Life at the crossroads - My Spiritual Discourse

Kimberly Knowles DeRoche EDU P&L 705 My Final Spiritual Discourse May 30, 2007 Page 1

Life at the Crossroads – My Spiritual Discourse

Before I begin writing my final discourse for this Education and Spirituality course, I

would first like to discuss how I am choosing to approach it. You see, rather than approaching

this paper with my intellectual side that I have honed in my master’s program and previous years

of education, my goal is to write this paper from my heart and soul – to use this process of

recording my thoughts as a meditation in itself. While I have just reviewed my notes and the

course readings which I found the most compelling, I am purposefully not opening the StyleEase

program on my computer that helps me sort out my references when writing a research paper.

By not doing so, I hope to remind myself that this is NOT a research paper.

While I plan to mention materials from the course and explorations this quarter that have

guided my thoughts, my main intention is to journal how I have come to see the spirituality that I

began this course with, the spirituality that I have right now, and the spirituality that I hope to

cultivate in the future. Though I have an inkling of what I would like to share, I hope that the

writing of this paper will lead me to new awareness as my inner words flow naturally onto the

page. I invite you to share in my experience by reading the thoughts and reflections that bear a

witness to my spiritual journey.

My Spirituality at the Beginning of this Course

Being a part of this course has illuminated for me both the everyday spirituality that I

brought to this course and the spiritual hunger (a la the Armistead article) that drew me to take it.

In some ways, they are tied together. Because I am a naturally spiritual person and have felt

connected with the Cosmos at times in the past, I knew instinctively at registration time that the

spiritual renewal I would gain in this course was just what I needed to guide me towards

commencement and life after graduate school. In much the same way, I signed up for a yoga


class my last semester as an undergraduate, perhaps subconsciously realizing that I would benefit

from more intense spiritual practice before facing such a major transition.

Being a part of class discussions and reflecting on my current practice has made me

realize that I frequently tune into intuition to guide my choices. For example, I cue into my gut

when deciding whether I need a nap or a Jazzercise class to cure my ill temper and when

deciding which type of cuisine I feel most compelled to microwave for dinner. I never

acknowledged those practices as being spiritual before, but now I am more inclined to do so. I

was also very moved by the poem, “The Sacred,” that we read in class because it validated the

sense of inner purity that I feel while riding home in the car sitting alone with my thoughts and

music. I am now more attentive to the intuition with which I approach my choice of music and

the sense that a collection of songs can become intimately bonded with a particular time in life,

marking that part of the journey as I go by.

I also enjoyed the “Everyday Spirituality” video series that we watched in class because it

showcased several ways that I cultivate spiritual practice in my life on a regular basis. Most

importantly, I enjoyed the segment on “Place” because it reminded me how my husband and I

connect to each other and our surroundings by going out for walks and become acquainted with

particular parks and neighborhoods. Here in Columbus, we like to take walks around the lake in

the middle of our complex, taking in the serenity that that brings. Similarly, the park that we

frequented in Cincinnati became so meaningful to us that it was where he eventually chose to

propose.

Thinking about place and walking also reminded me that my most vivid memories of

studying abroad in Florence, Italy and Seville, Spain were both of the path that I would take back

and forth between the main downtown areas and my lodgings. While I appreciated all of the


magnificent buildings and natural wonders that I saw in those countries, it is visions of the streets

and the sidewalks that most come to mind when I recall those chapters in my life. Watching the

Everyday Spirituality series helped me to recognize those connections to place as my ingrained

spiritual practice.

While I was slightly less enthused by the Everyday Spirituality video on the home

(perhaps because I have been so transient in recent years), it still made me think differently of

my connections to homes within my family. I now have a better understanding of why my

mother and I are reluctant to take down the stuffed animals, bedspread, and decorations in my

old bedroom in Chicago that I have had for years. It drives my husband crazy when we go back

there, but I realize that stepping into that room each time I return home helps me to take pause

and reflect on how far I have come since I lived in it. Similarly, I love visiting my grandparent’s

cottage in Wisconsin whenever I can because doing so brings back memories of trips that my

cousins and I used to take there when we were little and other fond memories of family

gatherings. When I pore over my grandmother’s photo albums, it makes me ponder how time

flies and how fleeting youth can be – perhaps reminding me to live more in the present.

The Everyday Spirituality series also helped me understand why I still have a strong

attachment to my family’s annual Christmas Eve and Christmas morning traditions. For several

years now, I have been trying to understand why I still feel compelled to celebrate Christmas

with such gusto when I am no longer convinced of Jesus Christ being the Son of God and

Christmas being the day of his birth. After watching that video and reflecting, I realize that the

holiday is spiritual for me because of the connection it generates for me with my family, with the

giving spirit of mankind, and my past.


Of course, as I mentioned earlier, while I now believe I brought some spirituality along

with me from the start, I now also believe that a spiritual hunger led me to seek it out. To

illustrate, I have a tendency towards relying on my mind, fixating on the future, and forgetting to

“smell the roses.” When my stress is at a manageable level, I believe the spiritual practices that

I’ve spelled out above have been sufficient to keep me balanced and feeling unified with the

universe. However, when stress ramps up as it did Winter Quarter with my job duties

intensifying, classes challenging me, and my job search kicking off, that balance and my spiritual

nourishment began to slide as it often does when stress overtakes me.

When I signed up for this course, I intuitively knew that my stress would only intensify

as the race towards the end of my Master’s program continued Spring quarter. For that reason, I

now realize that I signed up for this course because I was semi-interested in learning how to

speak about spirituality with students but mostly because I was eager to quench the spiritual

hunger (Armistead) flaming within me. My yin and yang were out of alignment and becoming

even more of whack each day, and I knew that I needed help – fast!

My Spirituality at the Present Time

Now that I have discussed the awareness and practice of spirituality that I began this class

with, I will discuss the awareness and practice of spirituality that I now have at the end. Because

I have enjoyed this class so thoroughly, I would love to say that I have fully tapped in to the

cosmos, have grown tremendously, and have got it all figured out now. Unfortunately, it is not

that simple. I do think that I have made progress, but that progress has come more in the form of

a heightened understanding of where I am in my life. It has come in an initial grasp of practices

that can help me clear through the clutter and still the thoughts racing through my mind daily.

This class has also raised new questions for me about the unknown nature of the world.


Regarding my heightened awareness of where I am in life, I have become more conscious

that I am at yet another important crossroad in my existence, particularly career-wise. About

three years ago, I made the major decision to leave my dream job at Procter & Gamble because it

was making me miserable and strike out to figure out where my true calling was instead. After

gathering a multitude of information, reflecting on my passions, and listening to my gut, I

decided that I wanted to be a Career Counselor and would apply to Higher Education and

Student Affairs Programs in order to achieve that goal.

Now that am almost through my program, my interests within Higher Education have

broadened beyond working in Career Services to a multitude of possibilities including

Diversity/Social Justice education, Leadership Development, and Institutional Assessment and

Planning. I have applied to a number of positions in each of those areas and am currently

waiting to find out what my new professional identity will be. I am also moving from the

Midwest where I’ve spent the majority of my life and will be in the San Francisco Bay Area in

less than a month. In many ways, the “destination” that I have been orienting myself towards

has finally arrived and it is time to put all of these dreams and plans into shape – which both

excites and scares the heck out of me!

Where spirituality comes into all of this is in the nature of a true calling or purpose in life.

So far, I feel like I trusted intuition and fate the last few years and things have worked out just

fine (although Yalom would argue that that is just my cozie to cover up my fear of freedom). I

feel that my master’s program has been a great source of growth for me, and I’ve been pleased

with the practicum and assistantship path that I have taken thus far. I was quite moved by the

section on conceptions of the soul in Miller’s book in which he talked about people’s work

finding them. In particular, I liked the following quote that he shared by Moore (on p.26 of the


Education and the Soul book) as he said, “finding the right work is like discovering your own

soul in the world.” That quote resonated with me because the role that I have served the past

year as grad assistant for the Diversity Leadership Transcript Program has felt just like that – a

perfect fit. But that job is coming to an end, and I will be moving on soon – to an unknown

future – which is scary and helps me to grasp the fear and distress that Yalom speaks about in

Love’s Executioner.

Spirituality has also affected how I am dealing with an additional aspect of this transition.

You see, while I do not yet know where I will be working, I interviewed earlier this quarter for a

Leadership Development position in California that I really feel is a match for me – my next

step. Everything went well in the interview process, and I am still in the running – but I am

currently in the process of waiting to hear about it and have been for an excruciating month.

That is where the true crossroads within the crossroads comes in because I felt very much at

home at that university and feel in my bones that is where my energy should be going, but it is

quite possible that it will not work out and life has a different path in store for me – but if that is

the case, I truly have no idea what.

Going through this process while taking this course has helped me see how my awareness

and practice of spirituality weaves into the important aspects of my daily life. For instance,

acknowledging that I already came into this course being a spiritual person has made me feel

more comfortable admitting that I am thinking about this situation in a spiritual away. I have

shared with people that if I get this job, I will feel like my spiritual instincts were right, and I am

continuing on with my calling. If I do not, I will do my best to fully appreciate the emotions that

emerge for me and live in the present while I wait for guidance about what life truly intends for

me.


Learning about the mind-body connection and things like the placebo effect and the

Botox taking away worry effect has made me think twice about the raw potential of energy,

prayer, and positive thinking. As a result, I have tried to focus my energy towards this

opportunity and have been more open about asking friends and supporters to keep their fingers

crossed for me and send some positive job search karma my way. Whereas I previously would

have thought in an empiricist way (as Christian Smith’s article suggests) and discounted the

influence of thoughts or prayers that we can’t scientifically account for, I am now compelled to

give them a second look. Of course, learning about Shambhala Buddhism at one of my

alternative religious experiences for this course and their concept of “letting go” has made me

wrestle with which is right – should I be praying for getting the job that want (as one of my

classmates shared she prayed for something she wanted) or should I praying for the strength to

accept the way things are meant to turn out?

Whether or not it is best to pray for what you want or pray for the strength to let it go, I

have found through this course that the latter is likely to be more spiritually satisfying. More

importantly, this course has taught me a number of practices that can help me to get my point of

inner serenity, or acceptance, like walking a labyrinth, engaging in centering prayer, doing a Zen

meditation, chanting, guided visualization, and focusing on my breath. It has also restored my

openness to the possibility of transcendence in the here and now – versus simply at death.

Reading pieces like Malidoma Patrice Somé’s memoir about his initiation camp and Justin’s

story about being able to embody the answer to conundrums by doing Zen meditation reminds

me that there is more out there than can be explained rationally. My beliefs about religion and

humankind all searching for a truth or God that we cannot conceptualize support that – it is just


hard to let go of culturally prescribed skepticism towards the idea that there is more to the world

than we can “explain.”

My current conception of spirituality has also been influenced by my personal reactions

to the activities in this class. For example, while I have had positive experiences with yoga

before and have attempted to pray and felt a connection at random times in my life, I was still

surprised at how energized I felt after going through visualization or meditations in class. I also

found that the experience of walking through the labyrinths truly calmed my spirit and made

reflect on the fact that each of us humans are on own unique path with its ups and downs, ins and

outs, etc. – i.e. trust the path. I particularly felt a connection during the centering prayer when I

lost connection with my body and felt that my head was somehow floating or moving around. It

truly felt like I was moving although it is likely that I was sitting completely still. Reading Kam

Chi Chan and William Taylor’s article on Somatic perspectives makes me think that perhaps I

was entering into the “fourth circuit” during that prayer – something I wouldn’t have thought

possible before having that experience.

I also drew a strong connection between the process I went through to try and still my

mind in meditation and the process that I go through when I try to clear my mind and focus on

the moment in order to orgasm. The fact that both the process to get there and the results that I

obtained were somewhat similar leads me to believe that Justin may be right in saying that we

are all seeking transcendence in various ways, either consciously or unconsciously. Of course, I

see these personal experiences that I had as just the tip of the iceberg, as they have both affirmed

my faith in the possibility of the unknown while summoning up a multitude of questions in my

mind.


Spirituality That I Would Like to Cultivate in the Future

Now that I have discussed the spirituality that I began this class with and the spirituality

that I currently have, I will briefly discuss how I would like to cultivate my spirituality in the

future. While I was encouraged to find everyday ways in which I already nourish my spirit, I

have also concluded that there is opportunity for me to engage in more regular practice. Having

seen the myriad of ways in which I have changed my emotions about the job I was waiting to

hear about just by changing my visualization or reaction to the process has reinforced for me the

power and responsibility that I have over the reality that I experience (as Yolam pointed out). If

I can become more disciplined about letting go of my attachments and rejuvenating my spirit, I

believe I will be able to alleviate much of the stress, worry, and anxiety in my life.

In many ways, I see myself represented in the description of a young adult provided by

Parks in her two chapters on the in between period between adolescence and adulthood. I would

agree that I have been in a state of tested commitment while trying out this new field of student

affairs and many of the beliefs that I adopted through earlier spiritual exploration without fully

making a convictional commitment to any one practice or path. It is possible that my critically

aware ambivalence towards things will continue into the second half of my twenties (as I am

about to turn 26 this summer); however, I would like to start easing towards convictional

commitment as I venture back out into the real world for the second time and begin a new full-

time career existence.

One of the biggest takeaways that I have taken from this course is that I would like to

push myself to find a spiritual community in the Bay Area and begin meditating or practicing

with them on a regular basis. After all, Wenger’s article about Communities of Practice leads me

to believe that while I have engaged in some process of spiritual learning on my own, I will


likely do so more effectively and consistently with a group to support me. I also drew a similar

conclusion from reading Miller’s words (pp. 144-145) about “communities of congruence” that

offer mutual support for beliefs and actions. And, I have been encouraged by the experience of

this class – by listening to classmates discuss things that worked well and didn’t work well for

them and by having a curriculum of sorts to guide me along the way. While I have never been

too enthused about religious traditions, I think it would be helpful to receive some coaching or

find role models who have been down this path before to point me in directions to explore and

assist me in avoiding road blocks along the way.

M experience at the Unitarian Universalist Church here in Columbus leads me to think

that my “community of conscience” will not be a traditional, churchy type of congregation but

rather a more Eastern-oriented Buddhist or Zen type practice that will help me still the mind. I

anticipate that the mass consumerist culture that Christian Smith speaks about will likely

influence me to “shop around” for a spiritual practice and community, but I think that is okay.

The point for me is to stop shying away from religious communities because I had bad

experiences with them previously and take the time to find one that feels right and stick with it

for a while. Several people that I spoke to in the Shambhala group said that the benefits of

meditation are much deeper if you do it on a daily or weekly basis. It has been a long time since

I have engaged spirituality at that frequency (if ever), so I am curious how centered and worry-

free I would feel if I did – it is a worth a try to find out!

As I continue on with my spiritual journey, this course has also reminded me that I would

like to continue the everyday spiritual practices that I partake in right now once I reach the Bay

Area. For example, I think it is important that my husband and I get to know our new

neighborhood and the parks nearby to figure out what our new sacred places there will be. I also


want to find an amenable substitute for listening to music in my car when I begin taking public

transportation and walking to places in greater earnest – my classmates’ reassurances about the

solitude experienced while listening to an iPod makes me feel more confident that I will be able

to do that. Finally, as my current practice of writing papers and participating in class discussions

winds down, I would like to revisit the journal writing habit that aided me in reflecting on my

experience and stilling my mind during previous years.

All in all, I feel this class, this quarter, and this paper have helped me become more aware

of the spirituality that I carry with me everyday and the spirituality that I would like to cultivate

in the next phase of my life journey. I appreciate your facilitating my exploration of spirituality

this quarter and your taking the time to read this collection of thoughts and reflections that I hold

with me as I stand at yet another fork in the road!

Life at the crossroads - My Spiritual Discourse

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