Pilgrims' Home

I don’t remember when I first said this, but it occurred sometime in the miserable and long winter of 2013-14. I was working through my own stuff and a few relational missteps over the past few years. Through the daily examen and work with an exceptional spiritual director, I was asking myself daily, “where is your tenderness?” as an intentional habit to transcend my enneagram 8 sin tendencies. In the midst of this, my eyes are being transformed to no longer see others as incompetent or absent but acting for survival amidst the depth of their own pain. In other words, my own broken eyes need conversion. My own survival practices recognize people’s inability to be present to themselves and others as incompetence; I do this for reasons I am yet to fully understand (it’s my personal culture, to borrow from Edgar Schein). My Jesus question, “where is my tenderness” is an act to be transformed form the inside out. The question teaches me to see and hear differently – with converted...

A good friend of mine said that I wield my power like a badge, unsure if it is a sign to protect others or a sign warning to them. This naming of reality was a bit to clear for me to handle when I first received it, yet now it lingers in my gut as an enzyme to be aware that power and energy are gifts for others and not for self-protection or threat. I read Barton and understand why I assign it to students – the words on the page beckon the reader to “come and die.” She doesn’t know me or my experience, but she has wrestled with her own and walked alongside others to understand shared human experience, and she calls the reader to account for their impact in the world, whether good or ill. She reminds the reader, “you are neither as good as you think but you are also much more.” The little child inside receives this news as a nomad seeking water in a desert. Barton’s words captured my soul as I sit alone in my office this morning, A leader who has experience profound lonelin...

Lent is around the corner, and the question of how to enter the season of the desert journey with Jesus is upon me and us. Lent and the practice of fasting is complicated for me. I don't like to give up my superficial acts as if God is glorified by giving up beer or Netflix or sugar or gluten or caffeine. Yet I am coming to sense and discern that many of these behaviors are indeed superficial and serve to distract me from the deeper questions that I too often desire to keep quiet, push down, and outright ignore.  They are superficial and seek to comfort and soothe my body, so I can ignore the sensations and discomfort and pain that are naturally and attentively waiting to be felt. For the next 40 days, including Sundays, I am going to give up those behaviors that give me comfort and keep me asleep from the world. Booze, sugar, fried food, late night phone perusal and streaming video have become my comfort in life and death. I wonder if what scripture or the catechism says is tru...

How do you currently (or if need be in the past) attend to your soul in ways that invite you to lead from the depth of your person in Christ? "These days there is real tension between what the human soul needs in order to be truly well and what life and leadership encourages and even requires. There is tension between being an doing, community and cause, truth-telling and putting the right spin on things. There is the tension between the time it takes to love people and the need for expediency. There is the tension between the need for measurable goals and the difficulty of measuring that which is ultimately immeasurable by anyone but God himself.  There's the tension between the need for organizational hierarchy… and the mutuality and interdependence of life and community. There is the tension between knowing how to work this system and entering into trustworthy relationships .… There is the tension between the need for an easy discipleship process and the patient, ...