Graduation!!!

In August 2006 we got married, moved to California, and I started grad school all in about a matter of a week. Most people thought we were insane, but we knew we were called to this program. It has been an incredible three years. I am sure I will reflect on in it more in the coming weeks. But for now I will say that if felt so good to graduate. I was thrilled to have Dr. John Coe (the head of my program) call my name. It was my turn to walk across the stage to shake President Corey's waiting hand and receive my diploma. He said, "Congratulations Desiree." I walked off the stage to see Brandon's beaming face. He was so proud of me. I could feel it and revel in it for the moment. I'm not sure if I knew how to live in a moment before I came to ISF.

Yahoo!! I have my Masters in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care!!!

You can read more about Biola's commencement proceedings at:

http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/2009/090526_spring09_charge.cfm

Baccalaureate

The second graduation event was Baccalaureate held at the Knotts Berry Farm Resort & Hotel. We invited Don & Connie to be our guests. We were served fried chicken and mash potatoes, apparently a Knotts Berry Farm's specialty and possibly one of my least favorite meals ever. Oh well! After the dinner one of the Talbot professors gave an address to the students. Then it was time for the hooding. I appreciated that spouses were invited to walk with their students in this ceremony. While I was hooded by one of my professors, Brandon was given a certificate of appreciation by the Talbot Wives Club (yes, you can giggle at that.) Talbot Wives hasn't caught up with the times, as there are now quite a lot of women in seminary and their husbands are supporting them. (Where's their club?)

Left: B & me at dinner

Right: Connie, Don, me, & B

Lower L: Dr. Betsy Barber & me

Lower R: Brandon & me

Last L: Lauren & us

Last R: Me & Shelley

While I was being hooded this note of

appreciation that I wrote was read:

I would like to thank my husband Brandon for truly being my partner in this program. I love that you learned and grew along side of me. I am blessed by your love and support. Thank you for all the sacrifices you have made to make this possible.

And to Betsy & Judy (professors in my program) and all my dear friends at ISF, thanks for journeying with me. You have loved and challenged me, and I am the better for it.

They also published my Post Graduation Plan in the program:

I am delighted to have the opportunity to stay around ISF and continue to give spiritual direction this coming year. Beyond that we are waiting to seeing what the Lord has for us.

I just bought my cap and gown!!!!

I can't believe how close graduation is! May 22 will mark the close of this season of our lives.

Having the opportunity to come to ISF has been an incredible gift for Brandon and myself. I have had the time, space, and help to heal some of the young, lonely, and broken places in my heart. Consequently, I am more honest with myself, God, and others. I am more able to give and receive love because I have been able to experience something of God's love for me.

I have been doing the Ignatian exercises this year. It has been an invitation for me to open to God's love for me, to let it come close, and to internalize it. These two verses have become so important to me in this:

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, and abounding in love. Ps 103:8

His banner over me is love. SS 2:4

Ignatian has also been an invitation to trust God. And this has been the rub for me lately as it intersected with my class on vocation where I learned that vocation is actually more about discerning and doing God's will for me today and not worrying about tomorrow than it is about an occupation. I so want to worry about tomorrow and carve out a future for myself. Instead God is asking me to trust Him that He has my best interest at heart and will take care of me. He has called me into relationship with Him, to love Brandon, to be faithful to my training at ISF, and to care for the souls He puts in my path. Beyond that, no career or obvious success is promised. The good news is that my increasing experience of His love helps me know that His heart is good toward me and that He can be trusted to care for me. This being said, I still worry. I still forget His goodness and faithfulness. I'm still trying to walk this out.

All of that being said, I'm sure that many of you are wondering what is next for us. At this point we are trying to walk in trust and openness to the Lord as we approach post-graduation life. It is entirely likely that we will find another apartment near here, so Brandon can continue to work his job, we can maintain the friendships we have with some of our neighbors in grad housing, and I could possibly continue giving spiritual direction at Biola.

I'm applying for a couple of jobs here in LA, but the possibility we are really excited about it is the Director of Spiritual Formation position at George Fox University. It really seems to align with my gifts, talents, and passion, and we are excited about a new adventure in Oregon. However I have been told that they have received a great many applications for this position. Would you please join us in praying about this? I would love the opportunity to interview for this job, but most importantly I want to abide in God's love and care (and that is easier said than done!). Please pray that God would grant us much wisdom and discernment as we make decisions and that His care and provision for us as a couple would be evident and abundant.

Dez' School Update

It is not hard to see that we've been a little behind on the blogging. We have several posts in the works and hope to get them finished soon including our trip to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, our log cabin getaway, and our latest visit home.  For now I will take a few minutes to update you all on where I am at in my program.

This fall I will start my third and final year studying spiritual formation and soul care at the Institute for Spiritual Formation.  In January the focus of my program shifted from theoretical knowledge of how God grows souls to more practical, hands on training in the art of spiritual direction.  I had the opportunity to give spiritual direction to two Biola undergrads this semester.  I can't tell you how this encouraged my own soul.  It was incredible to watch God work through me.  As I spiritual director I am there to help facilitate the conversation between the directee and the Lord.  So I have to be fully present and able to listen to both parties at the same time.  I am learning about listening to the Holy Spirit and trusting in His work in each person.  This has been a growing experience for me.  It seems in my experience that Evangelicals (including me) aren't sure what to do with the Holy Spirit.  He is the odd man out in the Trinity replaced by the much more tangible and easier to grasp Bible.  Don't get me wrong, it is critical as Christians to know the Bible and to hide God's Word in our hearts, but I think we have long been remiss in getting acquainted with the Holy Spirit who is alive and working in each of us right this very minute.  

As a requirement in for my program, I have been in therapy since November and am in the process of finishing up this month.  It has been an incredible gift.  It has been an opportunity for me to explore some painful places in my history in a safe space.  It has given me the chance to get more honest with myself and Brandon, to grieve for things lost, and to come to terms with my own humanity.  This has opened up much more space in my heart: to love others with their foibles, to deal more kindly with myself, to forgive those who have hurt me, to ask forgiveness of those whom I have hurt, to trust others with more of myself, and to get acquainted with myself apart from other's expectations of me.  Now, don't let me give you the wrong impression, therapy is hard work.  I cried for weeks and months on end, I had angry days and very sad days, I had to look at things about myself and others that I'd tried so long and so hard to ignore.  It takes real courage to be honest and to choose to feel the feelings that I'd long suppressed.  It takes support from those closest to you to encourage you on.  They have to carry the faith for you that you will come out the other side, a healthier, more whole, and more fully alive person.  I can't express how much Brandon was this support to me.  Even when experiencing the fallout of my emotional distress, he stayed by me and loved me.  This too was an incredible gift.

In the fall I will be a full-time student again.  In addition to classes I will also have 10 directees.  This feels like quite a jump from just two!  We see directees every other week for an hour, but it also takes quite a bit of prep time to prepare oneself to open to the Lord and another person.  You have to clean up your own internal house in order to be able to offer hospitality to another.  I also receive supervision as a spiritual director in training.  We tape all of our sessions and listen to the parts we struggled in our supervision groups every week, so we can get help and grow in our skills.

It is hard to even speculate what will happen beyond graduation in May.  We are waiting for the Lord to begin to speak to us about what He has next for us.  We would love for you to join in praying for the Lord's guidance for us as we begin to wonder about what will come next.  

The Reading List

While we were home for Christmas break several people requested my reading list for school. Since I am not in class right now, I have the time to oblige you. Happy reading! My annotations are in red.

Fall Semester

Intro to Spiritual Formation

Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation by M. Robert Mulholland Jr. (InterVarsity Press) This is a great introduction to the subject. A good place to start.

The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self by M. Robert Mulholland Jr. (InterVarsity Press) His follow up book to further discuss the importance of the dual knowledge in Spiritual Formation, which is to say that it is equally important to increase in knowledge of one's self along with the knowledge of God and vice versa. John Calvin said, "True and sound wisdom consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and ourselves."

Opening to God by Thomas Green (Ave Marie Press) A primer on opening our hearts to God in prayer and offers techniques that ready the soul to encounter God.

Weeds Among the Wheat by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press) A fantastic book on the practice of discernment. I don't think I have begun to apprehend the richness here. It is a discussion on Ignatius' formula for discerning. I plan to read it again.

The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen (Ballantine Press) His discussion on the practices of Solitude, Silence, and Prayer and their importance for us today.

Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney (Norton) Not an easy read. Written by a well-respected researcher and therapist to her fellow therapists. If I might oversimplify, she is discussing the dual nature of a person, how we all have our own Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde inside of ourselves. The book focuses mostly on treatment concerns.


History and Theory of SoulCare

The Study of Spirituality by Cheslyn Jones et al (Oxford Press) Honestly, this book was drudgery to read but it does give a thorough survey of the history of spirituality.

Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls ed by Gary Moon & David Benner (InterVarsity Press) This presents you with a survey of how Spiritual Direction is used in the major denominations. It also provides you with a helpful discussion on the similarities and differences of the Spiritual Director, the Counselor/Therapist, and the Pastoral Counselor, which was very helpful to me.

Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings by Janet Ruffing (Paulist Press) Probably written more for the Spiritual Director with instruction on things to watch for in doing direction with others.

Praying With Martin Luther by Peter Bastien (St. Mary’s Press) This book as well as the next three were the choice presented to us for use in a prayer project. I heard from my classmates that they enjoyed this book but thought that it tried to pack too much in at a time, so if you choose to go through this book feel free to break up the exercises into more manageable pieces.

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle (Doubleday) One of a three book series encompassing all of the seasons. I chose this book for my prayer project. It is designed to echo the monastic practice of praying at certain times of the day every day and using prewritten prayers. As a newlywed, I was a little naive about my new living situation and the time and discipline this practice takes. I learned the importance of doing disciplines that fit in your life at the time.

Celtic Daily Prayer by the Northumbria Community (Harper Collins) This book is also designed to help you engage in praying the hours as it is called. There is also a cd that accompanies the book that really blessed some of my classmates.

A Do-It-At-Home Retreat by Adre Ravier (Ignatius Press) My classmates said this one was intense. If you are familiar with the four week Ignatian Retreat, you know what I am talking about. The author is trying to give the experience of the Ignatian Retreat in more manageable pieces to fit into daily life as most people can't take four weeks off to receive this retreat at a monastery.


Personal Foundations of Spirituality & Retreat

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard (NavPress) You can't get far in any modern reading on Spiritual Formation without running into references to this book. So if you are interested in the subject, this is an important one to read. Willard promotes his model of the whole person and how it's different parts interact with each other, e.g. how does the mind interact with the spirit? He addresses how he conceptualizes transformation happening in each of a person's parts.

For our 48 hour retreat we had the option of using any of the following books:

A Seven Day Journey with Thomas Merton by Esther De Waal (Servant Publications)

Practicing Your Path: A book of Retreats for an Intentional Life by Holly Whitcomb (Innisfree Press Inc)

A Vacation with the Lord by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press)

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius trans by Louis Puhl (Vintage Books/Random House)

Wilderness Time by Emelie Griffin (Harper Collins)

Spring Semester

Developmental Spirituality/ Contemplative Prayer

Collected Works of St. John of the Cross (rev) trans by Kavanaugh & Rodriguez (ICS Publishing)

When the Well Runs Dry by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press)

Fire Within by Thomas Dubay (Ignatius Press)

Ascent to Truth by Thomas Merton (Harcourt Brace)

St. John of the Cross: Doctor of Light and Love by Kieran Kavanaugh (Crossroad)

Drinking from a Dry Well by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press)



Intensive Journey Inward & Retreat

Wilderness Time by Emelie Griffin (Harper Collins)

Going on Retreat by Margaret Silf (Loyola Press)

Letting God Come Close by William Barry (Loyola Press)

Weeds Among the Wheat by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press)



Personality Development and Psychopathology

Reclaiming Your Story by Merle Jordan (Knox Press)

Object Relations Theories & Psychopathology by Frank Summers (Analytic Press)

Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology by Ronald Comer (Worth)

Opening to God

Never have I had a class that has been such an integrated part of my life. The subject matter given in my Introduction to Spiritual Formation class is part of the ongoing dialogue with my husband. We cannot have a conversation without it in someway coming back to the course material, in particular this concept of opening to God. I am so grateful for the opportunity we have had to learn about this as a couple, especially now as we are just learning about oneness.

Opening to God was a practice we were experimenting with even in our courtship, but we did not understand exactly what it was we were doing. All we knew was that we wanted the Lord to be a welcome and active member of our life together. We didn’t understand about our hidden hearts and their need to be peeled. We didn’t yet understand how the Lord would use us to help each other in the process. The lectures I have been hearing on how God changes the heart have served to validate our experience.

Brandon is certainly my soul friend as I am his. God has changed us through our experience of finding each other a safe and secure place. I first modeled to Brandon the concepts of active listening and extending unconditional positive regard to the speaker. He was quick to pick up on these skills. Through that process of reflecting back what is heard, you give the speaker the gift of mirroring what appears to be going on in the heart. Brandon was the one to teach me about being loved in my mess. He took it beyond non-judgment to love, even in my dark, ugly, broken places. Prior to this I had no concept of God’s ability or desire to love me in those places. Brandon has been reparenting me in a sense, which is opening up my ability to attach more securely to him and to the Lord.

What is it to open to God?
I know that this may sound ridiculously elementary, but I promise that it is profoundly deep:

The idea is that we are disconnected from our hearts and how the Spirit is ALWAYS working in us. As the master soul surgeon, He knows the inner weavings of our heart and will carefully use circumstances, situations, other people to open our hearts. We want to begin to pay attention to what is bubbling up in our hearts, so that we can better cooperate with Him. We want to consciously and increasingly more often ask, "Lord what are You doing in this." What are You trying to show me about my hidden heart. What is going on in my heart that has me so, e.g., angry right now? Lord what are You doing here? In this ongoing exercise one begins to learn how to attend to the Spirit.

dez

The Vice of Curiositas

This semester I have become more aware of my motivations for studying. The Lord has used some of my coursework to bubble up things in my heart that He wants me to look at with Him. The following is another excerpt from my aforementioned final (see my previous post):

My experience of the midterm in one of my classes was a real trip. I have pages and pages written in my journal about all of the fear and anxiety it caused to boil up in me. Admittedly I had to revisit the prayer project nearly every time I studied because I would just freak out. From the beginning of the semester, the Lord was very clear about what my priorities were to be: open in relationship to Him and my new husband and the homework would fall into place after that. I have been rather easy going about my homework throughout the course of this semester until this test popped up. I was blindsided by the feelings it raised. Just looking at the study guide would cause anxiety to begin to boil up in me. The temptation to shift into the “just get it done” gear was very powerful and yet there was a sense that I should not be relying on my own fortitude to plow through it. So I had to let it sit for several days.

A few days before the test was due, I asked the Lord to help me look at my paralysis surrounding this issue. I didn’t know how to approach this test without employing my old neurotic faculties. My only experience of motivating myself was to tap into the fear of facing the wrath of imperfection (which includes loss of identity, loss of esteem in other’s eyes, and perhaps loss of love). In college, this fear would inspire incredible amounts of fortitude, which always produced the results of neurotic perfection. But in a very real sense I am not that person anymore, as the Lord has been addressing those deep needs and beliefs in my heart over the years since college. Just because that drive was being lessened, did not mean I automatically knew how to study rightly.

Thankfully Dr. Coe had addressed this issue in some of his lectures. The right and true end in study should be the love of God and greater transformation into Christlikeness. Failure to study without the proper attitude is to engage in the vice of curiositas (seeking to know something for the wrong reasons, e.g. pride or seeking to know something that should not be known,e.g. pornography). Wow—have I ever spent my entire education in the execution of that vice! Anyway, back to that conversation with the Lord. What came out of that was a glimmer of understanding about loving God in my studies. It was like something switched on inside of me and studying made sense. Of course it is an opportunity to open to God. I am studying Him and His things. Why should attention to His presence in me be left out of the equation?

dez

The Hidden Heart

Well, I've finished my first semester at the Institute for Spiritual Formation. I have such a mixture of feelings. On one hand there is the relief from the work involved with school, but on the other hand, there is sadness because I really enjoy my classes and my classmates. Some of them have become very dear to me already. During my last final on Monday, I had the opportunity to write for 2 1/2 hours about how this semester has impacted me. I have decided that I will post some of those thoughts in an attempt to share more of my, and sometime our, movement into the deeper life:

God has been actively working in us through the trials we have faced over the last year and even the circumstances we have been dealing with over the last several months. Our situation of unemployment since being here has done wonders for stirring up my hidden heart. The desire to control the situation and hurry up and move through it was extremely powerful in me. Since I had spent my whole life living in the power of my self (often in the name of the Holy Spirit), my mind was going crazy trying to figure out ways to fix the situation including how to manipulate Brandon to that end.

Fear and anxiety ruled me, but then we began to discuss the nature of the heart in my classes. It’s fallen, self-deceiving, layered ad infinitem, immense, and there is no amount of fortitude in the world that can fix it. Dr. Coe said we had to despair of fixing ourselves that our first move should be opening to God. That was a paradigm shift to be sure, one that is still in process. But as I began to take in the material and internalize it, it resonated within me. The Holy Spirit is always working in me and my job is to simply open to what He is doing. I began to pay more attention to what was bubbling up in my heart with regard to our circumstance and I began dialoguing with Brandon about it and he too joined me in the process.

As we began to share the hell boiling up in our souls with each other, I noticed the fingers that I was clenching onto Brandon with began to relax. The Lord began to show us how He was taking us on another path than what we had laid out for ourselves. Though it was more painful, it lacked nothing in terms of the Lord’s care and concern for us. Had Brandon landed a great job right away, it would have only served to confirm our beliefs in the sufficiency of the flesh and the power of our autonomy. Instead, the Lord cracked our hearts wide open and we had to get honest with ourselves. I came face to face with my need to control and to provide for myself and the underlying mistrust I was harboring against my husband and the Lord. And even as I was up to my eyeballs in this mess and expecting all the condemnation that hell could muster, the Lord treated me so kindly. He looked at me with such compassion and love. It is a wondrous thing to experience yourself as loved by God even when you're bad.

dez

The Deeper Journey

Well, here it is, my big blogging début. Whatever shall I write about? It occurs to me that there is a big part our of journey out here in LA that has not gotten much blog space. We are not just exploring a new city, but we are exploring a new life, i.e., the deeper life in Christ. This is coming about mostly through my classes at the Institute for Spiritual Formation but also through relationship with Brandon. We are very much together on this journey into the deeper life, and it has been incredible not only to open up to greater intimacy with each other but with the Lord as well.

I was recently emailing a friend about what I have been learning, so I thought I would share it here too:

I am realizing that I have been operating to some degree out of my unconscious theology of God regardless of the systematic theology that I hold in my conscious. For example I believe in my head that God loves me. What plays out in my life is that I act and think that God is my judge, that he is somehow linked to the voice of condemnation in my head. Furthermore there are parts of me that don't believe I can trust God to take care of me or meet my inmost needs or my physical ones for that matter. Rather, I have a deep belief that I must take care of myself even to the extent of manipulating circumstances and people to that end. I've got lots more examples if you are interested.

Each of us has a well of deep beliefs and desires, in large part due to our experiences in life, especially early ones. We learn early that people can't deal with our mess so we hide it. This gets impacted over the years and we eventually get disconnect from conscious awareness of this rather oceanic part of ourselves.

This is especially problematic for the Christian who feels this pressure to be perfect. The machine of the church has convinced them that they have to hide their badness. This causes for some people a double life, as in the case of Ted Haggard. In my churh experience there is ongoing teaching toward three ends: 1) developing systematic theology and gaining Bible knowledge, and 2) using fortitude in the name of the Holy Spirit to manage one’s behaviors, and 3) frenetic participation and service in church ministries. With these factors serving as the measuring stick for Christian growth and maturity, there is little time for matters of the inward life.

What I am learning is that God could care less about me living a perfect life. He is not interested in me fixing myself. He is interested in relationship with me. If Christianity were only a program of moral improvement, it would require neither God nor a Christ. It could exist on the basis of personal effort toward perfection. Jesus attacked this notion of self-achieving-perfectionism on many occasions, especially when the Pharisees were around (e.g., Matt 23). A poignant example would be Luke 10. In this story, Jesus is at the home of Martha and Mary. Martha is scurrying around doing good work and gets frustrated when Jesus lets Mary just sit as His feet. Jesus makes clear that Mary has chosen the better thing here, i.e. relationship over work.

This week I have been pondering Hebrews 4 and Matthew 11:28-30. They are both invitations to enter into God's rest. We are invited to enter this Sabbath rest and rest from our works. That is so contrary to my unconscious theology of having to fix myself and earn his love. Why is it that I have not seen this up until now? The freedom that is being offered here threatens to completely rock my world. What would it mean to really live with the pressure off?

I realize that this is starting to look like a sermon, so I am going to stop myself. Perhaps, I will close this line of thinking by saying that I have been completely blown away by what I have been learning. My evangelical faith tradition had lost the many of these treasures of mystical spirituality during the Reformation in their zeal to pursue sola scriptura. In a very real sense, I am compelled to grieve for that loss. There is richness in the Christian experience and tradition that I had no idea about.

Dez