Greeting! I’m Stephen W. Smith and this is a space that I’m creating to find each other; to let me talk out loud and share my many thoughts and resources. This is a space where our souls meet the world. My intent is to hold a space with you where we can explore our quickly changing world and our faith. It is a space that will be welcoming, inclusive, supportive, and engaging.
I’ll post my thoughts, share my poetry, recommend books I’m reading, and I’ll share highlights from important posts, poems and books that I’m reading at the comment. I hope it’s a place to help resource you as your soul encounters this quickly changing place, we call Earth.
Why subscribe?
I need a place that is more private and safe than social media. As I am aging, I’m finding my skin is thinner and thinner and it appears too late for those like me to grow thicker skin. With the world so divisive; with so many of us splintered into factions; with loneliness lurking and uncertainty growing more and more, I’ve made the decision to create this space with the intention of inviting those who want to show up here from time to time, to share with me, and “do life” together—so to speak.
What you’ll get when you subscribe:
Access to my poems. You will be the first to read them, offer insight and feedback. Some of the poems I plan on publishing into a small volume, sometime in the future.
I’ll update Substack with quotes, articles, and what I think is relevant to those on a Soul Care Journey. I’ll not be posting on Facebook or Instagram but letting that fade away. It’s just become too triggering, too toxic, and to be honest, too much time that seems to be a sink hole for me.
Be the first to get invitations to future retreats, plus you’ll get a 10% discount if you register.
I’d like to try some “book club” like Zoom times where I, along with some others, can meet together to discuss some life stirring books. Be on the lookout for this soon!
A space to interact with one another that is free from hostility, badgering, and judgment. I think we need a simple way to discover that, “Hey, I’m not the only one feeling this way!”—sort of thing.
About Me
I was born in 1954 and every year, it seems I grow one year older. With this comes what I think is a bit more wisdom—a bit more clarity and a lot more acceptance, I hope. I’ve been on a spiritual journey ever since I was born. Though I didn’t know my Enneagram or Myers Brigg as a young child, I now look back and honor all my distinctive ways I learned to become myself. Along the way, I pastored churches in North Carolina and The Netherlands. In each space that I lived and worked, I learned to build boxes of belief and lists of non-negotiables. But along the way, I’ve found my boxes are fewer and my lists are a lot smaller. As I’ve aged, I found the need for a lighter load. I’ve been married to the same woman, Gwen since 1980. We have four adult men children; four adult daughters in love and 14 glorious Grand-children.
We now live in Brevard, NC, a small mountain town surrounded by the National Forest and cocooned in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I love all things nature. I love my life right now—having been in search of Eden for decades, I now may have, at last, found it. We shall see.
