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.
Listening for Inner Wisdom Artfully
Here’s a spiritual practice to support you in listening for inner wisdom by creating and being curious with wisdom collages.
What Does It Mean to Go Slow?
Explore what it means to go slow with this evocative image collage. What does it stir in you?
The Guest House by Rumi
Helena Bonham Carter reads Rumi’s The Guest House. What does this welcoming poem stir in you?
Dysregulation as Prophetic Voice
Dr. Shannon Michael Pater’s trauma-informed perspective is helping me look upon my experiences of dysregulation with greater compassion.
Make Way for a Breath of Fresh Air
Sometimes an image or phrase can help us gently help us excavate this wisdom (like an archaeologist, not a construction worker!). Here’s a practice to experiment with.
Contemplative Curiosity: Praying Our Experiences
Praying our experiences means being open to seeing ourselves as we are. This requires an awareness and an honesty that will root us in our actual daily life.
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?
It Can Renew Your Faith in the World
Sometimes an image or phrase can help us gently help us excavate this wisdom (like an archaeologist, not a construction worker!). Here’s a practice to experiment with.
Everything is Going to Be Alright
What words shimmer for you in this poem by Derek Mahon? What arises in you as you hold those words?
Living Centered at the Intersection of Trauma & Spirituality
“You’re able to begin to notice that God speaks to us, God comes to us in our experience, that God becomes known; God becomes flesh in our everyday experience.” - Jonathan Merritt
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.
Please Come Home, a poem by Jane Hooper
Here’s a poem about coming home to ourselves, to inner wisdom — not as an end in itself, but as the place we perceive the ways we are interconnected.
Felt Sense: A tool for noticing + naming our body’s wisdom
Here’s a tool I use in my life and my trauma-informed spiritual direction practice often. Naming our felt sense of something helps us connect with the wisdom of our body.
Why trauma-informed spiritual direction?
What do I mean when I say “trauma-informed” spiritual direction?
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.