Experiencing God Through Spiritual Direction, S1E4

In this conversation, LaSaundra Gibson and her colleague Kathi Gatlin discuss the ancient practice of spiritual direction and its roots in Christianity. They share how spiritual direction provides a safe space for people to explore their spirituality, fostering a deeper connection with God and Self. Spiritual direction can help bridge the gap between knowledge of God and personal experience. 

Kathi Gatlin’s Website:  boldlyloved.org

LaSaundra Gibson’s Website: LaSaundra.com

Transcript

LaSaundra Gibson (00:45)
Welcome to The Being Devotionals. I'm LaSaundra Gibson. How often do you get the opportunity to share honestly from your soul and feel deeply heard and listened to by another? Probably not often, if ever. Well, there is such a space that makes room for that, for you to be seen and known, to know yourself and God more deeply, and it's called Spiritual Direction. So on today's episode, I've invited Kathi Gatlin to join me in sharing about Spiritual Direction.

what it is and why we both love this work so much. Kathi is a compassionate contemplative who enjoys walking alongside others on their spiritual journeys. As a spiritual director, supervisor and speaker, Kathi facilitates spiritual formation, education and retreats. She has a Dmin in leadership and spiritual formation from Portland Seminary and a Master of Education from George Fox University. Welcome, Kathi.

Kathi Gatlin (01:41)
Thank you, LaSaundra. Thank you for inviting me to this space. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

LaSaundra Gibson (01:48)
Me too. I know it's going to be a good one because we've had many conversations. should say that Kathi is my supervisor in spiritual direction and you've been such a support for me in this as I'm starting sort of new in this work and been affirming of what you see in me. So I'm really thankful to know you and to talk about something that we both love so passionately.

Kathi Gatlin (02:15)
you. Me too.

LaSaundra Gibson (02:18)
So, your spiritual direction practice is called boldly loved. And I love that, by the way. And you say that it takes courage and vulnerability to be seen by God, ourselves, and others. Tell us more about that.

Kathi Gatlin (02:36)
You know, we have so many things that we try to be and that we try to earn and we try to look like and we try to meet people where we think that people expect us to be. But when we become vulnerable, almost naked, if you will, it takes really a lot of courage.

to be able to show up in that kind of space where not only can another hear what's going on inside, but we hear the things that we.

that we often hide or think we need to hide. So being boldly loved and loving boldly is kind of more of the longer name of my ministry. And it comes from my own journey of being afraid to be vulnerable, trying hard to fit in in places where, you know, you don't necessarily feel like you fit in. And it's in, and the courage is letting go of those things we think we need to be.

so that we can actually be who we were created to be. And then to be allowed to be loved and seen and known from that space.

LaSaundra Gibson (04:02)
Beautiful.

Yeah, and as I opened this up, I shared how spiritual direction is a space to be known, but also to know ourselves better. And I think that it takes courage to really discover, and we're always discovering more and more things about ourselves. For me, spiritual direction is a practice of spiritually companioning another, walking alongside them, as you said that you like to do.

And really it's about helping a person learn to discern God's voice, to listen for God's voice and their own inner wisdom, their own voice. And I also like to say that it's spiritual direction is helping a person notice God's activity in their life. And ultimately all of these things really lead us into deeper awareness and deeper authentic connection with ourselves in God.

How do you define spiritual direction?

Kathi Gatlin (05:06)
It really depends a lot on who's asking, right? And so the walking alongside accompanying someone as they kind of navigate their life with God, recognizing the places that they try to earn it and noticing that God's really present with them just as they are, that they don't need to be anything different. So defining spiritual direction,

LaSaundra Gibson (05:09)
Yeah.

Kathi Gatlin (05:35)
I had my first supervisor, Bill Zulke, he would say, it's watching the one you love love another. And, I think it's that. And, and I think it's also more, it's, it's recognizing that love. Jeff Savage defines it as kind of walking in a field together and noticing the flowers along the way. I define it more as kind of a sandbox where I host the space that somebody can come in and play as they feel.

invited to or willing or vulnerable enough to do. It's noticing God, it's noticing themselves as beloved, and it also opens up their relationship not only with themselves and God, but with other people too. It really engages our spirituality and spirituality kind of is defined as a connection. It's connection with ourselves and something bigger than us, God.

and its connection with other people.

LaSaundra Gibson (06:38)
I like that sandbox metaphor and really picturing that.

Kathi Gatlin (06:41)
It helps me not to take

for the space because that would be my tendency, right?

LaSaundra Gibson (06:50)
right. Yeah, and you think about the metaphor

Sometimes feels like there's always this person who's kind of isolated, who's not been invited to play in the big field with the other kids, and so they're alone in this little sandbox playing by themselves.

We're not alone in that space. There's someone in there with us sort of just being together and playing together and noticing together, which is what that direction part is. It's a companioning, it's a guiding, it's not really a kind of a leading as in I'm telling you what to do and I'm going in front of you,

Kathi Gatlin (07:29)
a lot of people call it spiritual companionship or accompaniment. But there's a real history to spiritual direction. And I think that's the gift of using that word. And it really isn't about, yeah, just like you said, it isn't about me telling you what to do, or you telling those you walk with what to do, but it's noticing together.

LaSaundra Gibson (07:54)
Yeah. Well, I was going to ask you about the history. A lot of people do ask me, they say, is this some new age thing? Because, you know, it can kind of sound a little woo woo to people. And I'm like, no, actually, there's a rich history. There's a rich ancient tradition of spiritual direction that goes back to the third century. So can you share about that history and

sort of, guess, maybe why the word direction has come into play.

Kathi Gatlin (08:23)
You know, I think the first spiritual direction conversation is really Jesus on the road to Emmaus, right? As he's walking alongside those two people. And then, Christianity became part of the empire. And people went out into the deserts. They called them desert fathers and mothers or Amas and Abbas. And

They went out because they weren't able to be a martyr for their faith anymore because the faith was part of the government. It was part of the empire. It was part of power. And so they escaped to the desert to try to suffer so that they could, they thought that their idea of God was to suffer. And yet even in that, they experienced God in the desert and the people in the town, they desired to know more.

about these people in the desert. And word came back of wisdom that these people shared. And so people who wanted to go deeper in their relationship with God went out and talked to these people in the desert.

to learn more about how to live a life with God. And then it continued from there in all the monasteries and the different ways that even that fractured, those movements fractured in church history.

people found people who could listen to them in their relationship with God. And at times it was more direction oriented.

And currently there is a lot of schools, training places and spiritual directors who work more in the contemplative, compassionate, evocative model, which is spacious and non-anxious and non-judgmental. A place to kind of land and bear your soul in a way to the depth that you're able to in that sandbox.

place to be seen and known as we discover our inner world.

LaSaundra Gibson (10:28)
one of the things that you mentioned is, and I mentioned as well, about being able to hear for ourselves. And I think that's the part that I love about spiritual direction is that agency. So much in our culture, I think we are afraid to voice

what we want, what we need, and to even dare to discover that. And I remember many years ago, I think it was on Facebook, I saw this meme and it said, ask hole. And the definition of an ask hole is a person who asks you for advice and then they go and do the opposite. that's what happens, right?

I think I've been a person all my life that people come to and ask me for advice. I'm not putting up a sign saying I will give away free advice. It's just what has happened throughout my life. And over the years, and especially since I started doing this work of spiritual direction, I have really enjoyed not giving advice to people, but sitting with them and helping them listen for their wants, needs, desires, longings.

Kathi Gatlin (11:39)
you

LaSaundra Gibson (11:48)
Because we really do know what we need. We really do. And that's why the person goes off and does something else other than what you said, because ultimately they already knew before they asked you. So it's about helping someone listen for, listen deeply, know themselves and to have that agency to say, yes, I can know. And I think there is a fear around being afraid to...

Kathi Gatlin (11:52)
Thank you.

LaSaundra Gibson (12:17)
trust our voice, is God in line with that? Are they in opposition? And I found that they're not really usually in opposition, our desires and God's desires for us. So can you talk more about that sacred part of our soul and those longings and how that really is a part of what this is about in spiritual direction?

Kathi Gatlin (12:41)
You spoke so much truth in that, right? I I remember I wasn't raised in church, but I definitely became a Christian later in life. And I remember how I was taught, you know, like I'm a worm and much worse than that, you know, I'm female in the church, which might be even worse than a worm.

LaSaundra Gibson (12:45)
Hahaha.

Kathi Gatlin (13:09)
And like we can't trust our desires, we can't trust our longings. But what if we are created in the image of God? God is defined as the Trinity, this connection, this reciprocal community. And that's the way that we're designed as well. And what if in the middle of us, and we know that this is true in Genesis 1, 26 and 27, we're all created in the image of God.

and that those desires and longings from our innermost self are God's desires and longings.

And what if God desires that even as much, if not more than we do? And what does that say about the God that we believe in?

don't trust it. We've been taught that it isn't safe, that it isn't true, that our heart lies to us.

And we have so disconnected. We have become so disconnected of who God has actually called us to be and the wisdom that God has actually placed in our souls. Just in the very DNA of who we are.

You talked about the wisdom that people have. Parker Palmer quotes a nun in his book, Hidden Wholeness, is what if the person that you're hosting has all the wisdom that they need? And you and I, when we accompany them, we get to see them recognize it.

LaSaundra Gibson (14:54)
Yeah, and that's so fun.

Kathi Gatlin (14:57)
Isn't it?

That's why it's playing in the sandbox. Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (15:01)
Yeah.

you know, threefold part about spiritual direction, as companions, spiritual companions, it is really God, the director, the spirit, the divine, and this other person, and then us. And we get to sort of listen for and notice with

and, I see something over here. What do you think about that? And so it is not directive. It is really this dance between the three of us that are joining together to help a person know themselves and know God more deeply. many times I...

have this knowing, this discerning that let's be silent for a moment. I'm going to step back and let God speak to this person. And God always does. And I'm out of the way. And it's a conversation between the two of them. And it's so cool to be able to facilitate that, but to know when it's my time to step back and let the spirit speak.

Kathi Gatlin (16:18)
Yeah.

Yeah. And that takes even for you a

trusting the knowing trusting your knower that you are hearing This the step in the dance that God's inviting you to to take a step back, right? You you you have to learn to trust that

LaSaundra Gibson (16:48)
I'm curious to know what's your favorite thing about this? And I'm curious to know the kind of people that you meet with.

Kathi Gatlin (16:57)
I meet with a wide variety of people. I have, I meet with young 20-somethings who are figuring out what they want to do with their life. I meet with young moms who try to figure out how to navigate a relationship with God in the midst of children. And all the way through to people who have lost their spouses.

and are kind of more engaging in the end of life. So many different kinds of conversations. But what really draws people to spiritual direction, you know, is wanting to know more about God. Is wanting to, they recognize that I know about God, but I don't know God. And there's this disconnect, there's this gap. And God is supposed to be loving.

and I don't feel love anywhere. Or the God that I was raised with, like the generation, my daughter's generation, and there's the purity ring, and there's like all these things that are part of being a Christian during that time, and what that actually taught them about who God was. And then we look at the national landscape that's going on right now.

LaSaundra Gibson (18:10)
Mm-hmm.

Kathi Gatlin (18:22)
And you look at what that says about who God is. What do you do with that? And so there is this disconnect between what I know about God and what I'm experiencing, both from church and from Christians and from my own lack of connection with God.

And so it takes someone who's hungry and still has a little bit of hope.

because sometimes people don't even think that that kind of knowing you're beloved is even possible for them.

LaSaundra Gibson (18:59)
Mm-hmm.

Kathi Gatlin (19:01)
And how could it be based on what we have learned and experienced about who God is?

So my favorite thing, you asked what my favorite thing is.

I so enjoy seeing people land in compassion in a way that actually becomes real and lived for them and in that recognize their own belovedness.

I believe that God always invites us to greater freedom and wholeness. And when you see people get a taste of that and kind of sit in that, ⁓ right? That goes back to watching the one I love love another, right?

LaSaundra Gibson (19:50)
Yeah.

I think image of God really is that theme that you were talking about. And that's one of the experiences I've had most in working with.

directees and spiritual direction walking alongside people is there is this image of God that is mostly punitive. And I know I had that image of God before I discovered spiritual direction and I was going through divorce. like what you said, what I knew in my head and what I'd taught, been taught about God and what God says about divorce.

was not lining up with my experience and what I was experiencing from God, what God was telling me about me and how loved I am. And I was struggling with those two things and wrestling with them and my experience and what I knew in my head based on belief systems that someone told me and that I'd read but also probably

Kathi Gatlin (20:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (21:02)
didn't have a lot of context for.

you can just take the literal text from the Bible and take it out of when you don't have the whole picture. So.

there were about two or three different people, who said, have you ever heard of spiritual direction? And I, about the second or third time I thought, okay, this is something I need to look into because now these people have said it to me and some of them are not close to me at all. Just in the bit that they've heard me share, they have felt the need to ask me that question. So,

Kathi Gatlin (21:40)
Thank

LaSaundra Gibson (21:41)
I didn't ignore it and I'm so thankful because spiritual direction really, in many ways, saved my life during that time. And that's where I began to discover more of my belovedness and began to hear and be affirmed and feel affirmed within myself about what I knew and what I knew God was showing me and what I was experiencing.

more affirmed and that I could trust that. And the person wasn't telling me what to do at all.

Kathi Gatlin (22:11)
Mm.

Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (22:16)
So that was my experience with it. And when I meet with people, the reason I love it is because oftentimes, you know, they will come and say, want to be closer to God.

it's so amazing to start to notice that they're like, I was just doing this the other day and they notice God in the most mundane, everyday things. And it's like a light bulb goes off that God

is everywhere and in everything and cares about every bit of my being and what I'm doing. And God is active in every part of it. And I can be close to God in everything, not just the, quote, spiritual things like going to church or reading the Bible. All of it is God. And so that is so cool to watch, helping people notice God in their everyday lives.

Kathi Gatlin (22:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, yeah. You really do love it. Your eyes light up

We don't know that it's a possibility to actually experience God, we? Until someone invites the possibility. And like in your own life, it happened through great suffering. You know, it's said that this kind of process of going deeper in a relationship with God is either through great suffering or great love. Most often, great suffering.

LaSaundra Gibson (23:51)
Well, lot of times people ask, is this therapy? And there is some overlap because we both hold a space for deep

would you say are some of the things that really set this apart from our other helping professionals who are therapists?

Kathi Gatlin (24:10)
Yeah, I think therapy is more goal-oriented, right? There's an end in line. You go for a particular period of time, you learn tools, And spiritual direction.

is about recognizing what you talked about is recognizing God in the midst of everyday life. doesn't have an end in mind. You don't go to spiritual direction for six months and then your relationship with God is perfect, right? It's a lifelong spiritual practice. I plan on.

LaSaundra Gibson (24:49)
Thank

Kathi Gatlin (24:50)
going to a spiritual director for the rest of my life. Because here's a place that you can just be actually vulnerable in and you don't need to take care of the other person. That's so different than a friend, right?

LaSaundra Gibson (24:54)
Me too.

Yeah.

Kathi Gatlin (25:07)
And it's not goal-oriented where you have to be someplace and that's different than therapy or coaching. Not that those aren't great things and necessary at times.

But spiritual direction is a place that you can be really vulnerable without having to tend the one who's hosting you.

Sometimes you don't know what's going on internally until you are invited to listen deeper into it.

LaSaundra Gibson (25:41)
Mm-hmm.

I want to go back to the image of God, because I think that's a big one for people when they're seeking spiritual direction, wondering, trying to understand who is God.

Kathi Gatlin (25:51)
It is.

LaSaundra Gibson (26:02)
had a directee recently who said, I don't even see it, you know, I see God as colors.

and she shared the colors and they were beautiful colors and she started describing the smell and that it was like vanilla and...

Kathi Gatlin (26:22)
you

LaSaundra Gibson (26:24)
And I let her know that this space is safe for you to experience God in that way. Because if you aren't connecting with the he God then why are we forcing that? Let's just sit in what feels authentic to you right now. And it's not like, you know, someone told her that it's literally when she

Kathi Gatlin (26:40)
you

LaSaundra Gibson (26:50)
closes her eyes and feels close to God, that's what comes up. And it was just like a weight was lifted

Kathi Gatlin (26:54)
Thank

LaSaundra Gibson (26:57)
So, you know, there is a freedom. People have been hurt. We have to acknowledge there's a lot of spiritual hurt, abuse in our churches and a lot of patriarchal hurt that has contributed to that abuse. so have to meet people, you know, where they are and God is not in a box. You know, so what are your thoughts about that? I'm sure you have many.

Kathi Gatlin (27:17)
Thank

Thank

Yeah, God,

God meets everyone right where they are. And, and so God comes to this person in a way that she can recognize God. But

to leave the God that we have constructed or has been constructed for us is one of the scariest things. It is so scary because we think we're going down that slippery slope like.

Yeah, but if that's not God, you know, like, everything's not true. It's like we're killing God.

But when we look back, we can recognize that the God that we have known has been with us all along. So here is this person. I've walked with a person who I did San Trey and I asked her to go to my figurine closet and pick out God. And she brought out this Ashen-faced Edgar Allan Pope. That was God. It's like,

my goodness, I wouldn't be able to go to church either, right? And then I asked her like, where is it that you actually really do experience, you know, love or something bigger or had a different image, you know, understanding of God. And as a child, it was in a cornfield. So we started calling God, the God of the cornfield.

God meets us right where we are in a way that invites us. God doesn't push a particular box on us. But yet our box, we all have a box and understanding of God. And God enters that box and expands that box to be bigger. And then God enters that box and expands it to be bigger.

LaSaundra Gibson (29:28)
Mm.

Kathi Gatlin (29:32)
And that's our lifetime journey of spiritual formation, right? Where we have an orientation, a disorientation, which is painful, and then a reorientation, which is a larger, more spacious image of God that we can believe and begin to trust, calls us beloved.

LaSaundra Gibson (29:36)
Yeah.

Kathi Gatlin (29:56)
But that's how come it's so scary, right?

LaSaundra Gibson (30:03)
I love that image of the expansion that's happening. And it really is not this linear race that we're on to get somewhere. Our wholeness is this beautiful circular journey that is always expanding. And how can God get smaller in that space? God gets bigger.

Kathi Gatlin (30:15)
That's Western culture. Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (30:33)
And I think about Moses and.

I don't know if there's been an episode that I haven't cried on yet. I cry every time. But I think about God saying, I am that I am.

I am.

I am.

Kathi Gatlin (31:03)
And when you say, am.

What is it that you are experiencing or sensing in that I am?

LaSaundra Gibson (31:16)
God is whatever I need God to be.

You know, God could have said in that moment so many things, and I just sense such a freedom in God inviting us to experience.

sacred presence in every aspect of our being, in every aspect of our lives. There's just that word spaciousness comes to mind again.

Kathi Gatlin (31:58)
How does that define God,

Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (32:04)
And it invites us into a place where we are always discovering and learning more about God. And that's fun too.

Kathi Gatlin (32:16)
isn't it?

There's a humility in that, that we don't know all there is about God and we don't need to.

And you think about inclusion and exclusion, like who belongs and who doesn't belong, that kind of God, everybody belongs.

LaSaundra Gibson (32:43)
Wow. Well, I think we could talk about this for many more hours. But I've enjoyed our sharing together I hope that this has given people a better understanding of what spiritual direction is. There so many nuggets of wisdom that you shared and I think brought some experiences that people can relate to and think,

Kathi Gatlin (32:48)
I so. Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (33:10)
That's me, I can relate to that. Because I think everyone needs spiritual direction. Everyone needs a safe space to land and someone to hold that space with them. And that's what we're hoping to cultivate. Not perfect people in doing this, but always learning and growing and...

cultivating a space that can welcome people to just be.

So you can learn more about Kathi's work on boldlyloved.org. And there are a number of things that you can explore and learn about on her site. And also, a space where you can schedule some appointments for spiritual direction if you're like, I want to do that. So please do check out her site and...

LaSaundra.com is where you can find out more about my spiritual direction practice.

Kathi Gatlin (34:10)
Thank you for having me, LaSaundra. It has been a delight to be in conversation with you today. And, you know, if you're in the audience and you're thinking about spiritual direction, LaSaundra would be a good fit. I highly recommend that you reach out and connect with her and find out more.

LaSaundra Gibson (34:32)
Thank you.