A poem has a great power to name the experience of a directee. I let the Spirit choose the piece. For example, someone described the pressure of expectations on his/her life like a huge rock. Should the rock be moved, all that would remain would be a flat puddle of water.
As we closed our session, I prayerfully asked Christ for a poem or scripture and had a sense to take the thin volume by Luci Shaw Scape: Poems (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2013) with “page 63” coming into my head. We were both deeply touched as I read aloud in Lectio Divina fashion:
States of Being
Isn’t stability greatly
over-rated?
Why would I ever want to sit
still and smug as a rock,
confident, because of my great
weight, that I will not
be moved?
Better to be soft as water,
easily troubled, with
at least three modes
of being, able to shape-
shift, to mirror, to cleanse,
to drift downstream,
To roar when I encounter
the rock.
-Teresa Elder Hanlon