How being a mother prepared me to become a spiritual director

Propped on a narrow ledge opposite the desk in my study are a photo of my husband in the Highlands from our first trip together; a postcard from the Prado; quotes from Ignatius Loyola, Flannery O’Connor and Edith Stein; an icon of the Madonna and Child. But the most precious article by far is a tattered 6-by-9-inch paper, its bottom right corner dog-eared and the decades-old blue fountain pen ink ever so slightly faded. It was given to me as a teenager by a young Episcopal priest with whom I worked closely in youth ministry in our diocese. In elegant cursive, it reads:

Each day the first day; each

day a life.

Each day you must hold out

the chalice of your being,

to hold, to carry, and to

give back.

It must be held out empty,

your reflection only in its

polish, its shape, its

capacity

—Dag Hammarskjöld

This relic has accompanied me through college, graduate work in England, my first job in New York, and several family moves, including the last one back to my hometown in 2010. It is precious because of the giver and the memory of a rich season in my faith. But it is also precious because it encapsulates the meaning of vocation. The self-giving presence, the trust in God, the “willingness to hold, to carry, and to give back”—isn’t this the essence of any calling? And renewal, daily: a vocation is not a one-time fixed choice, but a continual responsiveness to the movements of God in our lives. Every morning, no matter how imperfectly we fulfilled our calling the day before, we begin again.

Roughly 30 years ago, I became a mother around the same time I was becoming a Catholic. The two journeys were linked. Both involved giving up cherished self-understandings, letting go of worldly striving and taking on new habits of the soul. At the time, I had two children under 3 and had recently moved from the bright lights of the big city. I put decades of educational accomplishment and high expectations to the side to be a full-time mother. I was also a lifelong Episcopalian, who had wandered in an agnostic wilderness after college and longed to find her way back to God. And it was around this time that I started in earnest on the path to Catholicism.

A third child arrived. As my peers plied White House fellowships, pursued Ph.D.s and sported McKinsey badges, I found myself managing the wild scramble at bath time, reading books about Madeline, bulldozers, cows and pigs, sitting up with a sick and wakeful toddler, getting small and defiant people to put their shoes on for preschool or eat a carrot. Each day a new day, indeed.

And while I struggled with what might now be called FOMO from the working world—the career successes, the public validation, the burnished resume—deep within I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and where God wanted me to be: accompanying my children on the first leg of their lifelong journey to and with God. “I am trying to teach them what it’s like to love and be loved and to live with other people,” I wrote in one of many slightly agonized journal entries at the time.

In a less agonized moment, I also wrote: “Being there counts for so much in my world.” Holding out the chalice and letting the events, emotions, struggles and triumphs of each day of family life fill it, and to reflect it back with love. This was the call, at that time. I suppose another phrase for it is the ministry of presence.

There is a word in biblical Hebrew that beautifully and succinctly expresses this vocation of presence: hineni. It means “Here I am,” and it echoes down through the Bible as various servants of God respond to God’s call: Abraham trudging up the mountain with his son, Isaac, facing the dreadful prospect of sacrificing that son: hineni; Moses confounded by the bush that burns but is not consumed, out of which God speaks: hineni; the young Samuel, woken from sleep by the voice of God: hineni; and, famously, the prophet Isaiah, that “man of unclean lips,” when God asks, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?” Again, hineni. Here I am, Lord, may it be done to me according to your will. This call and response distill the meaning of vocation.

As life circumstances change, the expression of a calling may evolve, too. For me, this desire to be present to my family also fed my desire to serve others through spiritual direction. This had been a long-simmering desire, one that I relegated to the back burner while I took on other commitments, but it quietly bubbled away, waiting for the right confluence of life events. And, not long ago, they came. Within a six-month period, I wrapped up an intense non-profit commitment, saw my youngest child graduate from college, and helped my nonagenarian parents, who had lived next door for nearly 15 years, move into assisted living. The ways I had been exercising my vocation were changing, all at the same time. What was next?

In 2010, when I graduated from Yale Divinity School with a master’s in religion (Hebrew Bible), I was asked the same question. My answer then, after four years of heavenly immersion in the biblical languages, was that I wanted to exercise a literary ministry, to use the toolbox I had assembled to draw out the spiritual and theological content of the Scriptures through close attention to their linguistic expression. And that is what I have tried to do, giving talks and leading classes on the Psalms, sending out daily reflections during Advent and Lent to an ever-growing subscriber base, sharing my deep love for the Bible as it applies to our daily lives.

This ministry has flourished, and I intend to continue it. But at times it has felt like a monologue, preaching to others through the written word, reaching readers both around the corner and faraway. I wanted a ministry that was more personal and hands-on. I wanted to listen to people’s stories, as many counselors and advisors had listened to mine in the past, and walk with them on their journey to God. It seemed to me that spiritual direction, which had long intrigued me, could be one way to do this. After stops and starts, twists and turns, I enrolled in a two-year program at Fordham University, where I had begun my second career in biblical studies 20 years before.

Decades ago, when I was learning about Catholicism en route into the church, I was enchanted by the rich, centuries-long conversation that constitutes Catholic thought, a conversation among mystics, prophets, priests, ascetics, poets, theologians and writers that flows along like a river, now placid and meandering, now turbulent and full of rapids. The coursework for my spiritual direction classes brought me into contact with tributaries of this river that I had little explored: Origen and St. John of the Cross, Bernard of Clairvaux and Mechthild of Magdeburg, Teresa of Avila and Rollo May, Janet Ruffing and Ignatius Loyola, and countless others who loved and sought the Lord. Reading, reflecting and sharing my responses to their offerings was joyous and a wonderful counterbalance to the more academic orientation of divinity school. I was able to listen in on and participate in this conversation in deeply meaningful ways, to connect what I was reading and learning to my personal experience—and to use all of it to help others.

There is a phrase I learned during the practicum year of the program: “the growing edge.” It asks, “How is this situation/material/person challenging to you? What opportunities do you have to grow by engaging with this situation/material/person?” The past two years, I’ve had enough growing edges to create a dodecahedron. I had to learn to navigate online education, including the online class portal, how to write and submit a post to share with my classmates, and how to use those posts to create a community in the absence of a physical classroom. I had to open myself to perspectives from people who were quite different from me, whose life experiences had led them to different conclusions about spirituality and theology. I had to engage in conversations that dug out some of my fears and anxieties and doubts, that pushed me to confront my own failings and misperceptions. It has been bracing, as growing edges often are.

I officially finished the spiritual direction program in May, but unlike any other degree program I have undertaken, this one is not so much an achievement as it is an invitation, a beckoning to continue the ministry of accompaniment to others as they sort out how God is speaking and moving in their lives. Refreshingly, it isn’t my prowess that matters. The saying about spiritual direction is that there are always three people in the room—the director, the directee and God. This is spot on. Nor is it a matter of finding exactly the right words or saying exactly the right thing—a difficult lesson for one who has loved, studied and relied on the power of language her entire life. To the contrary, spiritual direction means focusing on the person you are listening to, inviting the Holy Spirit into the room, and getting out of the way.

My work, now, as perhaps it has always been in one form or another, is to let God use me as a conduit of divine love and grace to a seeking soul. To hold out the chalice of my being to another person so that I might hold, carry and give back. Spiritual direction has taught me to let go, to acknowledge that God’s love and power and wisdom, not mine, are going to be the salvation of my directee, and to understand, once again, that my work is to listen with a generous, attentive and loving heart.