Visioning Boards

This Sunday at CALLS, a pre-ministerial discernment group on campus, we did a spiritual formation arts and crafts exercise called Visioning Boards.  A visioning board is supposed to be an expression of where you are in your life's journey and a look at towards where you are being called.  This exercise was supposed to take place over the course of several hours, but in true college fashion we slimmed it down to and hour and a half.  The first step involves flipping through multiple magazines and ripping out entire pages that have images or words that catch your attention or evoke a strong emotion.  During the exercise you are not supposed to think about what you are choosing, it's supposed to be spirit led.  I think the fact that I was so pressed for time helped me just react to the images and words.  After tearing out entire pages you are supposed to further "edit" your selection by cutting out specific things with scissors.  You're not supposed to throw away the scraps, instead we were encouraged to turn the scrap pieces over to see if there were any images or words on the other side that stood out to us.  The cool part about this was some of my favorite images came from the backs of the "scrap pile".  The final step is to paste the images onto foam board in whatever format speaks to you.  I have had some time to look over the finish product and think about why I chose different images and words, and it has been an eye-opening experience to say the least.  I'm kind of hoping that I can send a copy of my board with the remaining graduate school applications.  I think this is a much stronger autobiographical statement than a 500 word essay.