Like Oil on My Head
When Naming Becomes Blessing
Eastertide invites us into a deep and transformative awareness, where resurrection is not only a historical event but a continual process of becoming, of being fully seen and known. It's a season of renewal, where we are invited to rise with Christ, not just in our bodies, and in the fullness of our lives. This becoming isn’t always linear or simple, but it is deeply relational, rooted in being seen by God, others, and even ourselves..
Kenturah Davis’s portrait mirrors the experience of being deeply seen. Her work reveals how language and attention together can shape us into visibility, calling us forth, even before we fully recognize ourselves.
Have you ever convinced yourself that someone didn’t really see you or understand you?
It’s happened to me a few times. In high school—prime time for parental misreadings (from either party)—my plans to go to culinary school curdled like a béarnaise sauce left too long on the double boiler. I didn’t expect my parents to encourage studying art. They saw that underneath my true love of cooking was a deeper love for beauty, meaning-making, and transformative encounter.
Yesterday, I completed my spiritual direction training program. I was handed my certificate and commissioned by the faculty. For the past two years, I’ve had monthly-ish meetings with my supervisor. She’s read my papers and examens, and she’s hospitably entertained my questions about the practice of sitting and listening. She is a kind and seasoned director. And yet, I wasn’t always sure she saw me—really saw me.
That doubt shattered at graduation. Her reflection on our time together was threaded with small, almost forgettable words or phrases I had once offered—words I hadn’t realized had stayed with her. But she had noticed. She had held them. And hearing them spoken back to me, from her lips, felt like oil being poured over my head.
This felt experience revealed something humbling: that perhaps I hadn’t truly seen myself. That my own lack of self-awareness hadn’t clouded her clarity, nor the insights Holy Spirit was shaping in her on my behalf.
It reminded me that the work of spiritual direction is sacred and subtle. Not just listening, but keeping, tending, and waiting for the moment when naming becomes blessing.
I left graduation overflowing, renewed by the goodness given to me, feeling seen, treasured, and deeply loved.
Sometimes it’s in being seen by another that we realize how little we’ve allowed ourselves to trust or even celebrate our own becoming. It’s tender and startling, that reversal. We so often think clarity about ourselves is the measure of truth. But maybe, especially in our spiritual humanity, it’s someone else’s attention, shaped in love and prayer, that helps reveal who we are becoming.
If you find yourself in a season of wondering, waiting, or wavering—and long for a space to be witnessed in it—this is what I offer.
Spiritual direction is not about fixing or striving, but about listening together for the sacred thread.
If that stirs something in you, you can learn more or reach out here.
Eastertide Creative Attention
If this speaks to something stirring in you, and you’d like to explore it through drawing and erasing, I’d love to invite you to the next Creative Attention on Wednesday, May 7 14 at 12pm EST. We’ll be anchored in themes of Resurrection, Awakening, and Transformation as we continue in the season of Eastertide.
You can sign up below.
If you’re navigating financial strain or job loss and would like to join, I’d love to offer you a spot—just send me a message.
A Good Listen
I’ve listened twice to a conversation between Tripp Fuller and Kevin Hart (not that Kevin Hart) called Phenomenology and the Crisis of Attention. Hart spoke of contemplation as distinct from fascination: where fascination is about consuming and never being satisfied, contemplation is like holding a thing round and round in one’s hand, not fully grasping it, but looking and feeling deeply, fully engaged, and making connections to our personal lives. His description of contemplation illuminated that this is indeed what happens in a Creative Attention practice. We are sitting together and moving our pencils and erasers around a theme for deeper spiritual and personal engagement. Even if you can’t attend, I recommend the pod.
Until next time,
Lauren Shea Little, TnS