Sue Monk Kidd: Connections, Trips, and Soul Food
“Remember that little flame on the Easter candle. Cup your heart around it. Your darkness will become the light.” —Sue Monk Kidd, “A Journal Entry” in When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions (HarperOne, 1992).
We take another visit with Sue Monk Kidd. I wish I could have Sue Monk Kidd’s book, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions, with me all the time and just read from it when I meet with other spiritual friends. I hope I can remember her message about waiting. I see many people coming for direction who are living the “night sea journey” in the tradition of biblical waiters: Jonah in the belly of the whale, or Christ in the tomb, or Joseph in the well where there is only darkness.
I hope to remember Kidd’s phrase when we are having difficulty letting go: “Put on your courage suit” and cross the bridge of letting go.
I began this book on Maundy Thursday in the Chapel of Repose with the Reserved Sacrament. I ended it in Greece with my husband, my daughter, and her husband in the week of Easter 4 as we overlooked the Acropolis. I know Kidd’s later books are about her trips to Greece, especially with her daughter, where she becomes even more connected to the feminine part of herself and God. My daughter and I have published a book together, just as Kidd and her daughter did. So much serendipity.
Kidd ends her book by describing a drawing of a mother and child that came out of her true inner self, based on a sketch she made at Kanuga, the home of my spiritual direction class. Several years ago, on Mother’s Day, we dedicated in the garden next to St. Luke’s chapel a sculpture of a mother and child that my husband had purchased. More connections.
As you can see, Sue Monk Kidd gets my attention and speaks to me. This week, I will try to follow more of Kidd’s direction and stay in the moment and feed my soul real food instead of junk food.
The real food I am looking for is silence, laughter, solitude, treasuring the moments with children, grandchildren, and friends, taking care of my body, swimming, massage, deep encounters, prayer, writing, reading, Eucharist, gratitude, seeing serendipity, delight, compassion, living in the present, empathy (sharing pain), and a reverence for the earth, especially as I remember a past trip to that ancient part of the world that we both visited with our daughters on land and on the sea.
Retake a virtual trip in your mind to a country which you once visited with a loved one, perhaps carrying a book by a favorite author. Maybe you traveled to England, Italy, China, Spain, Germany, Greece, Norway, France, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, or Israel.
Give thanks for those you love who have traveled with you.
Give thanks for writers who speak to your soul.
Pray for that author, your family, and for people in that country that they will remain safe during this pandemic.
Joanna joannaseibert.com