I came across a Richard Rohr quote this week and it was so intriguing to me. He said, “All problems in America are interpreted today psychologically, but the real solutions are spiritual.”

I sat sort of stunned by this statement. But the more I’ve thought about it this week, the more I am inclined to agree with him. When I run through the list of things in my own life that trouble me, the discoveries I make are spiritual ones.

I became a Christian in my early twenties. While I was raised around faiths I wasn’t raised IN faith or as a part of a faith-based family. So in the early years of discovering Jesus, it was like the answers to all my questions were finally present. It was euphoria!

My first inclination was to switch my major and go to a Christian college because I was SO passionate about God. I knew in my soul that my heart wanted to orient my whole life around God. But that’s not what happened when I wanted it to happen or how I wanted it to happen.

Today, with 20+ years of life in Jesus behind me, my heart is so grateful for the ways God has revealed himself to me. Despite the differences between how I thought He would do it and how he actually did it. I am a Spiritual Director. I get the privilege of listening to others and caring for their souls. It may have taken me 20 years to get here, but when I think about the young me whose heart was so sure about those little seeds within her that were taking root, I can’t help but smile. It took a long time to get to this place.

I opened my own Spiritual Direction practice this summer. It felt so honoring to my little seeds planted so long ago. As I begin the work of meeting people, and sharing with them what Spiritual Direction is and is not, trying to navigate the waters of promoting my business has been awkward and kind of lumpy. This is a service-based job that I am doing. It exists because people have pain, suffering, and questions and they need a place to talk about those things and to explore the spiritual solutions which will heal and soothe and care for their whole selves.

As Christians navigate the gray waters of life in this world and how their faith impacts the decisions and orientations of their lives, where does a believer go for encouragement, support, and care? We are watching deconstruction happen all around us in places of faith. Sin and abuse in others or at the hands of others have left a trail of broken hearts and who will help them?

We have therapists for our psychological needs, but like the Richard Rohr quote that stopped me this week, what about the spiritual solutions? {I do believe in psychological problems too and their need for psychological solutions}

We are not made to navigate these areas alone. There is more theology than I can write in this short post about our deep need for one another in spiritual life. We need safe spaces to ask hard questions, weep and work and walk together in the Spirit.

Here’s one last story. I was at a wedding talking with a woman at our table who I did not know. She asked me what I did for a living and when I told her she (like most people) had a perplexed look on her face. She said, “I don’t know what that means, can you explain it to me?

I said to her, “imagine a person who was trained to walk with you through the spiritual spaces of your life. Someone who understood theology and could talk with you about the things that perplex you about God and this life and what it all means in a way that is uniquely about you, your story, how it fits together, and the special person God made you. Would you want to talk with someone like that?” Her response was “That’s a thing?!”

Yup. That’s a thing.

Jesus told his followers “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

I think that Richard Rohr guy was on to something.