Being the Beloved:
stories of ongoing transformation in daily life
By Andy Pelander, CFDM Board Chairman
A few years back, I said yes to something I rarely say yes to: a last-minute invitation. Honestly, though, I sometimes don’t say yes to first-minute invitations, either. Weeks or months in advance, I’ll buy a ticket to a concert or ballgame and then, day of, hem and haw about going... more than a few times content to stay put, and savor the moment I’m already in.
But following this particular last-minute yes, I found myself in a small sea of listeners, at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, while two men in armchairs, bathed in warm theater light, chatted on stage. The interviewee, writer and farmer, Wendell Berry. And while I don’t recall most of what he said that night, I do remember how I felt, listening.
I felt, as I imagine many in the room might have, that it would sure be nice if Wendell could just be our granddad. His ease, his voice, his gravity; his frailness. His gentleness, the courier of deep reflection, the patina of a wise and worn, earthen perspective. I doubt a single question he was asked was a first for him, but we couldn’t tell. He simply shared what he’s noticed and learned from years of longing, and glimpses of joy. And over 90 pin-drop minutes, I felt like there was nothing else to do or be, anywhere. Whatever was going on before, or would resume after, could wait.
Wendell riffed on a line from his book of poetry, Sabbaths. “We live the given life, and not the planned.” Reread that a couple times. The given, not the planned. I hear in that a tension, between what is and what was hoped for. Between what will come and what was sought. Or, maybe, between what we receive and what we release?
I love that spiritual direction is built to make space for this kind of tension. It honors it without pledging or even trying to resolve it, giving us a place to put it, in the quiet. Direction has allowed me room to wonder and notice the good of what is being given, and what joyously will be. Whether in times of feeling richly connected or painfully displaced, there is space held to say the thing and to weep, to have lost it and then to remember again; to laugh at absurdities, and to keep on listening.
And perhaps most luxuriously of all, time in spiritual direction is like a pause button for everything else that waits for us afterward. All the tick-tock and tappy tap. Whatever it is, beeping at you from the “planned” life, will still be there. It is a kindness to the soul to enter time wholly set aside, with a companion whose gift is listening with you.
To consider together:
· If, a couple months into the new year, we are carrying a heightened sense of unsettledness, how might we recover a felt sense of attunement to the heart, voice, and movement of God in the world, to know again that He is near and active?
· What could be, to use Wendell’s word, a “given” rhythm or relationship in your life that might help you slow and steady yourself this season? Who in your life may also have some margin for curiosity and connection right now, willing to sit in the tension of the given and planned?
· What is a yes that your heart has been resisting, because of what else you have planned?
Discover Wendell Berry!
The Peace of Wild Things
Jayber Crow
The Art of the Common Place
A Place in Time
Bringing it to the Table
Andy Pelander lives in Seattle with his family, minus those away at college, and began serving as board chair for CFDM Northwest in January 2025. Learn more about his direction and coaching work at Intheseam.org. He is an Anglican priest, and currently leads staff care and development at Canlis (www.canlis.com), whose mission is “to inspire all people to turn toward one another.”
What books, media, activities are nurturing your heart, soul, mind, strength in this season as we are loving God and our neighbor as ourselves? Post in the comments below or hop on over to our Facebook page and share with one another.