Do you feel like you are standing at the edge of burnout? Are you just plain tired and long for support and some space to tend to your own spirit?

I invite you to join me for a 5 week group spiritual direction session as we live into the season after Epiphany. Our focus will be on keeping our eyes on the revelations of God in Christ, supporting one another in a safe space, and how to rest and reset well as we travel the long road of ministry in the time of COVID. Each week will include a breath or body based practice, a reflection piece for discussion, facilitated sharing and support, and prayer. All sessions are held over zoom.

Fridays 9-10:30 CST, January 8, 15, 22, 29, and Feb 5. The week of February 8 I will hold space for individual sessions for group participants to look ahead at how to hold space for the Spirit in the coming months.

Cost is $200.00 for the 5 week session. For more information and to register, please email Ruth at sorensonprokosch@gmail.com

Rev. Ruth Sorenson-Prokosch is a spiritual director (Front Porch Spiritual Direction) and serves as Pastor for Visitation and Congregational Care at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Roseville, MN. She has a passion for working with clergy around issues of discernment, spiritual and emotional well being, and creating and holding safe space for those in ministry.

Our Anxious Hearts

How is your heart these days? These are anxious times, and our hearts are holding so much at once: hope and fear, joy and sadness, peace and anxiety. 

I invite you to an evening of breathing, guided reflection and meditation, and prayer to tend your anxious heart. 

You will need a quiet, comfortable space and something to write on/with, a candle to light, and the ability to join by Zoom. 

Sunday evenings October 25, 7:30-8pm and November 1, 7:30-8pm over Zoom. Come once or both evenings. 

Register here

Free will offerings accepted. Half of all donations will be given to  The Advocates for Human Rights

Venmo: @Ruth-Sorenson-Prokosch

PayPal: PayPal.Me/ruthsp

18 years ago I found myself lost in a corn maze. I had been making the same steps over and over around what seemed like the same twists and turns and I had turned into a puddle of tears. I was 8 months pregnant and was getting panicked because I really needed a restroom (again). I had lost all sense of direction and was unable to see the path that would lead me out quickly and it just about undid me (again, I was really pregnant).  I think about that ill-advised corn maze trip every fall and it usually makes me laugh. No super pregnant woman should be out of sight of a restroom. No super pregnant woman needs to be on a mystery tour other than the one she is already on about how and when this little person in her is going to come out. But this year, as I see the dried corn stalks standing in the fields and imagine the labyrinthine paths that could be created, I feel like I did 18 years ago - a little teary, a little panicky, unable to see the path that will lead me out quickly. 

Corn mazes force your attention to narrow in. You don’t have a bird’s eye view, and you don’t have the long view. You only have the steps just in front of you. You trust that the creator of the maze did, in fact, make a way out for you that didn’t involve calling for help on a walkie talkie, but at some point in the twists and turns your mind starts to wonder. You wonder when (or if) it will end and you can go back to the picturesque pumpkin patch or apple orchard - anywhere that doesn’t involve a maze. Life in the midst of a pandemic and volatile election cycle with so much at stake feels to me like being in that corn maze. We can’t see more than the next few steps in front of us, the end isn’t clear, and we don’t know how long it will take to get out. In reality, we never really know these things, we just usually have more of a sense of being in control. But what if we are only called to the next few steps in front of us? 

What if, all along, we are only called to taking steps of grace and love at each twist and turn in the path? What if it is the twists and the turns that are where we are meant to focus our attention and not on the end of the path? These are tender days, friends, it’s ok to feel a little teary, a little panicky. May we remind each other to take a deep breath and just take the next step, knowing that the one who created us holds us through each twist and turn.