Pete and I updating our wills and power-of-attorney documents, something we’d been putting off. Then we established a donor-advised fund with our local community foundation in honor of Pete’s parents and mine, and have begun making small grants to community organizations that address food insecurity, social justice issues or environmental causes. We also engaged a faith-based organization whose financial advisors are helping us find investment opportunities that match our values.

Decluttering may seem like a trivial goal in the face of everything else we’re dealing with right now, but when the house is a mess, the rest of my life starts to feel unmanageable. Taming clutter is one small thing I can do to feel less helpless when life gets chaotic. My first spiritual director recommended I devote one hour each weekday to sorting through the physical clutter in our house. Alas, I still haven’t achieved my dream of a perfectly clean house with a place for everything and everything in its place, but our house does stay looking at least presentable most of the time.

Where I am now

I like to think of 2024 as a “year of emergence” for us. After what seemed like an endless siege of homebound isolation – first because of the pandemic and then because of our health issues – we’ve been able to return to in-person church services and get-togethers with family and friends, and we’re up to our eyeballs in volunteer commitments.

We help keep our church’s micro pantry filled with food we either buy with generous grant money or pick up from food drives conducted by various civic groups around the community. I’ve taken on the role of chairing our congregation’s community service committee, and I’ve been asked to serve on the church council beginning in 2025. We’re about to begin our fourth year of leading Sundays@6, an adult faith formation class which meets on Zoom. We’ve continued our involvement in the Dominican Sisters’ anti-racism associates’ committee.

While self-care, by necessity, continues to be a major overriding concern, I no longer think of “self-care” simply in terms of buying myself a new outfit or spending a day at the spa. It’s meant putting together a competent medical team and learning to be assertive with health care professionals. Over the past year, we’ve assembled a good medical team that can help both of us get the ongoing physical care we need. We’ve also worked on making our home more handicapped-accessible.

1 Corinthians 6:19 reminds us that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and my recent medical adventures have sent an unmistakable message that I need to take better care of mine. My heart – quite literally – is telling me I really, really need to establish better eating habits and a sustainable exercise program, which can also help nurse Pete back to health as he joins me in these things.

I’ve made “emotional health” a priority as well. One might say this was the year I took off the pasted-on smile. In the aftermath of the pandemic and our medical issues, I struggled to establish new routines and ward off exhaustion, depression and despair. Serenity and gratitude are great, of course, but I’ve decided what I really need is to be in touch with all my emotions. Being able to acknowledge when I’m not fine and to reach out for help is essential.

Given our ongoing medical issues, I’ve slowly begun to accept that our lives aren’t going “back to normal” – that is, pre-2022, let alone pre-pandemic – anytime soon. If ever. So how do I continue to keep my most important priorities front and center in the face of our changed reality? Given the nerve-wracking unpredictablity Pete and I live with these days, and the frequency with which my priorities end up sidelined or completely hijacked, I’ve asked myself this question more than once: “Is it even worth it to have priorities, set goals or plan ahead at all?”

It has helped to remind myself that recent years have seen worthwhile accomplishments, despite the barriers created by the pandemic and our ongoing health issues. We’ve continued spiritual direction. Created pollinator beds in our backyard. Set up the donor-advised fund with the community foundation. Led the adult faith formation group at our church. Participated in the anti-racism task force. Maintained my blog and continued to work on my book.

Perhaps the biggest challenge has been learning to live with uncertainty as I adjust to the limitations posed by medical and disability issues, seek appropriate help, and learn to appreciate those ordinary days one day at a time in the face of not knowing what’s coming next. I’ve leaned on the Serenity Prayer more times than I can count: “God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

When facing uncertainty, the Holden Village Prayer of Good Courage has also been especially helpful: “Oh God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Where next?

So what’s ahead as I continue my spiritual direction journey in 2025?

In previous years, I’ve tended to create a fairly lengthy list of goals – lists that got seriously hijacked as health issues intervened and dominated our lives. My spiritual director has suggested I select no more than one or two areas to focus on – much more realistic, I would agree.

Okay, so I came up with three goals rather than one or two. But a couple of them are a continuation of things I’ve been working on already. Here’s where I want to focus my attention in the coming year:

Emotional and spiritual health. Because our physical health issues at this point are chronic rather than curable, keeping our heads above water is going to present a challenge for my husband and me going forward. Nevertheless, we want our lives to move from merely surviving to thriving. Hopefully, with God’s help, our continued spiritual direction work can be a key part of making that happen.

All three spiritual directors we’ve worked with so far have coped with cancer and other debilitating or disabling chronic conditions, and it has been inspiring to see the ways they’ve been able to contribute to their communities in spite of their challenges. Our first two spiritual directors are now, sadly, deceased. But they continued to do God’s work right up to the end, and Pete and I have been impressed enough to say to each other, “We want to be like that.”

My writing. I also want to focus more sustained attention on my writing, especially my book-in-progress. From age 10 onward, I’ve dreamed of writing a book. Almost 60 years later, that goal is … still on my bucket list. I have nearly two dozen excerpts written and need to stay motivated so I can make real progress on the book. I want to keep working on my blog. I’ve known since grade school that writing would play some role in my life’s purpose, whatever that turned out to be. I do consider my writing ability to be a gift from God that should not be wasted. 

Discernment. Finally, I want to focus more attention on the discernment process that led me to embark on this spiritual direction journey to begin with. What is God’s purpose or plan for my life going forward? How do I live my life in a way that is consistent with my beliefs and values? What are my own beliefs about the hot-button issues that consume our nation’s culture warriors? What is my role as a Christian in fighting or mitigating society’s problems and political battles?

From the beginning, I have been questioning all kinds of dogma, from the spiritual and religious to the political and ideological. This “deconstruction/reconstruction” work started with questioning a lot of things I thought I knew, along with beliefs and values other people – whether liberal or conservative – want me to hold. I want to continue developing a belief/value system that both my rational mind and my conscience can accept, rather than simply parroting a set of values and beliefs that will let me fit in chameleon-like with my peers.

This discernment process has gotten sidetracked several times, so I do want to make an especially conscientious effort this year to overcome my inertia – and fear, perhaps – so I can stay on track in this vital area.

Whatever happens in the days, weeks or months ahead – especially with our medical issues – I’m asking God for courage, wisdom, healing and hope for both Pete and me as we move forward. Meanwhile I can remind myself, in the words of the 23^rd Psalm, “I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”