Nurturing Artists through Spiritual Direction
Many years ago, my husband Dennis and I went on a white water rafting excursion while visiting Ft. Collins, Colorado. Although I was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah and had spent my life in the great outdoors, I had never river rafted. Excited for the adventure, we loaded with friends into the raft. Our guide instructed us on how and where to place our feet to prevent us from flying overboard—definitely a goal of mine given the fairly cool day and chilly water. He coached us on how to synchronize our oars and when to use—or not use—our oars in order to continuously flow down the river. He trained us to attune to his voice so that we would not miss his instruction.
As we rafted down the mysterious rhythms of the river, our guide projected for us when the rapids were going to grow rough, when we needed to make hard turns to avoid large boulders that could harm us, and when we could take it easy until the river grew rough again. There were chill moments in which we lightheartedly bantered and it wasn’t challenging to coordinate our oars. And there were moments when we caught air as we navigated white water rapids—catapulting one of our rafters into a cold plunge, our guide expertly orienting them back onto the raft.. Our guide knew the landscape of the river as well as the important signposts of the river, enabling him to guide us and cast vision for our journey.
I have found the spiritual life to offer a similarly mysterious landscape to that of navigating that river. After placing my trust in Christ in college, I got involved in Cru (known then as Campus Crusade for Christ). The staff team discipled me and taught me the landscape of those initial stages of faith. I learned how to read and study my Bible, pray, share my faith, and live in Christian community. They were wonderful guides for the first few years of my journey with God and taught me the basics in nurturing my life with God and others.
But after walking with God for several years, life began to take turns presenting landscapes I did not know how to navigate. God was not showing up as I had experienced him in the past. He was allowing circumstances that bewildered me and challenged my view of him. I couldn’t find any guides that were able to give me signposts for what God might be up to or help me navigate the challenging spiritual landscapes I was traversing. Over 14 years, I grew disillusioned with God and felt a bit hopeless at times.
I was introduced to Larry Crabb’s School of Spiritual Direction at this time and applied without knowing what spiritual direction was. I desired more for my life with God and thought this could be a place where that could happen. To my delight, I was accepted. Over that first week-long intensive, I encountered a guide, Larry Crabb, who had gone before me and knew the spiritual landscape I was trudging. Larry shared signposts that enabled me to embrace the mysteries of the wilderness. He gave me vision for what God was up to to capture my whole heart for him.
As Larry guided me, I began to see the true, good, and beautiful God of the Bible more clearly. I grew to see myself more clearly—a fallen image bearer with beautiful capacity to be formed into Christ’s likeness. I gained vision for the life I was created to inhabit—to love God and others for their sakes while partnering with God in what He is doing in the world. Having a spiritual guide who was intimate with the wild landscape that ultimately leads to union with God changed my entire life.
God grew a passion in me to become a guide who is able to help others walk deeper into the heart of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as they traverse the rugged, mysterious landscapes of the spiritual life. My passion for spiritually directing artists comes from two places:
The art that artists make is an overflow of their vision of God, others, and the world. Spiritual direction helps the artist see God and his presence in their lives more clearly, bringing a richness to their creating life with God as well as their art.
Artists have a unique voice with an accent that transcends cultural boundaries. Our broken world—resistant to verbal messages about beauty, truth and goodness—needs voices who are equipped to communicate the mysteries of God to a culture in need. As I walk alongside artists as a spiritual director, I am positioned to stir their hunger for God to grow greater than all other hungers. As artists walk deeper into the community of the beautiful, true, and good God, I see them liberated as co-creators with God and their accent takes on greater flair.
If you’d like a sneak peek into a spiritual direction session, a writer with Cru Storylines wrote this story about his experience with me. Click here to read.