Everyday Boy

A Little Help In Seeing

I finally saw my spiritual director for the first time in a couple of months.  I've missed seeing him.  He reminds me of ways God has been present to me in the most surprising ways.  He encouraged me to use my imagination a bit more in my prayers and reflections, which I guess is a very Ignatian thing to do.

I also connected with a friend, Ivan who I know through one of my cousins.  He was in town from teaching English over in Japan.  He's a long-time resident of the Vancouver area, so he took me around town to look at different shops, stores and neighborhoods.  We ended up going for sushi and bubble tea afterwards.

And it took me 17 months and 3 major North American cities - but I finally saw a movie star walking down the street - Robin Williams.  Ivan had to point him out to me when he passed by us in front of the Art Gallery of Vancouver - otherwise I would have missed him completely.  I'm thinking I must have passed hundreds of famous people in New York and Toronto but probably just didn't recognize them!  We thought about following him like papparazzi with digital cameras in hand, but we did the polite Canadian thing and left him alone.

A Cup Overflowing

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down / Redeem the time, redeem the dream - T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday (IV)

I went to see my spiritual director again today.  I can't believe a month has past all ready.  I was a bit nervous because I felt like I didn't do much of the prayer work we discussed when I last saw him, but my anxieties we unfounded as I had another great session with him, and he ended up recommending a more suitable prayer discipline for me to practice, involving exercise and my love of nature. I appreciate the time I have with him because he creates a tangible space for me to breathe and sit for awhile in silent attentiveness to the presence of God. There is a heightened awareness as he helps me pay better attention.

Amidst the tensions that I brought with me, of being pulled by questions of how to live out my vocation and how to balance work, solitude, prayer, and all my circles of relationships, there came a picture of a cup overflowing. There came a sense amidst all the activity that I think is wearing me down, God saying I am more than sufficient; I am life over-flowing. So I found myself rejuvenated, knowing God provides me with more than enough, to faithfully do what is before me: redeem the time, redeem the dream.

What Do You Want?

There is within us all an unquenchable fire, a restlessness, a longing, a hunger, a wildness that cannot be tamed, a congenital all-embracing ache that lies at the centre of human experience and is the ultimate force that drives everything else.

Ronald Rolheiser

I met with my spiritual director for the first time after work yesterday.  We spent about an hour in good conversation.  I'm looking forward to spending more time with him.  He's very down to earth and easy to talk to.  One of the reasons I've sought spiritual direction is for discernment in regards to vocation and the directions I want to take my life in, in the coming year.  A prayer exercise he gave me was one in which I immerse myself in a gospel story and imagine the response I have to the question that is asked of me by Jesus.  What do you want?  So far I have had no answer, but I hope to practice this exercises to greater depths, and peel back the layers of my desire.

It turned out he was giving a lecture that night at the Vancouver Public Library, so I went to hear him talk about his book The River Within, with ideas centered around our living well with passion, and our living between the desires for belonging and uniqueness.  It was a timely talk as I struggle to find the place where I belong both physically and spiritually, and try to be true to my love of writing and social justice.

Spritual Direction

I finally took a step in finding a spiritual director through the Henri Nouwen Society.  Hopefully I'll have somthing set up as we begin a New Year:

How do we know that we are not deluding ourselves, that we are not selecting those words that best fit our passions, that we are not just listening to the voice of our own imagination?...  Who can determine if [our] feelings and insights are leading [us] in the right direction?

Our God is greater than our own heart and mind, and too easily we are tempted to make our heart’s desires and our mind’s speculations into the will of God.  Therefore, we need a guide, a director, a counselor who helps us to distinguish between the voice of God and all other voices coming from our own confusion or from dark powers far beyond our control.

We need someone who encourages us when we are tempted to give it all up, to forget it all, to just walk away in despair.  We need someone who discourages us when we move too rashly in unclear directions or hurry proudly to a nebulous goal.  We need someone who can suggest to us when to read and when to be silent, which words to reflect upon and what to do when silence creates much fear and little peace.

Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out