Fixing & Following
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
For my spiritual direction practice, I typically create a liturgy to use each month. I like offering a prompt for those I meet with and I find that starting with a liturgy marks the transition from small talk and checking in to spiritual direction. The liturgy and readings also prompt me with questions to guide my directees as we move into silence together.
I see most of my directees monthly, so there’s no overlap in content. But in June, I had a directee scheduled to be seen four weeks apart so we could avoid the 4th of July weekend. That meant I had to create an alternate liturgy - and with summer’s erratic schedule, I left it until the morning we were scheduled to meet.
I took a few minutes to take care of it before we left for church Sunday morning. Often when I’m creating the monthly liturgy, there will be a verse or a reading that has stood out to me as a good starting point. This time, I searched my drive for previous liturgies to see if anything stood out. Almost immediately, I came across a liturgy from early 2024 labeled “version 2.” That sounded promising. I likely didn’t use it for everyone if it was labeled that way.
I copied, pasted, added a scripture and headed out to church… not anticipating that the Holy Spirit was leading the way.
Our gospel reading on Sunday was from Luke 9 and it echoed the Silf reading I found earlier that morning:
“he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (v. 51)
“his face was set toward Jerusalem” (v. 53)
“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (v. 62)
The sermon I heard was on the urgency of God and the way this urgency spills from and points to God’s love for us. But mingled in there was a whisper just for me that I has been listening more closely to the Spirit than I realized.
Do you know the voice of God from your own voice? How are they different? What are the ways you can tell when you’re hearing the voice of God?
I recently read a substack (that I sadly can not find to share with you) about focusing on the little gifts that grace our days. Instead of cataloguing the little moments that feel like sandpaper on our souls, what are the tiny glimpses of gifts? Where are the green lights instead of the red flags?
Maybe it’s the way the sunlight filters through the trees and into the front window during your morning coffee.
Maybe it’s your daughter bringing home a sampling of four ice creams — and sharing.
Maybe it’s ordering lunch out and having enough leftovers for the next day.
If we’re fixing our eyes on life’s annoyances and irritations, we will find them aplenty. And if we’re looking for the gifts, we will surely find those, too.
St. Ignatius of Loyola is known for encouraging others to look for “God in all things.” One of the gifts of his practice of the examen prayer is the way it trains us to look for where God is at work. (Another gift of this practice is that it is the very definition of keeping a short list of wrongs. If I’m looking daily for the ways I turned every so slightly away from God and who he made me to be, it is easy to course correct along the way.)
In a typical day, where do the eyes of your heart linger? Do you see the overgrown verge as weeds or wildflowers?
Looking for God at work in my life can feel like finding a loose thread and pulling on it. Recently that has not only included the Silf passage and Luke 9’s similar content, but also reading a book that discusses Thérèse of Lisieux mere days before a seminar on movement and quiet with her. It felt like an invitation to learn more about Thérèse and spend more time with her.
One thing that spiritual direction has taught me over the last decade and a half is that I will find what I’m looking for. If I’m looking for people to disagree with, they will seem to be everywhere. If I’m looking for annoyances, I will be annoyed. But if I’m looking for God in all things, I will find evidence of that. The evidence may be as simple as a beautiful sunset or a home renovation that goes into overdrive as soon as the permit is released.
Where am I fixing my eyes? Do I have my hand on the plow, but my eyes shifting to and fro? That’s not going to yield a usable field.
Do I have my face eyes fixed on Jesus? That’s the easiest and surest way to follow the path I long to tread.
Where do the eyes of your heart linger? Are they pointing in the direction you long to go?
Book Corner:
What I’ve Been Reading Lately
via library loan:
Colton Gentry’s Third Act by Jeff Zentner
This book was a tame romcom made lovable by its Nashville insider commentary. Sometimes I just want a book that’s going to deliver a happy ending. Mission accomplished.
Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This book is an interesting exercise in what-if. What if someone stayed at a party and ended up with her high school sweetheart. What if she left the party and her whole life took a different turn. This book starts with one event and then splits off into two parallel timelines. My only complaint was that it occasionally was tough to keep the timelines straight.
Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
I think this could be a fascinating book, but it’s too heavy for me right now. Maybe you’ll have better luck?
via audiobook:
Validation by Caroline Fleck
Fleck is a good audiobook narrator, but I get the impression this one would be better in print. It’s not possible to skim content when listening and there’s a lot of content in this book. If nothing else, listening to this is making me extra aware of the ways I’m failing to validate those in my life.
via library eBook:
My Sisters the Saints by Colleen Carroll Campbell
I saw this book in the retreat bookstore in early June and requested my library’s copy. I’m enjoying some of it - I like learning about the saints and Campbell has connection to both Saint Louis University and Marquette University (as do I) - but Campbell’s “bemusement” as the sexism she encounters as a presidential speechwriter is a bit difficult to swallow.
May you have the grace this week to notice where your eyes are and then align your sight with where your heart longs to be.
Peace & Grace,
Shannon
St Therese is on my patio — she kept watch with me when mum was in icu so long ago. She is so very dear!