A Spiritual Plumb Line: Naming the Depth
By Takako Terino,
The Art of Spiritual Direction at Ghost Ranch Faculty
Recently while preparing to write a sermon, I came across a word I did not know: plumb line. It’s in most versions of the English translation of the book of Amos in the Hebrew Scriptures. English not being my native tongue, I had to search around for the meaning of the word, which happens a lot. Once I found out what it was, I had to then figure out what it meant in the context of the passage. So, I consulted several commentaries, only to learn that it was most likely an inaccurate translation of the original Hebrew word, a mistranslation. Then I had to decide what to do with that piece of information.
My initial phase of sermon preparation often goes like that, bumping into an unfamiliar word, arguing with commentaries, sometimes rolling my eyes at what I’m reading and other times nodding my head in agreement. It’s like I’m floating on the ocean with choppy waves, getting splashed on my face here and there.
After some splish-splash, I start to swim into the story, learning the characters and their challenges or dilemma. I often recognize in them something of the lives of those who would hear the sermon, or even of my own. It’s like I’m now riding out the waves, becoming familiar with their contours and rhythm. That’s when I actually start writing.
As I write, I start to feel a quality of water that is altogether different from the wavy surface; it is cooler and calmer, inviting me to go deeper. I swim on. My feet don’t find the bottom, but in the stillness of the deep, I become aware that I am being held by the water that is holding all stories of all times. The Spirit leads me to that place where all stories come together, where each story is unique and universal at the same time. There I find my voice to tell the story I’m called to tell.
This is how my weekly sermon preparation has become a spiritual practice for me. But it wasn’t always so. I used to struggle and fret, battling the crushing waves on the surface of the vast ocean, trying desperately to stay afloat, to contain the unruly waves in a narrative that can be packaged as a sermon.
It was the Art of Spiritual Direction, the formation program for spiritual directors offered by Stillpoint, that taught me how to notice the movement of the Spirit and to follow her invitation into the deep, through deep listening, by paying attention, naming, trusting, and by being patient. I still struggle but fret less, trusting that the Spirit will show me what is hidden on the surface if I follow her into the deep. And when I struggle, I now know to remind myself to stop fighting the waves on the surface and dive deeper. The Art of Spiritual Direction by Stillpoint has helped me to see what I do in my daily life as a spiritual practice; sermon-writing is only an example.
Perhaps because of many summers I spent by the ocean growing up in Japan, the image of waves and the deep water beneath them speaks most intimately of my experience of being led and held by the Spirit. When I was a school chaplain, I would tell my students that spirituality is part of being human; everyone has got it. And it is that part of us that holds the whole of who we are, and when the waves of our lives threaten to crush on us, we can always dive deeper to a place where the water is still and you are held. Perhaps it was not the most illustrative image for the students at a school in the landlocked New Mexico, but I hope it activated their imagination.
A plumb line, in case you did not know, is a device used to determine verticality or to measure the depth of something. It has some kind of weight attached at the end of the line which is lowered to measure the depth. When I learned about it, I pictured in my mind a plumb line being lowered into the ocean depth, through the choppy waves and lukewarm water close to the surface, down further into the stillness of the deep. Spiritual direction is a spiritual plumb line that the director and directee lower together into the waters of the directee’s inner life, through layers of awareness, guiding both the director and the directee into the mystery of the deep, through authentic sharing and active listening, by paying attention, noticing and naming the depth that holds our lives at the still point.
I invite you to drop your plumb line into the choppy waters of your life. If you have not yet experienced the Art of Spiritual Direction, we at Stillpoint welcome you to join our community, to learn the feel for a plumb line.
-Takako
Takako Terino Born and raised in Japan, Takako came to the US as a teenager and has lived in a variety of faith communities. Her experience as a religious minority in Japan and then a racial-ethnic minority in the US, combined with her professional experience as interpreter/translator, has given Takako sensibility for the language of cultural, theological and spiritual heritages unique to each individual. Takako received the Master of Divinity degree from the Union Theological Seminary in NYC and her spiritual direction training from Stillpoint. She is a clergy member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and lives in Albuquerque, NM.