What is Soul Care® II?
Many times I get asked the question, “what is soul care”? I have written about this topic a year ago, but I will share again some of the vision, understanding, and unfolding of this work.
As many of you know, my life had a radical shift around 25 years ago when I entered the experience of receiving spiritual direction. My life was in crisis and someone suggested I find a spiritual director. I didn’t even know what that was, but I pursued the quest to find one! The gift of being in crisis is that there is not much to lose with taking risks. Finding life and a way forward become the most important things.
Needless to say, I entered a period of three years where I experienced a new infrastructure of a spiritual nature. This infrastructure wasn’t held together in a building or in a particular creed – but through the contemplative practices I found through spiritual direction, the learned experience of silence and stillness, walking the labyrinth, and the gifts of music that came through the Taizé community in France.
These elements created experiences that helped me slow down, breathe, pause, and listen to aspects of my life I didn’t even know where there. I developed over time a softer pace, a slower reactivity, and an open heart to how Divine Love may be leading me even in challenging circumstances.
This three-year experience lengthened into a 25-year process that I am still in today – learning, growing, deepening through the practices of slowing down, understanding breath as prayer, and opening my heart again and again to the Mystery of Love.
The work of Soul Care® has arisen out of my life’s journey in an unexpected way. I didn’t plan to create an organization or a ministry of any kind, but it slowly evolved through the retreat work and Evenings of Sung Prayer that I offered over 2 decades. Slowly, over time, an infrastructure of programs developed that, although static in themselves, hold the possibility of creating the dynamic of transformation. And the grace has been that many people have known profound and deep transformational moments through these programs, concerts, and retreats.
The invitation through this work, as it was for me so long ago, is to create experiences that allow a person or group to find a gentler rhythm, to pause, to listen to one’s life, and to open to the Mystery of Divine Presence. However one may put language around their faith journey, they are invited to be listen and attend to their lives, to become Intune to their souls, and to respond to Love’s invitations.
The care of the soul can also be seen like tending a garden, as our inner life can be seen like a landscape we are invited to tend. To imagine a property that has been neglected for 20 years can provide a visual of what is in the interior of many of us. Memories, trauma, longings, lost innocence become buried under business, addictions, or being checked-out emotionally. Weeds, over-grown plants, and wild critters can slowly take over what was beautiful underneath. One of the understandings we hold is that the original landscape of our souls is good, it is very good. And even though there may be layers of hardened soil, or choking weeds, there is something deep within to be recovered and restored.
This takes time. Lots of time. Time to pull the weeds and slowly re-create a beautiful, well-tended garden. Even when a garden has been created, each season brings a necessary time of tending. This work is not static, it is vibrant and necessary to attend to. We can’t attend our inner life in one weekend and expect long-term results. The work is on-going and requires our faithfulness to our lives. But it is incredibly exciting what can emerge when a garden is cared for – flowers, fruit, and vegetables that can bless one’s life and the whole community. This is possible! This is the work of caring for the soul. It is slow, it takes dedication, but the long term benefits are not only for the individual, they are for the whole earth community.
I taught music for 36 years, but in these past five years, Soul Care® has become the work of my life, and I am joined by an incredible team of others who are offering this work with me. Together, we offer spiritual direction (one-on-one companionship), formation programs (yearlong programs that create a structure for small groups to commit to spiritual practices), concerts, training programs (for those feeling called to spiritual companionship for others and spiritual leadership), as well as music, audio meditations, poetry, books, and more.
May the small ripples that have travelled out from a conversation, a song, a poem, a moment of stillness, live on in many hearts and may the gift be greater love, greater hope, greater joy.
