The Stone
..a symbol for the deep, true place inside me. And two lovely soul space invitations.
Hi I’m Debbie, a spiritual director, writer, host and mother based in Glasgow. I offer stories, ponderings and gentle invitations to share a moment with your soul.
Hello friends,
In this mini-series I am sharing about the daily life retreat that I finished earlier this year. In the Between the Mystical and the Mess section of my Substack I share life stories from my own faith wanderings, and you’re welcome wherever you find yourself on that path. This retreat was nine months of daily prayer and regular spiritual accompaniment, following the map laid out by St Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises. Read on to the end for some lovely things I’ve been enjoying online, and 2 invitations for in person opportunities coming up.
My introduction to this mini-series is here…
Over the last 15 years or so my faith has sometimes felt like shifting sands. Deconstruction, evolution, faith shift; they all describe the same potentially painful, disorientating and lonely experience of change. The questions consume, comforting beliefs become confusing and prayer requires re-imagining. As I write about the spirituality I am growing into I notice I still carry a fear of getting it wrong. All the more reason to share the stories; an encouragement to recognise and honour our own wandering paths as places where we walk with the sacred.
Ignatian Spirituality offers a spaciousness that has been a deep balm to me. Come, try out this way of praying, how did you find it? What could that be telling you? There is no sense of testing, or having correct theology before we begin, simply a trust that God gently meets with us.
This prayer retreat gave me an opportunity to approach the story of Jesus from different angles. I spent time in my imagination taking a wandering route through the stories, rather than the well-trodden path my feet have been faltering on. The daily commitment offered me the structure (and accountability!) to deepen into my own soul for a season. It was difficult to show up each day and to push through the discomfort. Excerpts from my journal speak for themselves:
‘It’s hard to trust myself, you, the quiet’.
‘I drag myself here like a reluctant toddler resisting a nap’
“I have chased you in the places of people, let me pause and find you here’
'I have approached the exercises as I've approached my walk with God - wanting to get it right, an earnest desire to please and to seek and a fear that I'm not quite getting it'
The quiet and the waiting were intimidating, I was afraid that I would find a void. I softened into the daily and weekly rhythms, but continued to resist the voice of Grace that whispered ‘stop running around and sit down with me awhile’. Throughout the retreat I was invited to pray for ‘the grace to grow in interior freedom’ and this felt like an excavation, a gentle unbinding, a slow rewiring.
This did not happen in lightening bolt moments, but in the consistent quiet. As I look back on that time, one of the gifts was a deeply held sense of my own faith: I am with God, God is with me. In the contemplative pause, instead of a void, I found something solid. Like a seed planted deep within. As I journalled:
'The Kingdom is within
a good seed
slowly growing
a steady flame
strong & true
This isn't about only saying yes to Jesus.
It's a deep yes to myself too.
It's not a search for resonance in the words of others.
It's not comparison or mimicry.
It's the deep trust of my own goodness in solitude.
The flame, the seed found in my deepest self - you & I together'
On this deepening journey I noticed a strong seed within. Planted in my soul – the place where God and I meet. I have felt shame for the way my understanding and knowing of God refuses to fit neatly into a church box. But there’s a solid stone of who we are together that holds true in the midst of life’s ebb and flow. I am with you. You are with me.
I gathered so many stones on Iona in April, as I stretched out into the in between spaces of my own life. Most of the stones are stashed in a jar, a visual reminder of the connection and peace I felt. I heard Scott Erickson and Christine Sine talk about our need for new symbols of our faith and I thought of this particular stone on my bedside table. It is solid, ancient, with a perfect space for my fingerprint. It speaks to me of the deep, true place inside me where I meet God. It is a symbol of my soul.
How do you describe the deep, soul parts of yourself? What images or words fit?
What objects help you connect with your depths?
As I finish, here’s a beautiful prayer from George Appleton:
Give me a candle of the Spirit, O God, as I go down into the deeps of my being. Show me the hidden things, the creatures of my dreams, the storehouse of forgotten memories and hurts. Take me down to the spring of my life, and tell me my nature and my name. Give me freedom to grow, so that I may become that self, the seed of which You planted in me at my making.
Out of the depths I cry to You…
Some Related Lovely Things
I have been enjoying Christine Sine’s Liturgical Rebels podcast, and particularly appreciated her conversation in Episode 3 with Scott Erickson, where they spoke about crafting new symbols and imagery for our faith. On his Substack Image Pilgrimage Scott Erickson is creating ‘ a Visual Vocabulary for the Spiritual Journey’.
I loved this post from Cameron Belm A Prayer You Can Hold in your Hand: “Sometimes you just need a way to concretize the ephemeral.”
I listened to Carrie Newcomer this week after hearing her talk about her experience of silence on Emily P Freeman’s podcast. My ears picked up at her delightful song ‘Start with a Stone’
Start with a stone
The humblest of things,
From this relic of bedrock
Eternity springs.
Go back to the source
Go back to your home,Heaven is waiting
But start with a stone.
Coming Up
Registration is now open for our Iona In Between Retreat for May 2025. Come and collect your own stones and take time to sit in your in between places. Come to rest, to play, to pray, to eat, to swim, to pause, to share, to listen, to be. Fiona and I are both excitedly anticipating co-creating this retreat with the women who come.
A thin place, a sacred space
in between ancient faith and your own sacred story,
between the sea and the land,
between the comfort and the wild,
between the past and the future,
between certainty and mystery.
I still have a couple of spaces left for my Seasonal Soul Session this Sunday in Glasgow. I have a delightful craft planned for us and some journalling prompts around what we're harvesting and what we're letting go of right now. My main hope is for this to be a space to catch our breath and have some time to pay attention to our own selves and our own lives. Taking time to pause, to reflect and to share with one another in a warmly held space works a quiet magic. This event is for women of any faith or beliefs. Message me if you’d like to come along.
May you know a deep trust within your own wandering soul journey,
With love,
Debbie