Fifty Days of Gratitude: Days Seven and Eight

Last year at this time, my Beloved and I were driving across the country, returning to our beloved PNW and a life in closer proximity to our family. The drive home stood in contrast to the drive away when we left for my new position at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, OH in the autumn of 2020. This time, masks were no longer required in hotels and we could go into restaurants to eat rather than picnicking in the car or at a rest stop.

The biggest difference, though, at least in my spirit, was that the leap-of-faith component was more present when we returned than it was when we set out for my new job. Coming home, I didn't have a job waiting. Oh, there were some possibilities in the mix, but nothing certain. And I recognize the incredible privilege that was inherent in our ability to make this move with that part of our future still unknown.

The ONLY way I could do this and not, as an Enneagram 3 and a ESFJ on the Meyers-Briggs, lose my ever loving mind, was to have a team of people in my corner. Of course, I had my Beloved and our kids and their beloveds; of course my friends were cheering us on, even as we said goodbye to some of them and hello to others.

For this gratitude post, though, I am incredibly grateful for the people who accompany others in tough seasons, or seasons of transition, or just when we are stuck. Spiritual Directors do this work. So do Coaches and Consultants. So do Therapists and Counselors. It was because of one question that my coach asked that I was able to even start to imagine coming home and taking some time to re-set before starting another call. She listened and prompted and questioned as I imagined what this might look like. My Spiritual Director could connect the dots when the uncertainty started to rub the wrong ways in my soul and remind me of God's presence, especially in liminal seasons.

I often advise others to assemble their team before they need them. Put them in place: a Spiritual Director (who, by the way, come from all manner of traditions and no traditions); a good Coach or Consultant who can re-frame and guide and imagine; a Therapist or Counselor who can help us understand how and why we receive and respond to life the way we do. It's not necessary to engage with them all at once, but it helps to have them in place, ready if you need to check in or walk through a tough season or if you are just feeling discombobulated.

Birdwalk: In her marvelous book Enchantment, Katherine May describes feeling discombobulated this way: "It captures perfectly my state of mind: confused, disoriented, out of sorts. For me, it carries a hint of gentle dislocation or dismemberment, a sense that its subject is being taken to pieces, their component parts flung off in different directions. Nothing is in its rightful place."

Yes, when I have felt discombobulated, I am grateful for those whose life's work is to help me look at the pieces of things that feel out of place and ask whether putting them back together in the same way is really the best idea.