Spiritual Director or Minister? Which do I need?

In my tradition, much of the training for spiritual directors and for parish ministers is very similar. There are parish ministers who do spiritual direction and spiritual directors who preach or consult with religious communities. But the work of a parish minister and the work of a spiritual director can be very different. How do you know who to turn to for spiritual wellness and growth?

It is like your primary care provider and a specialist. Your General Practitioner (the doctor you go to for everything) can help you manage your care, but can't be all things for you. They need to refer you for needs that require more specific care. The same is true for your GP for spiritual care. Your rabbi, pastor, high priestess, parish minister, the preacher or leader for your religious community, can help you for many things, and when it is time to seek your spiritual direction in a focused way, you find someone specifically qualified to accompany you.

Below I've listed five situations you might be in, then I answer whether you need to find a parish minister or a spiritual director.

1) I feel isolated and need a community. You need to find a congregation. You'll know if you've found the right congregation by talking with the religious leader, attending some worship services, and getting to know the people and the work that the congregation is doing together.

2) I need someone to officiate a wedding, memorial service, child blessing or other rite of passage. Ideally you'll have a religious community to celebrate with you and that community's leader will conduct the rite of passage in consultation with you. Otherwise, find a celebrant who fits the rite of passage you need.

3) I'm part of a congregation and am having a crisis (of faith, of marriage, of X). Your religious leader is the first person to go to. As your minister that person will usually make time to see you for a short series of visits to deal with your crisis. If you would like to go deeper or do more work your religious leader will refer you to a pastoral counselor, a therapist or a spiritual director.

4) I'm not connected to any particular faith or congregation and have questions about my purpose, about God or about life. Find a spiritual director. That person will work with you to find your spiritual direction. At some point that may include finding a religious community and a parish minister. For a Unitarian Universalist Spiritual Director go to http://uusdn.org, looking beyond UU? go to http://sdi.org.

5) I've been doing the faith formation classes offered at my congregation but I want to explore more. Find a spiritual director. Your parish minister is a great source for a referral.

As you discover who is on your wellness team, you may choose a physician, a yoga teacher, a massage therapist, and a counselor. Remember to include spiritual wellness as well as physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Find a religious community, and find a spiritual director!

In my tradition (Unitarian Universalist) many spiritual directors, but not all, are fully trained ministers who chose to serve our movement as spiritual directors, rather than as leaders in congregations. In the Methodist tradition the term minister is reserved for those who serve the congregation and those who have ministries out in the community are called deacons. Unitarian Universalism also has folks who have different training who are credentialed community ministers. These folks are not eligible for ordination but do important ministries, including the ministry of spiritual direction. In either case, spiritual directors have had specific training and credentialing as spiritual directors, in addition to their other training. Whoever you choose to work with, check their credentials and make sure they are a "right fit" for the work you wish to do.
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Reverend Amy Beltaine is a credentialed spiritual director and ordained Unitarian Universalist minister who works over video-chat or in person to help seekers tune in to their heart song.

When is Self-Care not Self-Care?

For all the conversations we have about "self care" I see people consistently pushing themselves, giving to the point of depletion, and engaging in a culture of "busy". How are you taking care of yourself? What do you do for self care? These questions seem to show up a lot, especially among my community of Ministers and Spiritual Directors.

I'm not an exception.

In May I noticed that I was fielding over 100 emails a day, spending hours combing Facebook for a way to make sense of our political situation, cursing at traffic on my way to appointments and going to bed each night feeling like I'd gotten nothing important done. It got worse in June and by the end of July I was experiencing life as a giant game of "Whack-A-Mole." Crises, messes, anxiety, and "Very Important Things" kept popping up without any lead time to handle them in a calm and thorough manner. Guilt was a constant companion. I couldn't give quality attention to my family, my ministry, my volunteer work, my activism, my friends, my home or my self. When a trip to the ocean didn't help, I knew I had hit the wall.

I asked for help.

My doctor, my Spiritual Director, my spouse, and mentors all heard from me and helped me discern what is the most important thing. I practiced the spiritual practice of saying "no". I resigned from the two boards I was serving on.

I did not abandon the work that I must do. But I took a realistic look at the way things are in the NOW. Not how I wished they were, not how they were in the past, but how they actually are. I re-assessed where I could best do my work, given how things have changed over the years.

Often self-care is defined as "getting a massage" or "visiting the ocean" or "a nice dinner out". These are good and wonderful things, but when getting the massage means carving out time in your schedule and fighting traffic, or a visit to the ocean means driving around trying to find a live wifi spot, or a nice dinner out means worrying about how much money is in the bank, it is not self care! When self-care is another "mole" in the game of wack-a-mole it is a sign that something else needs to change.

So, it starts with asking for help. It continues with saying "no". But ultimately, the question is: "What is the most important thing?"

The Most Important Thing

Leo Tolstoy asks this question in three parts. A wonderful children's book based on Tolstoy's work illustrates them well. The book is titled "The Three Questions". The three questions are:
1. When is the best time to do things?
2. Who is the most important one?
3. What is the right thing to do?

The answers to these questions are:
1. Now.
2. The one you are with.
3. To do good for the one you are with.

Good questions. The first one asks you to understand what is true right now.
The second one asks: Who is my neighbor? Who am I accountable to?
The third one invites further questions: What is my work? It doesn't ask you to do someone else's work, but to learn what the good thing is that you, and possibly only you, can do.

So, I invite you, with me, to ask yourself: "Right now, what is the most important thing for me to do?"

Today

Today, when I woke up with this story ringing in my ears, the most important thing for me was to write this blog. Yesterday, I was invited to go to the museum with my 82-year-old dad who is visiting from out of country. Being with him was the most important thing.  A friend of mine told me the story of a day when she was getting many things done but had a persistent feeling that she wasn't doing something important. Finally, she stopped and asked herself what that important thing was. Turns out, she needed to sit and sip tea while looking at the majestic tree beside her porch. After spending time doing that, she was able to return to her day feeling calm and focused. Another friend described the day she realized that the most important thing was to build the relationship with some cousins who were struggling with removal of confederate statues. As she connected with these family members she was able to also invite them to see the importance of removing these symbols of White-Supremacy.

Tomorrow

When you are faced with a tiki-torch carrying, Nazi flag waving, hate-spewing person, the most important thing might be to show up, to speak up, to hold your ground. Or the most important thing might be to care for someone else who is being terrorized by this person. Or the most important thing might be to care for the person who showed up.

Only you know what the good thing is that you can do.

A Panentheist Response to Charlottesville

The last 8 months have been full of change, strong feelings and many words. Our Nation and world have seen changes of power, and decisions which trouble us.

On July 4th we marked the celebration of the beginning of a brand new country... doing an experiment of a union of states practicing democracy. Many of us have complicated feelings about this holiday and our republic right now. Our own UU religious movement has engaged conversations about white-supremacy, able-ism, and accountability that challenge us and sometimes scare us. Responses and reactions have ranged from tearing down to building up.

Last weekend we witnessed, and many of us counter-protested, an alt-right, white-supremacist rally that included violence and tragic injury and death. I want to lift up the good work being done in the Norse, Asatru, Kindred communities to fight the white supremacy being perpetrated by folks claiming your same religious heritage. Like the many loving and good-hearted Christians who have to fight to separate from the Christianity of Fred Phelps, it is a frustrating but important task to claim the work of love in the face of hate. In many ways your work can help lead other Deities-relating and Earth-centered folks on our quest to create a better world.

These changes and transitions on the global, national, and local level can be unsettling. Each of us seeking more love in the world, working against fascism and intolerance, or doing our best to listen to the song of our hearts and to move forward in love don't do it perfectly. It is often a process of what I call 'failing forward.'

Tibetan Monk prostrate, photo copyright Guido Dingemans

Perhaps it feels like we are being failed or that we are failing. Perhaps we worry that we are doing it wrong or we have been wronged. Perhaps the intolerant language and alt-right terrorism that we see on social media and on the news causes us to worry that our non-mainstream spiritual paths will be attacked with persecution and marginalization.

Fear has been an underlying theme - fear about safety, about health, about values.

In a context of fear it is harder to make room for mistakes (or as a friend of mine calls it "humanity.") I know I feel it. I question what I do and worry how it will impact others. That's turning the fear on myself. Other times I'm impatient and doubt the motives of others. That's turning the fear on others.

Yet, I must take action in service of love, in service of the divine which I see in the eyes of every person and indeed all of the earth. My work, as a relatively privileged White woman is to speak with my family and friends who voted for Trump or are uneasy about taking down Confederate statues. My work, as a spiritual director is to support those who are out in the public square putting bodies and words between hate and the vulnerable. My work, as a person, is to stay connected to the divine love within so that I am not derailed by fear or anger. My spiritual practice helps me turn my fear over to the universe instead.

Breath with me?

In this time, in this place, I call upon the ground of being, the spirit that breathes through us, the voice that speaks within us, to hold us all and remind us that we are love, yes, even now, in this place, in this time, we are loved. May you feel the wings of mercy wrap around you as you call upon what and who you hold holy:

Oh, great lover of the world, who comes to us as mercy. We honor you, we honor you, we honor you, we call on your name.  

Breath it in.

Let us forgive ourselves for the ways we have failed and return to our source.

We are grateful for this community of love which gives us the strength to carry our love out into the hurting world where we do the work to build the world we dream of.

Oh great lover of the world who comes to us as community, we honor you, we honor you, we honor you, we call on your name.

Amen, blessed be.

May you feel that embrace of the holy and be able to breath it in, when you most need it. And then go out into the world to serve divine love in the way you are called to serve.

In faith,

Amy
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Learn more about the work Norse communities are doing to combat white-supremacy at http://www.religioustolerance.org/asatru.htm.
You can support Norse, Heathen, Kindred and related communities doing the work of anti-racism by connecting with the work at https://www.facebook.com/HeathensUnited/ and especially support Declaration 127 at http://declaration127.com/.

Our Sixth Source: Harmony with the Rhythms of Nature

I sped across Montana, alone, in a beat up Buick Skyhawk, heading east. I’ve always loved the high desert plateau. Sagebrush country reminds me of all the backpacking trips I took with my dad, watching him gleefully breathe in the scent of sagebrush. Sometimes he stood so still, I swore he was listening to the rocks shimmer in the sun. I glanced in the rearview, and had to look again. Gold and orange and pink streaked the sky behind me. Those colors demanded my full attention. I pulled over, parked, emerged from my steel cocoon into the dry heat, and leaned against the trunk. As the sun sank lower, pink transformed to red, lavender to purple: a surround-sound symphony of color. Reflected in my body’s memory were sunsets on the Oregon coast. Mom exclaiming, “Oh, come look! Look at those colors!” It was time to drop everything and worship together at the altar of Mother Earth.

As the Pagan song goes, “The Earth is our Mother, We must take care of her.” I invite you to explore what it might mean to truly take care of her, to take care of all the parts of her: Human, plant, mineral, and animal alike, to worship her with your hearts and with your work.

Like my Montana sunset, the sacred Earth demands your attention. Perhaps it was when you pulled a weed and were enveloped by the earthy smell of freshly disturbed soil or inhaled the salty tang of the Sound. Maybe it was when you looked up and were stunned by a Silver City sunset. Or stopped in a Gila wilderness hike to breath in a warm breeze. These experiences can be described by cold hard fact: photons, H2O, and olfactory function. But that doesn’t do your experiences justice. The awe and wonder, the sense of being transported beyond yourself, or of touching an awareness of the divine, is a spiritual experience.

I draw my circle of faith large. I find comfort and meaning in the language of Jewish and Christian traditions of my heritage. My faith is grounded in earth-based spiritualities, aligned with Buddhism, and inspired by process and womanist celebration of our interdependent existence. In short, as Walt Whitman mused, “Do I contradict myself? Yes, I contain multitudes.”
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Reverend Amy will be offering a service at Towanda UU Fellowship in Towanda PA at 3PM on the Sixth Source.

Going Back - A trip to Upstate NY

My first 24 years were in Oregon. My second 24 years were lived in Ithaca NY.

Upstate New York drew me. I was drawn to the Strawberry farm in Trumansburg where my father grew up. My grandfather's grandfather's grandfather farmed there, and my grandmother's immigrant parents settled nearby.

I've been back on the West coast for a while now. This week I'm returning to New York to see my dad, his sister, and to show my new spouse my favorite places in the beautiful Fingerlakes region. The strawberry farm has been sold and is in corn now. The house where Dad and Aunt Barb were born has been remodeled by my cousin who lives there so I'll see the trees that carried lightening down the driveway toward my grandfather sheltering in the barn (It stopped before it reached the barn!) I'll see the blueberry bushes that were planted 50 years ago and the barn where Dad fell and got a concussion. I'll see the lawn where my sister and I played with my young cousin, getting acquainted with our raggedy Ann and Andy dolls - freshly sewn by Grandma.

It'll be August so I'll see lightening bugs and probably a thunderstorm at about 6 pm each day, with lighting.

The land there is woven with family history.

It is also the town where my grandmother was shunned because she was a "foreigner" (her parents were both from Slovakia) and where she struggled to find connection. It is also the land where the Haudenosaunee nations ranged before Europeans came and pushed them off their land. It is close to where General Sullivan destroyed fields and killed horses and decimated villages in the massacre of 1779.

The land is deep with North American history.

It is also the site of the southernmost reach of great glaciers. The rocks I picked out of the fields when planting tomatoes were put there by receding glaciers. Those same glaciers carved out the lakes we call the Fingerlakes.

The land is rich with geological history.


I hope to watch a sunset. To put at least a toe into the cold lake water. To bite into a field-warm peach. To walk to Taughannock Falls and feel the mist blow across my arms.

I hope to commune with the sacred earth, reaching back through time and distance to the divinity that vibrates in all.
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Reverend Amy is preaching in Glens Falls, NY on Sunday the 13th of August.