Road trips, mentors, and solitude

What does your soul need right now?

"If we don't come apart for a while, 

we will come apart after awhile."

-Dallas Willard

When my children were small, I was overcommitted at church and overwhelmed at home. I was writing books and freelancing for magazines and volunteering at church and my children’s school and …and…

In the midst of that season, a woman from my church, Sibyl, became a friend and mentor to me. Twenty years older than me, she could still beat me at tennis with a wicked spin shot and strategy born of experience on the court and in life. She dripped wisdom all the time. She recommended books, taught me about spiritual practices. Provided opportunities to teach and develop my gifts. One of the truest things she said, which I’ve repeated to others I hope to encourage:

“You have all the time you need to do the things that God has called you to do.”

(Our dilemma, of course, is we try to do things we were never meant to do. We forget to listen to God before rushing headlong into busyness.)

For years, we taught together, did ministry together, went for long walks, sharing questions, wisdom, silence. She mentored so many people—I was lucky to be among them.

About a dozen years ago, Sibyl and her husband moved to Oldenburg, Indiana, to run a retreat center. Sibyl was 70; Dick a few years older. I thought I’d go down and visit her, but it didn’t happen. Life got in the way. (Also, if feels like they started this chapter of life more recently than more than a decade ago. Life rushes past.)

We’ve kept in touch, only occasionally, but recently she’s been responding via email to my newsletters. I decided it was finally time for a road trip to Oldenburg. The four-and-a-half-hour drive felt both freeing and daunting.

The fall colors edging plowed fields, the endless straight highways, the truck stops where gas cost less than $3 per gallon—I was on a classic Midwest road trip. It’s been a while since I’d driven that far—my wandering often starts with a plane ride.

On a straight road on a cloudless October day, the tangled strings around my heart that I hadn’t even realized were there started to loosen. I listened to podcasts or music, or drove in silence. I found myself enjoying the solitude. Breathing a bit more slowly. Feeling empowered by my escape.

Past Indy, the land took on a gentle roll, the trees blazed a welcome. Farm fields and old houses lined country roads, which soon gave way to wooded lanes. When I finally reached The Springs, my old friend greeted me like, well, an old friend. Soon, we were sitting by the pond, sharing apples, cheese and crackers, and a glass of white wine. I felt my soul unclench. I’d been unaware of how tightly it had been wound of late.

The weekend was full of long walks, deep conversations, simple but wonderful meals. I had several hours of solitude on my second day there. I spent time walking a grassy labyrinth. I read and journaled in a tiny day cottage called The Hermitage. I wandered wooded trails, including one called the Narnia trail, decorated with everything from a lamppost to a broken stone table.

Aslan guards the lamppost on the Narnia trail.

Sibyl and her husband Dick don’t have a television. After dinner, Dick read a selection from a book, and we discussed it. Every room is full of books and other mementos of a life well lived. Sometimes our wandering leads us to a place of stillness, a life different from the one we are living, and we’re filled with both longing and a deep satisfaction.

This dear couple has mentored and encouraged hundreds of people over the years. They are my role models for radical hospitality: for 25 years, they always opened their home to whoever needed to live with them. They hosted couples, singles, whoever.

I told them about our home-sharing experiences over the last few years, asked them how they handled feeling burned out. (They didn’t. They saw it as a ministry, a long obedience in the same direction, as Eugene Peterson would say.) I told them I wanted to talk about hospitality. I wanted to learn from them, but what I didn’t realize was how much I needed just to stop. To breathe.

Sibyl is extroverted in the extreme. She has a very high relational capacity. In her 80s, she still mentors, teaches. Her dining room table seats 18. But she also spends plenty of time in silence.

“Being to think of your home as wherever you are,” she told me. “Hospitality is inviting the stranger into the inner circle of intimacy. And what is intimacy? Just as it sounds: ‘into me see.’ It’s knowing and being known.”

She runs her fingers along the spines of the dozens of books within arm’s reach of her kitchen table, then gently selects one: Every Moment Holy. She reads:

What you seek

Also seeks you

Rest

Let it find you

We talked about what that means. I received what that means as she offered space at her table and in her home.

Sibyl gifted me a book (as she does), written by yet another woman she’s mentored and encouraged. She had the book, Let There Be Havens, waiting for me; she didn’t know that was the topic I wanted to hear about in our conversations. But her thoughtful, Spirit-led selection was exactly perfect.

My review of that wonderful book is below. 

Friends, do you need a road trip? To a place where you can both wander and be still?

The practice of solitude is one we must fight for, but when we find it, surrender.

There is a saying, “You cannot give away what you don’t have.” In my time with Sibyl and Dick, I saw afresh how they’re able to give so much to so many. They live a life-giving rhythm that includes solitude and silence. They read and reflect on ideas and words that fill them up. They deliberately make space for the Spirit to infuse and fill them.

Taking time apart will keep you from falling apart. Being filled, welcomed by God, will replenish you and allow to you to extend welcome to others.

What invitation are you sensing from God?

Let There Be Havens

By Liz Bell Young

The stunning photos and layout are as rich and beautiful as Liz Young's writing. The narrative thread that weaves through this sumptuous book is honest and real: a long and winding journey through various homes where Liz and her family lived, and welcomed others.

Along the way, Liz offers advice and gentle invitations to practice hospitality in simple ways: through recipes, checklists, even honest reflections on her own struggles.

This book, with its magazine-like format, would make an excellent gift. But it goes much deeper than just a pretty picture book, inviting readers to welcome others in simple yet profound ways.

Learn more about Let There Be Havens here.

I highly recommend this book.