direction

Ok, first, here's your picture.  Because we all know posts are better that way...

The Chachi Band walked in the door from school with her face in a book.  Oh my happy heart.

I've been gently exploring the concept of Spiritual Direction for awhile......meaning basically that I'm fascinated with the activity of the spirit.....God is just plain beyond huge and doesn't fit in a neat, tidy box of reason or definition.  There is this constant big movement of spirit - in people, nature, circumstances, dreams, teeny details and colossal world events.  God doesn't sit anywhere with a big wand moving mountains and directing job interviews and making my hair turn out decent today.  God instead sits in our spirits and we move, God moves, ideas move, hopes move.......

If I haven't lost you and you're still reading, congratulations because you're part of a rare breed of blog readers who can push through the greatest of run-on sentences.  Or you're my mom.

But here's the point...

I want to do this thing they call "spiritual direction" - where you intentionally ask someone or a program to move you.  I went for the first of what could be three years of monthly "direction" last weekend.

Here's the skinny.....

1.  I don't know yet if I'll go back.  I really want it to be the right fit for me but I think maybe its not.

2.  It was at a convent.  A real live convent.  You get buzzed in at the door by some unseen person behind some unseen camera.  It smelled like old people, was spotless, and was maybe the most calm, centered, hopeful, blissful place I have ever been.

3.  I saw real nuns in real habits, which was a first, if you don't count Sister Act I, II, and III.  The sister I at lunch with was patient enough to answer my questions....Do you sleep here?  How long did it take you to become a nun?  Did you have children?  Can I touch you?  Well, not that last one.

4.  We did some prayers aloud and some singing that I thought would never end.  Because it was 8:30 am and I don't like long chanted prayers.  It was brutal and loud and meaningless and I regretted spending money to be there.  But then they did this thing where we "passed the peace" and everyone started hugging each other.  I was so uncomfortable and when it was done I realized I totally loved it and wanted to do it again.  Strangers looked in my eyes and said with total genuine love, "Peace be with you" and then hugged me.  If I could put that in a bottle and bring out one hug and peace passing dose every Saturday morning, it would be the greatest invention ever.

5.  I met Phyllis, who was even better than the lunch nun.  She is a mom, grandma, widow, not a sister.  She has the most beautiful skin I think I have ever seen.  She is hyperactive.  Like for real Hyperactive, not just a little wired.  She is the embodiment of grace.  She directed my small table discussion and called anything anyone shared from the heart "so beautiful".   She's recently went to India for 3 months to learn to pray.  "Yes, very Eat Pray Love, I know" she said.  I got her phone number.

So.  I don't know what it is exactly that I'm opening myself to or even what I'm looking for.  But I think maybe I'll know when I find it.  And this weekend was one very blissful, hopeful peek in the right direction.