“I’m in the house if you have questions,” he would say, leaving me there in his pottery studio. Grateful to be alone with my beginning efforts, I would nod, determined to figure out my own answers because when I asked, he told me too much. I had no inner framework, no way to store what he was telling me. Worse yet, I knew he was trying to give me that framework as we went along and I often missed the basic elements. Everything was most important.
“I have more to tell you,” Jesus said to his anxious disciples, “but you cannot absorb it yet, so I will send the Spirit. She will continue to teach you.”* But I had no clue how to listen. Nothing in my early church experience (except morning watch at summer camp) taught me how to listen with the ear of my heart. Not until we arrived at Church of the Saviour and learned the language of the inner journey did I begin to have a framework for the many ways that the Spirit speaks.
At first, I needed special postures, timed silence, and a meditation cushion. Then came journaling and self-reflection, entering scripture with my imagination, then dreams and Jungian insights followed by notes on anger and envy. Over time, I learned to keep watch for synchronicities and notice my own tears as a clue to sacred ground. Throughout this long process of discovery, spiritual direction, written reports and class assignments gave me language and comfort with talk about what more God’s Spirit was revealing.
At every stage of life, the Spirit speaks. Always there is more.
-- Marjory Zoet Bankson, Editor of InwardOutward.org
For More
- How do you listen for God?
- What barriers or distractions impede that relationship?
- When are you most open to the Spirit?
