One of the questions I’m asked most often is,
What exactly does a spiritual care practitioner do?
It’s a difficult question to answer, maybe because the answer isn’t really about what I do.
It’s about what happens when another human being finally feels safe enough to tell the story they have carried in silence for years.
Contrary to what many people imagine, spiritual care isn’t about convincing someone to believe something.
It isn’t about religion.
It isn’t even about having answers.
More often, it begins with a question.
Sometimes a question someone has never dared to ask out loud.
Who am I?
Why did this happen?
Is God listening?
What still gives my life meaning?
Over the years, hundreds of clients and patients have entrusted me with fragments of their lives.
In this video I share three of those stories.
Every patient - and every person I encounter - teaches me something different.
Some teach me about grief.
Some about courage.
Some about forgiveness.
Some about hope.
And many teach me that healing and curing are not always the same thing.
One of the greatest privileges of this work is that I am invited into those sacred moments when a person begins gathering the scattered fragments of a life into a story that finally makes sense.
That, to me, is spiritual care.
Not giving answers.
Not fixing.
Not rescuing.
But accompanying another human being as they remember who they truly are.
Over the years, one idea from Ibn ʿArabi has quietly transformed the way I listen. He wrote that “There is no repetition in creation.” Every experience, every event, every human being is a unique disclosure of Reality, never seen before and never to appear again.
That changes everything.
Listening is no longer simply an act of empathy. It becomes an act of witnessing. Each person I encounter is revealing something about the world that has never existed before.
My role is not only to help people cope or make meaning. It is to accompany them toward a deeper participation in Reality itself. Often, stories become the path. They help us remember who we are beneath our wounds, our fears, and the identities life has layered upon us.
In a multifaith and multicultural world, this vision does not flatten differences or seek to overcome them. Rather, it recognizes diversity as intrinsic to the unfolding of Reality itself. Caring for another, then, becomes an act of holy witnessing: accompanying another person while participating in a Reality that is always richer than any words can define, and responding with wisdom, humility, and love.
Perhaps that is why stories have become the language of my work.
Whether I write about Rumi, neuroscience, mitochondria, an Elm tree, or a patient in a hospital room, I keep discovering the same truth:
Every story is trying to guide us home.
Home to the place where we remember who we truly are beneath everything life has placed upon us.
If this conversation speaks to you, I hope these three stories will stay with you long after the video ends.
Not only because they reveal something about the people whose lives they tell, but because every story we encounter has the potential to become a mirror. If we listen deeply enough, we begin to recognize fragments of ourselves in the lives of others.
I hope these stories become invitations.
Invitations to look at the people around you differently.
To wonder what unseen story they might be carrying.
To notice where their story touches your own.
Over the years, every patient, every client, and every stranger who has entrusted me with their story has quietly become one of my teachers.
Every person I meet becomes both a mirror in which I discover something about myself and a window through which I glimpse something of Reality.
Through them, I have learned about suffering and hope, grief and resilience, despair and healing. But perhaps more importantly, I have learned something about myself. Every person I have met has left me carrying a small piece of their story, and every one of them has changed the way I understand my own.
Perhaps that is the quiet gift of every genuine encounter: as we help another remember who they truly are, we begin to remember who we are as well.
What exactly does a spiritual care practitioner do?
It’s a difficult question to answer, maybe because the answer isn’t really about what I do.
It’s about what happens when another human being finally feels safe enough to tell the story they have carried in silence for years.
Contrary to what many people imagine, spiritual care isn’t about convincing someone to believe something.
It isn’t about religion.
It isn’t even about having answers.
More often, it begins with a question.
Sometimes a question someone has never dared to ask out loud.
Who am I?
Why did this happen?
Is God listening?
What still gives my life meaning?
Over the years, hundreds of clients and patients have entrusted me with fragments of their lives.
In this video I share three of those stories.
Every patient - and every person I encounter - teaches me something different.
Some teach me about grief.
Some about courage.
Some about forgiveness.
Some about hope.
And many teach me that healing and curing are not always the same thing.
One of the greatest privileges of this work is that I am invited into those sacred moments when a person begins gathering the scattered fragments of a life into a story that finally makes sense.
That, to me, is spiritual care.
Not giving answers.
Not fixing.
Not rescuing.
But accompanying another human being as they remember who they truly are.
Over the years, one idea from Ibn ʿArabi has quietly transformed the way I listen. He wrote that “There is no repetition in creation.” Every experience, every event, every human being is a unique disclosure of Reality, never seen before and never to appear again.
That changes everything.
Listening is no longer simply an act of empathy. It becomes an act of witnessing. Each person I encounter is revealing something about the world that has never existed before.
My role is not only to help people cope or make meaning. It is to accompany them toward a deeper participation in Reality itself. Often, stories become the path. They help us remember who we are beneath our wounds, our fears, and the identities life has layered upon us.
In a multifaith and multicultural world, this vision does not flatten differences or seek to overcome them. Rather, it recognizes diversity as intrinsic to the unfolding of Reality itself. Caring for another, then, becomes an act of holy witnessing: accompanying another person while participating in a Reality that is always richer than any words can define, and responding with wisdom, humility, and love.
Perhaps that is why stories have become the language of my work.
Whether I write about Rumi, neuroscience, mitochondria, an Elm tree, or a patient in a hospital room, I keep discovering the same truth:
Every story is trying to guide us home.
Home to the place where we remember who we truly are beneath everything life has placed upon us.
If this conversation speaks to you, I hope these three stories will stay with you long after the video ends.
Not only because they reveal something about the people whose lives they tell, but because every story we encounter has the potential to become a mirror. If we listen deeply enough, we begin to recognize fragments of ourselves in the lives of others.
I hope these stories become invitations.
Invitations to look at the people around you differently.
To wonder what unseen story they might be carrying.
To notice where their story touches your own.
Over the years, every patient, every client, and every stranger who has entrusted me with their story has quietly become one of my teachers.
Every person I meet becomes both a mirror in which I discover something about myself and a window through which I glimpse something of Reality.
Through them, I have learned about suffering and hope, grief and resilience, despair and healing. But perhaps more importantly, I have learned something about myself. Every person I have met has left me carrying a small piece of their story, and every one of them has changed the way I understand my own.
Perhaps that is the quiet gift of every genuine encounter: as we help another remember who they truly are, we begin to remember who we are as well.
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