Alan Jones writes, “True spiritual direction is about the great infixables in human life. It’s about the mystery of moving through time. It’s about mortality. It’s about love. It’s about things that can’t be fixed.”

Admittedly, this sounds terrifying. We want to be fixed. We need to be fixed but spiritual direction is not about fixing anything or anyone. It’s about listening to the great story and the small story. It’s listening to how losing your keys and being late for a dentist appointment might relate to the great story that we might read in sacred scriptures and ancient tradition. It’s a space to admit that there are things that cannot be easily fixed and to ponder what it all means. It’s a covenanted relationship in which you can ask what in the world God is doing.

There is no one answer to what you can bring to spiritual direction. The truth is that you can bring anything. There is nothing that cannot be explored in spiritual direction.

There need not be a great question that you’re pondering or some big decision you’re trying to make. There doesn’t need to be a great sense of loss or even hope, but only a humble request to bring yourself.

Bring the truth. Bring what’s real and let’s tell that story before God.