Spiritual Direction on the Eleventh Day of Christmas

Choose a word to carry with you in the coming year

Carry it in your pocket

Put it on the screensaver of your cellphone

That ever-present electronic memory bank in your hand

Or another place you can see it often

An in-your-face reminder

Of your soul’s deepest yearning

Have a good think about your life

What word echoes back at you in the wee hours?

Some quality or characteristic you wish you had?

Need to remember?

• Peace
• Surrender
• Serenity
• Faith
• Hope
• Love
• Courage
• Tenacity
• Balance
• Generosity
• Kindness
• Fierceness

Make your own list

Discernment is a vintage spiritual word

A practice really

Part of the Ignatian Exercises

Along with the Examen

If you don’t know how

Maybe you need a guide

That’s when spiritual direction becomes important.

That is if you know what spiritual direction is

Most think it’s something a priest does

Like confession maybe

Or counseling

But they are wrong

Spiritual direction is companionship

With someone trained to notice glimmers of light

In the darkness and fountains in the desert

Someone who will hold the tension with you

Remind you to have a mellow heart

Ease up on yourself

Hold you to a higher standard

Someone who loves you

With God-like Agape

Who hangs on your every word as though

You are the most important and interesting person

Whoever lived

Someone of deep faith

Pledged to be of service to others

First and foremost

• Seek
• Find
• Become
• Doubt
• Stalwart
• Curious
• Content

Make your own list for 2025

Then relax

Enjoy

Embrace this fleeting moment