It’s about honoring our stories and becoming more fully alive.
Let’s start with why. You can also find out more about Spiritual direction or about me, but the why behind the name Essuary may be a good place to start. Essuary is a combination of the words “ossuary” and “estuary.”
Ossuary
An ossuary is box that holds bones. It holds things from the past with honor. It holds the dead and broken parts of ourselves, things that we all carry around with us. The death and the brokenness isn’t a reason to feel guilt or shame, it’s simply part of the reality of living in a sinful world. And the best part is that all of it can be redeemed. An ossuary is a container to hold with honor the parts of our stories that haven’t yet been fully brought to life. You have a story, and it’s an ancient, archeological one that may require some excavation to even discover these bones in the first place. And when you do, there’s a place of honor awaiting them. Our dry bones come to life as they are honored with time and attention and care and the breath of the Spirit.
Estuary
An estuary is a place where salt water and fresh water come together. Through the mixture of these worlds, there is a variety of life in many forms, at many different stages of its cycles, each interacting with and expressing themselves through their environment. Because of the confluence of these different worlds of salt water and fresh water, all sorts of possibilities arise. Life that couldn’t be imagined elsewhere is formed and thrives here at this place where different worlds meet. Your unique environment is a place designed for you to thrive, to become fully alive. And just as crashing waves on the surface of the waters introduce life-giving oxygen into the environment below, so the swirlings of heaven (not so far above our heads) seek to introduce full life to us here on earth.
I believe that Spiritual direction will help you to honor your story and to become more fully alive, because that is what it has done for me.
And as I continue to sit with my own Spiritual director, I keep uncovering more of my story that is to be honored and redeemed, that I may continually live more fully into the life God has for me. It calls me to a place of sitting with others in the presence of the One who both has redeemed and still is redeeming. This is the tension of Spiritual direction to which we are invited.
“In practically all priestly functions, such as pastoral conversation, preaching, teaching, and liturgy, the minister tries to help people to recognize the work of God in themselves. The Christian leader, minister or priest, is not one who reveals God to the people-who gives something to those who have nothing-but one who helps those who are searching to discover reality as the source of their existence. In this sense we can say that the Christian leader leads humans to confession, in the classic sense of the word: to the basic affirmation that humans are human and God is God, and that without God, humans cannot be called human.”
Henri Nouwen
From The Wounded Healer
Essuary Spiritual Direction 