Spiritual Formation Archives

Spiritual formation is a lifelong journey of drawing closer to the True Self and the Divine, with spiritual practices offering both scaffolding and a firm foundation for the search. Find posts on spiritual formation below, explore specific spiritual practices on the resources page, and sign up here to receive updates on new posts directly in your inbox.

S2:E2 | Coming Out with Daniel Tidwell

Much of our journeys in everyday life are slow seasons of unfolding and awakening, and often these journeys require great courage in order to reach the other side.

This is true for many in the LGBTQ community, and to mark Pride month I’m excited to have my friend and fellow spiritual director Daniel Tidwell share with you his own coming out journey. This episode is a bit longer than most, but the best stories take time, and Daniel leaves us in the end with wisdom we can each apply to our own journeys, no matter our orientation.

When we think of pilgrimage, journeys to far-off lands often come to mind, right?

Perhaps you get an image of a medieval pilgrim walking the long road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, a bundle of belongings thrown over his back and a staff in hand. Or maybe you think of the large groups of people who journey to places like Lourdes in France each year in search of healing. Perhaps it’s the multi-step journey to Iona in Scotland that comes to mind, which begins with a ferry from the west coast of Scotland, a drive across the Isle of Mull, and another ferry before you reach the Holy Isle (not to mention whatever is required just to get you to the west coast of Scotland).

All of these journeys are adventures, no doubt, and opportunities to encounter new cultures and learn about new ways of encountering God. But for a journey to be a true pilgrimage, there must be an interior journey, too. In the end, that’s why we leave home, after all—because the journey out can always lead to a journey in. It’s the interior journey that makes an ordinary trip into a pilgrimage and transforms a tourist into a pilgrim. And while an exterior journey or traditional pilgrimage is certainly a valuable practice for initiating an interior journey, you don’t have to leave home to begin an interior journey—you just need to be willing to engage the journey within.

Here are 5 steps for engaging the interior journey to help lead you along the path:

1. name your question

Every journey begins with a question, and in The Art of Pilgrimage, author Phil Cousineau tells us that it is our questions that lead us to our quest. To discern your question, listen to your longing—What is it that brings you to the interior journey? What do you hope to encounter and discover? Like the pilgrim, approach this step with curiosity, allowing the question to unfold along the way if it isn’t clear from the beginning. (Sometimes this can even be the most authentic form of journeying, as we can be certain that we’re not trying to control the journey and force the outcome, but instead allowing the Sacred Guide to lead.)

2. enter in

When you begin a journey, you cross a threshold. On an exterior journey, the shift is obvious, because the world around you is different—you have left home and entered into foreign territory. This shift in the interior journey is more difficult to notice, however, because we’re often still embedded in everyday life. To fully enter in, establish regular spiritual practices that can help you shift from the outer world to the inner one as you set aside what’s happening in everyday life for a time to focus on what’s happening within. Contemplative practices and the postures of silence, stillness, and solitude are excellent tools for this. Learn how to practice 7 forms of contemplative prayer here.

3. find a guide

Whether it’s a spiritual director, pastor, trusted friend, or favorite author, find a guide to keep you accountable to your commitment and accompany you along the way. Find a spiritual director in your area at sdiworld.org.

4. bring the whole self

This is easier with a traditional pilgrimage, as it’s more obvious that your whole self is joining you on the journey. Life at home, however, can be compartmentalized, and if we’re not intentional, we might end up thinking the interior journey is just about the mind rather than the body and soul. To round out the journey and bring your whole self, incorporate movement into your practice. Emulate the pilgrim by taking long walks or walking a labyrinth, letting your feet do the praying for a change. Creative practice is another way to bring the whole self, allowing the images held deep within the soul to come to the surface and serve as waymarkers along the path.

5. prepare an altar

Most pilgrimages involve a journey to a Sacred site, and just because your journey is an interior one, it doesn’t mean you can’t create a Sacred site of your own. Do so right at home by creating an altar on a side table, shelf, or in a vacant corner. Visit this place to renew your intention, just as you would any other Sacred site, and add elements that reflect your quest and intention as the journey unfolds, allowing it to become an outer representation of the journey you are taking within.

(PS: Setting out on an outer journey? Because all types of pilgrimage involve an interior journey, these steps apply for journeys both near and far.)

Pilgrim Podcast 08: Silence + The Contemplative Path with Rich Lewis

Silence, solitude, stillness—these postures are tools for the pilgrim and markers of the Contemplative Path.

Rich Lewis of silenceteaches.com has been entering silence daily for years through the practice of Centering Prayer and believes that silence can teach us both more of ourselves and of God. In today’s conversation, we talk about contemplation and the Contemplative Path and explore how the silence experienced in Centering Prayer can make the practice so transformative.

Have the itch to set out on a meaningful journey?

Sure, we’d all like to travel on pilgrimage to far-off places. After all, there’s a reason that some of the pilgrim archetypes include the Nomad, Seeker, and Sojourner. However, because of life’s limitations, this can’t always be a reality. That doesn’t mean, though, that you can’t follow the longing of your heart and set out on a “mini-pilgrimage” right at home or even next door.

To create a mini-pilgrimage right at home, you simply need to apply the 3 elements of pilgrimage: a journey (an intention or desire and time set apart), engagement with the True Self (connecting with you), and Sacred Encounter (connecting with God). Retreats are one of many types of pilgrimage and can serve as mini-pilgrimages during which we are invited to leave our everyday lives, if even for a moment, and learn from wise teachers, ask difficult questions, and try new things, all the while being reminded of what it means to take care of ourselves—mind, body, and soul.

Whether you have a week, a weekend, an hour, or simply a stolen moment after breakfast, here are 9 steps to creating a mini-pilgrimage right at home:

It’s been just over a week since I returned from my trip to Iceland and England.

And though it wasn’t a pilgrimage, per se, I brought along a few tools to help make the journey an intentional one, providing opportunities along the way for me to get to know both myself and God more deeply while on foreign soil. One of these tools is the Compass Cues Reflection Deck, available in the Journey Shop.

The Compass Cues Reflection Deck contains 31 Compass Cues to help you align with your True Self, God, and the movement of the Divine on your pilgrimage of faith. Meant to be chosen at random and revisited again and again as each season of your life unfolds, these questions can be used for prayer, journaling, conversation, and more as a compass for the journey and a guidebook for the soul.

Here’s one of the questions I drew on a cool, cloudy morning tucked away in a quiet B&B garden in Winchester: “How do you want to know God?” Even though I made the cards and came up with the questions, it was a surprising question at the time, and even more surprising was the response that followed. I’ve shared my journal entry from the morning below.

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the pilgrim at home

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S2:E2 | Coming Out with Daniel Tidwell

Much of our journeys in everyday life are slow seasons of unfolding and awakening, and often these journeys require great courage in order to reach the other side.

5 Steps to Engage the Interior Journey

When we think of pilgrimage, journeys to far-off lands often come to mind, right?

1. name your question

2. enter in

3. find a guide

4. bring the whole self

5. prepare an altar

Pilgrim Podcast 08: Silence + The Contemplative Path with Rich Lewis

Silence, solitude, stillness—these postures are tools for the pilgrim and markers of the Contemplative Path.

Create a Mini-Pilgrimage Right at Home

Have the itch to set out on a meaningful journey?

How Do You Want to Know God?

It’s been just over a week since I returned from my trip to Iceland and England.

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