Grounding + Becoming
A Spacious Wisdom Cross-Pollination
Listen for what’s already in you, the seed within reaching toward sunlight. Stretch into what only you can become.
There is no limit to what Wisdom will shine through to reach us. Silence, nature, art, music, words, and connection are some of the prisms through which the invisible may become briefly visible to our subtle senses.
What we will need for the terrain ahead is mysteriously sprinkled around us days, weeks, months, or even years before we actually need it. There is a resonance we cannot quite explain—a knowing that doesn’t seem to conform to our linear timeline and context.
We recognize it.
Father Bruno Barnhart distills the essence of Wisdom:
“If we require a definition, let us call it knowing: a knowing that is personal, experiential, and tending toward union with that which is known.”
Wisdom cannot be known with the mind alone; it ripens in us, as us.
You are known, and you know.
Wisdom practices help us fine-tune our senses and cultivate inner stability to be present to reality, even when it is hard.
Follow the threads that draw you and listen for what is stirred within.
Wisdom: A Knowing in Darkness
An Audio Read-Aloud on Wisdom Knowing. Listen from the inside, noticing what is stirred in sensation, feeling, and/or cognition.
Something Else: A Spiritual Director on Holding Obscurity & Disorientation
If you are in the thick of obscurity, holding inner tensions that cannot be resolved, or feeling disconnected from your deepest knowing. If you are disoriented as the sands of time flow through the hourglass at a dizzying pace and there is no rest in sight, please open to this possibility with me: a taste of something else may also be very nearby.
Tending Our Souls Collection, Part One
As social media is changing, algorithms are making it difficult to get the word out about what we are creating. I want to spread the word about cool things that are available to support us in this vital work of tending our souls.
Kirsten’s Reading List
I’m reading (and already recommending!) The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors by Lama Rod Owens.
Honest Offering: A Prayer and Guided Reflection
Prayer is fundamentally an offering of ourselves to God. It is not a matter of offering the pious thoughts of theologians or spiritual writers. Nor is it a matter of offering God only what we believe to be worthy.
Trauma-Supporting Spiritual Care
Have you noticed the concept of trauma coming up more frequently in the past few years? You are not alone; it is confusing. What do people mean when they use the word trauma in this rapidly-changing landscape?
Being Human: Beautiful and Ominous
Coming home to our bodies is about recognizing we are complex beings whose present-tense needs are worthy of time and care. These needs are not distractions, but rather, a portal to our deepest wisdom.
Tapestry of Wisdom: Prayer, a curated collection
As you follow the threads of wisdom in this post, and listen for resonance in your own soul, may you find comfort in this quote from George Bernanos, “The wish to pray is a prayer in itself.”
Tapestry of Wisdom: Enneagram, a curated collection
The enneagram came to me in a season when I was ready to take a look at the parts of me that I’d been afraid to look at. It was a tool that pointed to some tender spots within me that I didn’t have language for in a compassionate way.
To Christian parents receiving news that your child is gay
Here’s what I wish I would have known as a Christian parent before my child came out as gay.
Sorrow & Joy
A playlist for days we are holding the paradox of Sorrow & Joy. Naming and feeling our own pain reminds of our connectedness to others, in sorrow and love.
Tapestry of Wisdom: Grief, a curated collection
Whether we are grieving the loss of a loved one, a faith community, a dream, or a self-image, in attuning to our felt sense granularly, we bear witness to our experience.
On Poetry and Brain Rest
I was in a minor car accident a couple of weeks ago. Though not badly hurt, I received a prescription for brain rest. My doctor also suggested bundling up and going outside to be among the trees and birds. Nature as medicine.
Please Tell Me What To Do: The Gift of *Not* Receiving What I Thought I Wanted in Spiritual Direction
My spiritual director wouldn’t give in to my pleas for a narrow way. As I look back now, I see that in her wisdom, she resisted the human temptation to “fix” or “save” me.