Echolocation

I think of my spiritual care work as a love affair with echolocation. Far too often, we can feel alone, unmoored, and lost. (At least, that's been my experience.) We might look around and wonder where we are and how we got here; the path we thought we were following has at some point fallen way, or no longer seems as appealing as it once did. We might try to turn to our old maps to get back on track, just to discover they don't work. If we do not want to continue on the well-trodden paths of disconnection - of racial capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy - we need new tools of navigation.

When I am lost, it has been storytelling, witness, and community that has helped me find myself. Just like animals who navigate by echolocation, we, too, come to know where and who we are based on how what we share echoes back to us. As the feminist theologian Nelle Morton said, we can "[hear] each other to speech," listening to each other through "a great ear at the heart of the universe—at the heart of our common life." Yet, far too often, we do not have spaces or communities to share our stories, dreams, griefs, fears, desires with. We need containers to hold us.

In my own spiritual care practice, I aim to cultivate the spaces, rituals, and practices that allow us to experience deep witness in community, helping us strengthen our capacity to accompany one another and, together, navigate towards the worlds we dream of and deserve.

This is the work of echolocation - witness, accompaniment, wayfinding, getting lost together, and finding ways to return home to one another, again and again.

Echolocation doesn't attempt to make a singular, unchanging, perfect map. Instead, it strengthens our capacity to navigate in and through community. It demands our courage to share our stories, our presence to listen to others, and our vulnerability and strength to reach out to one another, relying on community to help us find our way - even when it's hard, even when we fear that, when we speak, nothing will echo back. It is through this practice, I believe, that the deepest possibilities of friendship & accountability can grow.