Spiritual Direction

This poem came from my dear Celtic Christianity instructor, Tom Cashman. It was written by Carol K. Everson, who dedicated it to Lin Cashman, her Spiritual Director. If you are curious as to what can occur in a Spiritual Direction session, then this is for you...

Spiritual Direction

She traces the sign of the cross
with oil on my forehead.
She blesses me in the name
of all the God names that we share,
a triple trinity born of past analogies,
metaphors, and hard-won truths.

Then she listens,
deeply, completely, thoroughly,
as I ramble on about the things
that God has done and shown
and not done and hidden,
saying things I didn't know I knew
about things I didn't know mattered.

She asks a a question: "What is God trying to tell you?"

Yet again, I have forgotten to ask the obvious.
And the simple questions are the hardest to answer.
I glance at the small altar with the picture of Jesus.
I look out the window at a varied thrush
drinking from a terracotta bowl.
What is God trying to tell me?

She waits as silence spreads ever outward
engulfing the whole world.

Absentmindedly, I wipe my brow,
surprised to feel the fragrant oil-slick.
Now I know!
God is trying to tell me that,
even if I never know the answer,
even if I never remember to ask the question,

I am blessed.

Carol K. Everson