Antoinette Voûte Roeder
Spiritual accompaniment is about deep listening, listening with one’s whole being. People are hungry to be “heard into speech” as Nelle Morton is known to have said. When we are truly heard, we come into a realization and authentication of self.
Listening is something I have done from an early age as I grew up in and with music. Music was my first God language, followed by poetry.
In 1992-93, I completed the Pacific Jubilee Program in Spiritual Direction, and ended up offering accompaniment and supervision. For more than thirty years, it has been my privilege to offer deep listening to folks, some of whom have been with me from the very start. We continue to explore the layer upon layer of their precious lives. Though I am no longer accepting new directees, those who come to me keep my feet to the fire and enrich my life.
Our faith journeys and life experience necessarily evolve and change. And in the last thirty-some years, our world has tumbled into a crisis of heretofore unknown proportions. The climate crisis will affect every one of us for years to come. Now more than ever we walk into unknown territory and spiritual companions will be even more appreciated and needed to negotiate the new reality. I have been blessed to have been part of that work and that tradition. I give thanks for Don Grayston and the wonderful teaching community of the Jubilee Associates for opening me to the spirit of contemplation and action, fueled by the sacred as found everywhere in this ordinary/extraordinary life.
Hallowed
I no longer haunt
the hallowed halls of prayer
looking for you.
You are not there
anymore than you are
to be found in earth or
sky yet in all of these
more present than our feeble
words can say, therefore in me
as well.
There is no separation,
here or there, out or in
with you.
~ Antoinette Voûte Roeder, The Many Singings
Author of Weaving the Wind (2006), Still Breathing (2010), Poems for Meditation: An Invitation to Prayer (2014), The Many Singings (2014), The Space Between (2018) , A Heron a Day (2020)
Available from Audrey’s Bookstore and Amazon.ca
Contact Information:
Edmonton, Alberta
