The White Chair

Years ago now a counselor in town referred a woman to me for spiritual direction.  He said they were stuck, he and she.  I knew the counselor because he had counseled me.  I knew him to be gifted in his vocation.  He had been a counselor a long time.  I was relatively young in ordained life.  The woman  he referred professed no religion, no belief in God.  Yet… she agreed to see me on the recommendation of her counselor.

As we sat together, the stuckness, well, it stuck out.  She sagged in her seat.  We would begin talking about something, and it always cycled back to things never changing.  Looking at anything, even in a slightly different way, was impossible.  As we talked, she mentioned she couldn*t even begin to clean her house.  Right, I thought, the counselor (and perhaps God) has sent me someone to talk about house-cleaning, something which has never been a strength of mine.   Still, pressing on, I asked the woman to think about her house.  What was the one thing that bugged her the most about her house not being clean?  That*s easy, she said.  It*s the white chair.  It*s filthy.   I asked her:  What would it take to get the chair cleaned?  

In the final ten minutes of our time together, we developed a simple plan.  She would call the furniture cleaner and make an appointment to get the chair cleaned before we next met in two weeks.  When we met, she arrived with a bounce in her step.  She sat down, and immediately told me about the now-clean white chair, and how she was cleaning the rest of the living room.  We discussed other plans she was making beyond house-cleaning.  She ended the session by saying: So this is spiritual direction!  Thank you!

I never saw her again.

Consider this:

This Lent, do you find yourself stuck somewhere, unable to move forward?   Perhaps it is something visible (like a dirty white chair).  Maybe it is a messy relationship, one that needs attention.  When you sit and think and pray about it, when you share it out loud with a good friend over coffee, maybe it is clear.  Perhaps sitting and talking with a professional somebody, a counselor or therapist, will help un-stick you so the next step is clear.  Maybe a spiritual director or spiritual companion could help.  Where are you stuck?  How do you want to move on?