My clinical supervisor asked me a question a couple weeks ago after I opened our supervisory meeting with an agenda to discuss our relationship and our training work together. As we talked, he arrived at an illuminating-for-me question: how are you changing?

Photo Thanks to Annie Spratt

Here are some of the pieces of my answer as I consider my supervisory and clinical training:

• I’m seeing my relationship with those I observe develop as a relationship in itself. I watch what’s happening in students’ experience, and that observation is a relationship itself.

• I’m noticing how it feels to observe myself. In CPE words, I’m observing myself as an observer.

• I’m developing another identity. I’m many things, one of which is a supervisor of pastors, and that identity is in particular development these days.

• I’m using clinical materials differently. I’m developing the ability to read a person from her/his “application materials,” the renderings she/he offers in a moment.

• I’m seeing myself. As I keep going, I’m growing to see the many parts of me and to value those parts, to evaluate those parts, and to elevate those parts of me.

I hope you are in relationship to people you trust who can ask you, in their own words, how are you changing because the question itself is a gift.