Feeling like I don’t belong

June 23, 2008 | Original NSS, prayer, spirituality

So I’ve been experiencing something I can’t really explain lately, something I can’t quite put my finger on, but it’s there and it’s real. I’ve gone to two meetings of our Cornerstone Retreat core team — we will be the ones who plan and present the retreat to the women of our parish next year — and for some inexplicable reason, I just don’t feel like I belong in the group. Now, this is not me being humble or me looking for encouragement or me doing anything except sitting in our spiritual formation meetings feeling totally and utterly disconnected. I have had nothing to say at these meetings — nada, zip, zilch, zero — and if you know me at all, then you know that this is serious.  I can make conversation with a post, so to suddenly find myself with nothing to say leaves me, well, speechless.

The group is supposed to go through six weeks of spiritual formation together before we get down to the nitty gritty of physical planning. It’s a great idea and a wonderful way to build community within our small group before we attempt to build community on a grander scale. I was the one pushing the group not to skip the first week of reflections that focused on “Jesus Who Calls” because I thought it was too critical to skim over quickly. So what’s my deal? I keep waiting for the Holy Spirit to give me a clue, but nothing so far. The other women in the group are thoughtful and inspiring and full of insights on the Scripture readings and reflection questions. But twice I came home feeling completely out of sorts — once in tears.

Maybe I’m not ready. Maybe I need to get to a deeper spiritual place on my own before I can have anything to offer a group. Maybe my spiritual place is in written words not in spoken words. After all, I can write a prayer at the drop of a hat, but ask me to say a spontaneous prayer in front of a group and I can’t come up with anything more creative than the Our Father. Maybe I have more work to do as a participant before I am ready to be a leader. I’m still plugging away at reading the materials and planning to go to the meeting next week, but I’m still not sure if this is where I am called to be.  We’ll see…

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