Sue Monk Kidd: More Incubation
“Remember that little flame on the Easter candle. Cup your heart around it. Your darkness will become the light.” —Sue Monk Kidd, “A Journal Entry” in When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions (HarperOne, 1992).
We continue our visit with Sue Monk Kidd. I wish I could have Sue Monk Kidd’s book, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions, with me all the time and just read from it when I meet with other spiritual friends. I hope I can remember her message about waiting. I hope to share her ideas about the false self at the appropriate time. I see many people coming for direction on or getting ready for the “night sea journey” in the tradition of biblical waiters: Jonah in the belly of the whale, or Christ in the tomb, or Joseph in the well. I hope to remember Kidd’s phrase when we are having difficulty letting go: “Put on your courage suit,” as well as the image of letting go like crossing a bridge.
I began this book on Maundy Thursday in the Chapel of Repose with the reserved Sacrament. I ended it in Greece with my husband, my daughter, and her husband in the week of Easter 4 as we overlooked the Acropolis. I know Kidd’s later books are about her trips to Greece, especially with her daughter, where she becomes even more connected to the feminine part of herself and God. My daughter and I have published a book together just as Kidd and her daughter did. Kidd ends her book telling about a drawing of a mother and child that came out of her true inner self, based on a sketch she made at Kanuga, the home of my spiritual direction class. So much serendipity.
Several years ago on Mother’s Day we dedicated a sculpture of a mother and child in the garden next to St. Luke’s chapel that my husband had purchased. More connections.
So, this week as well as the time we traveled in Greece I will try to follow Kidd’s direction and stay in the moment and feed my soul real food instead of junk food—and see what else might happen to help me see the God within each person I meet.
The real food I am looking for is silence, laughter, solitude, taking care of my body, swimming, massage, deep encounters, prayer, writing, reading, Eucharist, gratitude, seeing serendipity, delight, compassion, living in the present, empathy (sharing pain), and a reverence for the earth, especially as I remember being in that ancient part of the world that we visited on land and on sea.
Take again a virtual trip in your mind to a favorite country you have visited—England, Italy, China, Spain, Germany, Greece, Norway, France, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Israel. Pray for the people in that land that they will remain safe during this pandemic.
Joanna. joannaseibert.com