loving the questions
Last night my online discernment program, Loving the Questions, ended. I was asked to share a reflection about the journey.
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Discernment began as something between me and God several years ago with me sitting in a bright, empty sanctuary on a weekday, asking God what God wanted me to do. With my Loving the Questions cohort, I’ve been gifted community. Part of being a Christian is worshipping in community. Now I believe we’re meant to discern in community, too.
Early in our program, I shared in my small group that I’ve had major depression for 30 years, and I was scared of sinking into the deep places — because what if I got stuck there? Before Loving the Questions, I had sunk deep. My new job, where I strongly felt God’s call, imploded or exploded. And then I got covid, which triggered a long and intense episode of depression.
In December, I began a treatment called transcranial magentic stimulation. For 36 sessions, they pulse magnetic waves into the brain, stimulating existing neural pathways and creating new ones. At my intake, I scored 46 on “Beck’s Depression Self-Inventory,” which is in the highest range: extreme depression. At my last treatment in February, my score was an 8. I checked my math 3 times, and then I started crying. 0-10 range is “These ups and downs are considered normal.”
As the disability of my depression eased, so did my fear of getting stuck in the tough places. I’ve been able to surrender to pain and discomfort, to curiosity and questions, and to go deep, deep within myself. I’ve experienced such liberation and freedom in surrendering!
And that opened opportunities for God to find me in unexpected ways. My small-group members noticed changes in my posture as I spoke about my work as a healer who uses crystals and about my call to consecrate. I broke open and shattered listening to someone sharing about their call to the priesthood. My soul call to consecrate the Eucharist thrust its way to the surface, like the daffodils in my yard that, against all odds, thrust their life and growth through the thick layer of mulch covering them, literally shifting the ground I think of as solid.
Again and again in the past several months, God made clear that my purpose is to share the love of Jesus. I believe that God’s kingdom is something we’re meant to create here, now — not something we receive as a reward after we die. I believe we create God’s kingdom by being God’s hands and feet and hearts and bodies in the world — by sharing and living the love of Jesus.
God reminded me that I’m a healer. I believe we’re born with a divine core, our God-self, and as we go through life, we accumulate junk around that core. I’m reopening my healing practice to allow God to come through me to help people shed their accumulated junk so they can live from their God-center —and then share Jesus’ love.
Loving the questions is like loving anything else: sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s painful, sometimes it’s amazing. For me, it's like hiking on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine. The wooded trails can be confusing. I can work myself into an uncomfortable sweat, lose a shoe in mud, be harassed by mosquitoes. I wonder why I’m doing this. And then the trail opens to the sea. Whether it’s a sunny, blue-sky day or the island is closed in by fog, the sea breeze cools my skin, and the beauty takes away my breath. And then, after I’m replenished, I walk back into the woods.
