"Supervision as Widening the Horizons" is an excerpt from a recent book edited by two of the DASD staff that is entitled Supervision of Spiritual Directors: Engaging in Holy Mystery. The author of the chapter I read is Elizabeth Liebert, and I've heard from a number of sources that she is one of driving-forces and wisdom figures behind the DASD program. I look forward to getting to know her better and being formed by her as a spiritual director. I have printed out some of her lectures from her website as well as purchased one of her books (Changing Life Patterns: Adult Development in Spiritual Direction), and I plan to read these after I complete my assigned reading for the January intensive.

Her thesis in this chapter is that "There is so much more we could 'see' in spiritual direction than we often recognize. There are so many levels and complexities, so much richness in the ways God reveals God's own self to us." As is implied by the title, she suggests that spiritual directors need supervisors ("a relatively more experienced spiritual director") to help us "widen the horizons of our spiritual direction."

Most significantly, Liebert improves upon the work of The Center for Spirituality and Concernn in the Bronx and The Center for Concern in Washington, D.C. in what she called "The Experience Circle" (which is related to an earlier posted about James Keegan's article adapting Steve Wirth's "Grid Arenas" and "The Experience Cycle"):

"The center of the diagram, labeled Mystery...suggests the unitive experience.... It is divided into three mutually interlocking sections representing God, Self, and Nature.... Placing Mystery at the center graphically represents the 'location' of Holy Mystery in the depth of reality, at the center of our being and as the 'ground' of our experience...."

"The four-fold dimensionality of human experience is expressed by the four quadrants of the circle."

(1) The intrapersonal Arena - the self ("interior dynamics")

(2) The interpersonal Arena - the self with other individuals ("face to face groups")

(3) Systems and Structures Arena - self-in-systems ("roles and relationships between roles")

(4) Nature Arena - self as continuous with and discontinuous from the whole universe ("interdependence").

In reflecting on the little spiritual direction I have done, I can already see the benefit of evaluating spiritual direction (both during and after a session) using these four arenas -- with the "expectation that God is working all arenas of the directee's life" to see which arenas are being neglected by myself, the directee, or both.

Liebert also includes some helpful examples of verbatims, like the kind I should have done more frequently as a chaplain intern. I will consider using this technique with my own spiritual director -- and will probably be required to do so as part of my training.