It seems only right that there should be a blogpost reflecting on the end of the second year of my Spiritual Direction course, and I think, to headline where this might be going, that it might also signal the start of me wrapping this blog up in some nice neat box and sticking it in a corner of the internet.  I (in actuality husbandface) want to create a new space on the internet which will reflect me, where I am right now in life and be a space to explain what I might be able to offer as a Spiritual Accompanier in others lives. 

This lovely blog will sit in a digital garden in a side room of that space for me to reference and if anyone is bored late at night they can read through some of the more enduring posts from it. I am deeply fond of the last 16 years of writing and of looking back at who I used to be, the articulation I spoke of some things with and some other things I wrote which I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole now. It’s an evolving journey of someone figuring out faith and life on the long walk home. 

I’m more interested now in how I can accompany others, how we can journey together. I feel finally free from the need to write thoughts to the world proving how interesting and articulate I am. I know I’m articulate and interesting and I would quite like to write from that space of security and freedom. 

Before blogging, way way back in the mists of time,  I stream-of-conscious wrote into my computer in the desperate desire to write my way into existence, I think I wrote to God, longing to be known, to know myself. Launching out on the blog was a helpful lesson in writing. I have loved writing here, trying to put things in words that I feel. I know having a space where I suspect people might stumble across my writing has made me write, it has honed my craft. 

I would like to see what comes out of me in a space where I don’t feel the need for validation from my writing. I would like to see what I write when I am just writing for the joy of writing or intentionally trying to shape a subject to be helpful for others. I would love to have a space for my poems, for my writing that is half way between a poem and prose and some of my other reflections on life. I would like to offer that space to whoever wants to take part in it. 

Offering Spiritual Direction from a camper van was part of the reason I started my course, I wanted to take people out in our beautiful world, in a third space, and give them tea, listen to them, notice, sense, feel and wonder in reflection back to them and be someone who offered space to hang out with God. I still want to do that, I’m less insistent that it be linked to the van but I like the idea of a faith in a van website. It combines some of my main loves and might be a bit of an intrigue for anyone to hook into. 

Hang on a minute, didn’t I just say this post was about reflecting on my course. Ah yes. I did. The thing that makes the above possible is the transformation that has happened within me this year. I have found a deeper freedom. I have found in a more tangible way that I am loved with a love that will not go out. A love which is the bedrock of my life, a love I have known for years and years and years but which this year I have come to realise dwells in me, is protected and safe and encompasses the whole of me.  I have welcomed back parts of me I’ve been rejecting for years, I have made peace with my inner critic, I feel more coherent and whole that I have ever felt in my life. 

Wow. Writing it out like that feels a little like tempting fate, I don’t imagine I’ll be skipping my way through life without a care in the world now BUT there has been insane transformation in my inner world over the last year and as a result I think I’m going to try writing in a different way, I’ll probably always list out books I’ve read, reflect on Advent and have a space to ponder in but I think it will be with a different emphasis and a different perspective and more importantly a different kind of peace, not so much concerned with what others think and more congruent with life. 

I also want to write about faith and life with God again and I think doing that within the context of spiritual direction provides a safe place for that. I have no interest in doctrinal shibboleths or tedious online arguments. The context of a place where people are welcomed to explore the landscape of their lives with God feels like a more healthy place to reflect on faith. I want to relate life to the earthy everyday reality of being found in the love of God and I want to be of use to people in their journey. 

Mainly I feel like my identity and security have been anchored in a deep place within, protected by love and held in love. And from that springboard I would like there to be new life. 

This might not happen tomorrow but you know, watch this space. Transformation is occurring…