Behind the scenes at The Way of the River, I learned something very important this past week. I knew it was going to have been important, but I didn’t have the faintest idea how.

As those of you who receive the newsletter, Reflections, know, this past week was a very intense love letter. I wrote about Love, about the One Who Is and the Many Who Are. I wrote about how the Love that spins planets and makes black holes and butterflies lives within our very hearts and whispers to us like the angel over the blade of grass, “grow, grow.”

I wrote about how there are not “goals” in the spiritual life, not like in field hockey. There are goals in the spiritual life inasmuch as there are goals in other committed relationships:  To spend time together, to know one another, to serve one another, to perceive one another deeply. The spiritual life is more like marriage that way, and less like a sport.

I wrote all about all that.

But that isn’t exactly the exciting part. I mean it is, but it’s not what amazed and terrified me.

I wrote my real self out there, friends. I was led, and I think I listened, to just put it out there:  What I believe, what I think, what I long for, and how I think you and I can be together in this work of seeking, yearning, and longing.

Not only that, but I was able to do it thanks to you.

I was able to follow that leading because of folks who have encouraged me and been encouraged by my writing here and in Reflections. So it’s you, it’s you.

So that was wonderful.

And then…

And then something happened.

Something in me realized in a new and deeper way how much I want to reach out to you, to find you, to offer you something that might help ease the ache in your heart. I realized in a new and deeper way that there are people who share—so powerfully share—the desire for Spirit, and that many of you are alone.

And so I began posting more about Discovery and Deepening, the teleclass I’m offering at the end of the month. I began reaching out to people I thought might benefit, but who may not have considered it. I began posting about it on Facebook in places where I had not done such a thing before.

I became more open to my own work. I became connected in a new and deeper way with my desire to serve, my desire to take what has been given to me so richly and generously over the years and offer it to you with both hands open.

And so I do want to say here how much Discovery and Deepening is part of that offering. The work we will do together, the bits I will teach and the pieces you will discover, the sharing and the listening—I truly believe that all of this will create something beautiful for both of us.

I became connected with my desire, and more things happened. People began to talk about the Reflections letter and about my postings about Discovery and Deepening. And you, dear friends, are beginning to sign up to spend time together nurturing one another’s practice and spiritual relationships.

I became connected with my desire, and more things happened. I shared in communities where I am a participant and others felt inspired to take steps in their own ministries and businesses.

I became connected with my desire, and I was invited to do an interview with a business community I love. (More on that to come.)

The end of the story, as I hope is clear, is just more and more and more about beginning. It is about the lovely, consoling blessing that sometimes when we put ourselves out there, the world responds with love and encouragement.

You are loving and encouraging me. Thank you.