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Guest author: Liz Budd Ellmann, MDiv
Lightly Cupped Hands
Jean Vanier founded worldwide L’Arche communities where people with and without disabilities live together. Jean exquisitely describes how to hold another in relationship. He demonstrates how to have lightly cupped hands as if holding a tiny, fragile bird. Not too open so the bird tumbles out, and not grasping so the bird suffocates.
Lightly cupped hands support another while allowing freedom for change and transformation. Lightly cupped hands even allow another to fly away.
With lightly cupped hands, spiritual directors welcome new spiritual directees as they arrive often after a wearying journey seeking a safe place to share the depths of their spiritual lives. By providing sacred space and a compassionate listening presence, spiritual directors offer room for their spiritual companions to attend to God’s ever-present invitation to develop inwardly and in service to our world.
Sometimes whole organizations need to be held lightly when significant change is underway. With lightly cupped hands, I invite you to hold Spiritual Directors International staff as we stretch and transform into our next structural stage of development. As we start a new fiscal year on July 1, Brother David Liedl, TOR, cycles off the Coordinating Council after giving six years of stellar service. Molly Bauthues takes a three-month sabbatical to drive the perimeter of the United States, a trip she has been planning for three years. Pegge Bernecker reclaims her maiden name Pegge Erkeneff and cuts back her contract work with Spiritual Directors International in order to pursue a full-time position with an Alaska school district..
Another change relates to the way Spiritual Directors International organizes educational programs. SDI is not renewing the part-time events contract with Sue Espinosa in order to invest more resources in future educational programming, such as webinars, pilgrimages, affinity group educational programs, and teleconferences in addition to the annual conference.
SDI is restructuring to employ full-time staff in the home office to offer educational and public relations work on behalf of the ministry and service of spiritual companionship.
With sadness, we let go of one way of connecting to enter a new way of being in relationship. It is a tender time of “praying our goodbyes,” as SDI member Joyce Rupp, OSM, beautifully writes about. With grateful hearts, we thank Brother David, Molly, Pegge, and Sue for outstanding service.
With lightly cupped hands, please hold in prayer volunteers and contractors who are in transition and the home office as we continue the hiring process. Thank you for your loving support during the restructuring.
Please add your comments.
07/10,2011, at 07:46
As I am finding again, transition feels like an uprooting. We are torn from what we know by the roots, left thirsty for the living water that the groundedness of earth has provided for us. The stability of the rooted connection feels now tenuous at best. We may not know where our Master Gardner is taking us, but we know that He is carrying us lightly cupped in His hands to the place where He will prepare the soil and gently re-plant us. We will grow again, but in that uprooted time of unknowing, we must try to remember that HE is the source of our living water...not the earth in which we had grown so comfortable. We must listen for His whispers..."Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you in my righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10) Perhaps that should read..."Do not fear for it is I who is uprooting you. Do not be afraid for it is I who will protect your precious roots. I will strengthen you with living water and I will help with my son. I will uphold you in the lightly cupped palm of my hand until I replant you in the garden I have prepared for you." God Bless us all in our transitions.
07/10,2011, at 20:18
As I continue to transition from chaplaincy in a nursing home to creating a House of Prayer with the help of three other religious sisters I walk each day in thanksgiving and awe! My prayer calls me to listen to my heart and to be in the stillness in the midst of sorting, pitching and packing for a new journey. I ask God to bless me and those from whom I am leaving. I pray for the courage to be open to a new dawning that will indeed have its moments of distraction and distrust.
07/11,2011, at 21:29
What a powerful word, “Transition.” I remember lying in a hospital bed over 30 years ago delivering my first child. At first it didn’t seem so difficult, but as labor continued, I wanted to rewind. They said I was in “Transition.” Mother nature. What made me ever think I wanted to be a mother! But then, finally, Jonathan appeared, and my life was never the same. I could not believe the power of love I felt in my heart the moment that I saw and held my beautiful baby. All the discomfort was forgotten as I counted all his fingers and the toes. One moment, I was screaming in pain. One moment later, I was in Heaven holding my little newborn baby. Such an important instruction for life!
07/18,2011, at 15:24
The pain of this transition season for all involved is palpable. The gift, however, is in the absolute graciousness that pervades the words. This I have rarely heard in the midst of other difficult transitions within the family of faith and spirit. The lightly cupped hands hold the hurt gently so the wounds can heal. Tending to this with such compassion, openness, and trust reflects the grace that guides the way into the yet-unformed new. Thank you for your faithfulness; it is already being honored and blessed.
07/18,2011, at 16:43
When I feel myself in limbo, between the moments of connectedness with God and all of God's creation and the barrenness of wandering in the desert, my transition point, I try to reflect on the God moments of my recent life. When I pinpoint those moments they come alive again for me and I relish the grace of those times again. I try to remember to give thanks for all of my God moments, even the ones involving suffering because without that stretching and the growing pains entailed, I would not have grown to the present moment of "presence to the Presence" we call God. When I am finally able to detach myself from holding on to whatever gave me my recent strength and surrender my needs to God without clinging, God invariably gently guides me to my next facet of love imbued with confidence. People even seem to sense my pristine serenity and this only encourages me to follow my newborn path even when I do not know where it is leading. This is when I take the focus off of me and I become an instrument of God as a "woman of visitation" in the world.
08/16,2011, at 19:06
...today I decided to read all my mail. This newsletter have been in my box and today, a month later I read it. On a day when I rode on a bus with a developmentally delayed blind student. She would get distracted on the long bus ride.....so a held a lightly cupped hand in front of her....she reached and put her hand in mine and calmed............ How wonderful to read an article on this and see it applied prior to reading!
09/03,2011, at 09:47
Ten years ago my spiritual director, Dom Benedict Reid and I were entering a yoga class when we watched in horror as the planes hit the twin towers. We ask ourselves now - how has the world changed? Are we in better dialogue with our neighbors, do we appreciate each day more and open ourselves to more presence? St. Benedict admonished us to welcome the stranger and see the Cosmic Christ