Life as Journey
More about Robin
It’s quite the adventure—both exhilarating and challenging—to embark on the path of becoming more fully the person that God has created each of us to be. The learning that comes to us when we make this journey may humble us as we get more honest with ourselves and with God.
Letting go and trusting the Spirit often feels risky and takes courage. The spiritual, or inward, journey is one that will never be finished in this lifetime, but it also unfolds with a great deal of richness—transforming us as we become more fully present to ourselves, to God, to our community and world.
Henri Nouwen reminds us that we are the Beloved of God, and I believe that it is big enough work for a lifetime to truly take in that awareness—to let it change our thoughts, our daily habits, and the larger trajectory of our whole life story.
As a Christ-follower, I find that the Bible gives us a story arc that beautifully describes many things that we encounter in life, and it gives us ways to apprehend the nature of the relationship of God with humans.
As I have encountered life situations including everything from gracious gift to devastating loss, I have realized that we are offered a narrative that helps us to make meaning of it—whether we are experiencing the “good green grass” or “places of danger,” as in the story of the Good Shepherd, or experiences of love, betrayal, loss, redemption, family relationships, journeying through our own version of “wilderness” or difficult seasons of waiting. And in that narrative we are also given a glimpse of what it means to be in relationship with the living God through the Spirit.
I have been significantly impacted by the work of Carl Jung in the realm of psychology through his language about individuation, shadow, and wholeness, and his study of symbols that represent the movements in one’s inner life. I have been influenced in theology and biblical interpretation by the work of Eugene Peterson, Walter Brueggemann, Trevor Hudson and NT Wright. I deeply appreciate the values of the Benedictine contemplative tradition, and more historically-recent people of prayer, including Henri Nouwen, Ronald Rolheiser and Joyce Rupp. In the area of human development I have been greatly influenced by the work of Fred Rogers.
Various forms of prayer, lectio divina, journaling, scripture study and theological reflection, dream work, and study of the enneagram have deepened my own spiritual life and I encourage those practices.
In addition to being a spiritual director, I served as Director of Spiritual Formation for Childen and Adults at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Arvada, Colorado, for twelve and a half years, from 2010 through 2022. I also have the privilege of companioning students who are becoming spiritual directors in the Benet Hill program
God seems to take joy in putting things together in serendipitous ways in our lives. In my life, that has taken the form of my also having had a career as a professional classical musician, playing the double bass in orchestral and chamber music settings in Los Angeles and Denver.
While taking coursework at Fuller Theological Seminary in the 1980s, I met my husband, Tom. We have been married for 41 years and we have three adult sons, two daughters-in-law, and four grandchildren.
For a number of years, I also taught piano and bass to individuals, and I continue to enjoy educational coaching with young orchestral players. For the past fifteen years. my twin loves of music and spiritual formation overlap in my role as Artistic Director of the Second Tuesdays Concert Series in Arvada, Colorado.
My life in music and exploring the creative process has an impact on my practice of spiritual direction, as I find that there are places where creative expression and spirituality overlap.
There are elements of music-making that can be experienced as powerful metaphors related to spiritual experience. I have found that I am a better person in ministry when I am also involved in the musical part of my life, and I am a better musician when I carry an awareness of all of the spiritual meaning of the creative process into that arena of expressive performance.
I love poetry, making art, being close to nature and enjoying the seasons, and I am nourished by my relationships with family and friends.
Poet Wendell Berry, has given us this poem, “Our Real Work.”
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
To me, the conversation that takes place in spiritual direction is one layer of “our real work.” As we sit in the presence of the Spirit, even when we find ourselves “baffled” and “impeded,” we may realize that this is the beginning of going deeper, and in the process we may experience the gift of grace and come to find our truest self.
