Listening For God Together
Writing, books, and spiritual direction for the inner life
The Meeting Place
Quiet Spiritual Practices for Dwelling with God in Prayer
This book explores how the practices of spiritual direction and contemplative prayer help us draw near to God in a loud, distracting world. Each chapter tells a story of what spiritual director and poet Laura Kauffman has discovered in her own practice and includes a practical exercise you can try privately or with your community.
If you long to be aware of God's presence, to rest in his nearness, and to be equipped to listen to him, this book is your guide toward ever-deepening intimacy with God.
Praise for The Meeting Place
"Spiritual direction is a relational art born amid conversation and stories and honest curiosity, where we listen to Jesus in company with another and in harmony with the Spirit.
In these pages, you’ll experience these mysteries through lyrical prose offering a slow, open-hearted, sometimes bewildering, encounter with the living God.
If you’ve ever wondered what spiritual direction is or if you long for a more natural intimacy with God, you’ll find help here. Also, I found myself wanting to learn how to cook paella in a garden kitchen in Barcelona, but you’ll have to read to discover what I mean."
—Winn Collier, author of Love Big, Be Well and A Burning in My Bones: The Biography of Eugene Peterson and Director of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination
"For a self-proclaimed unreliable narrator, I found Laura Kauffman's introduction/invitation to spiritual direction to be quite trustable.
If 'be still and know' sounds impossible in your breakneckpace life (plus maybe even a little frightening), Laura's stories and practices in The Meeting Place offer a gracey alternative: "Okay then, how about just a little stiller? How about we start there, and see what we might see?"
—John Blase, poet and author
"The guidance offered in The Meeting Place toward a deepening life of faith emerges from the writer’s own richly examined life as wife, mother, reader, lifelong learner, and spiritual director.
The stories and prayer practices are elegant and simple, invigorating and encouraging. This is a book to keep nearby, underline, enjoy, and return to for the kind of encouragement that keeps your eyes open and your feet steady on the path. "
—Marilyn McEntyre, author of Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies
