For our class closure, all the first-year DASD students walked the labyrinth together in silence. The experience reminded me that the interior journey is not just about the pace set in the relationship between you and God. The spiritual life is also lived out at community -- and sometimes you have to move at the pace of the community's SLOWEST member. But, hey, we're here to slow down and notice, even if that can be frustrating sometimes. Both the self and the community are vital. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Let anyone who cannot be alone beware of community. Let anyone who is not in community beware of being alone."

Surrounded by my first-year community of DASD students in various stages of walking the labyrinth, I opened my eyes after resting in the center of the labyrinth, and the world seemed sharper -- colors and lines more distinctly defined. Living in community is hard, but good.

We are entering a silent retreat period from 2:00 p.m. today until 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. This twenty-eight hour period allows time for prayer, reflection, and integration. It also includes a twenty minute meeting with two of the small group instructions for an assessment of the past three weeks and discernment of your call to the ministry of spiritual direction.

I'll close today with Colossians 3:12-16, which was a focus verse both in the closing session of our second small group and in the evening chapel service led by the graduating class of DASD students:

As God's chosen ones,
holy and beloved,
clothe yourselves with
compassion,
kindness,
humility,
meekness, and
patience.

Bear with one another and,
if anyone has a complaint against another,
forgive each other;
just as the Lord has forgiven you,
so you also must forgive.

Above all,
clothe yourselves with love,
which binds everything together
in perfect harmony.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,
to which indeed you were called
in the one body.

And be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly;
teach and admonish one another in all wisdom;
and with gratitude in your hearts
sing psalms,
hymns, and
spiritual songs
to God.

This evening's chapel service was a "Service of Prayer and Healing." During the middle of worship, there was an invitation to be annointed with oil. This experience strengthened my growing attentiveness to my body: exercising regularly (working out my body five to six days a week -- not just working out my mind with books), incorporating my body into prayer (using different postures, walking prayer, and rituals like annointing), and being gentle to my body (regular massage). I am increasingly aware of how my body registers stress in my gut and how my body communicates to me during spiritual direction sessions.

Spiritual directors discern at many times in a direction session whether:

(1) to speak to invite the other to share more or differently, or

(2) to remain silent to allow the person to share at their own pace or to have time to reflect quietly.

Often, the voice encouraging us to speak ("Be clever! Be clever!") is our voice. And the voice encouraging us to be silent ("Shut up! Shut up!) is God.

After a demonstration this afternoon of a supervision session, I'm convinced that monthly supervision is a necessary and integal part of practicing spiritual direction -- just as, for instance, most therapists have supervisors. However, I hadn't counted on another monthly meeting, or, more importantly, another $40-$60 monthly fee ($400 - $600 annually). But you find a way to pay for what is important.

For more information, see Supervision of Spiritual Directors: Engaging in Holy Mystery, edited by Mary Rose Bumpus and Rebecca Bradburn Langer; or Looking into the Well: Supervision of Spiritual Directors by Maureen Conroy.

Conroy, for example, says that the goal of supervision is to help the spiritual director, "grow in self-awareness and interior freedom in order to better stay with a directee's experience and be attentive to God in a direction session."

Today I went to the Church of "The New York Times." I sat on the porch in the sunlight, read the paper, and loved it. Another good option some week is the Church of the Holy Comforter (think about it).

Today I attended a DASD alumni retreat hosted by Daniel Wolpert, who has recently published a book entitled, "Leading a Life with God: The Practice of Spiritual Leadership." When he invited us to spend on hour reflecting with God on situations in which we were spiritual leaders, I felt suspicion creeping in. I felt anxiety about an hour of the retreat away from the "expert." After all, I could reflect with God on my situation anytime. But, part of his point, is that I -- most others -- despite our best intentions, won't spend the time later. And, we are tempted to focus on the finger pointing at God (the so-called "expert") instead of following the trajetory of that finger and listening to God ourselves.

In the end, his invitation to spend an hour in discernment felt like too short a time. His invitation felt like an hour of directed spritual direction. We could hypothetically realize many of the epiphanies we have in spiritual direction on our own (without paying a spiritual director $60), but, in many cases, we won't take the time.

Today in small group, I was the directee. Even though I have been going to spiritual direction every six weeks for over three years (and perhaps because of being in spiritual directions training for the past two weeks), it was delightful to not be responsible for being present (not that I was absent or distracted...just that I wasn't responsible) -- to not have to pay attention to every repitition, theme, or shimmer. Instead, my story was held in the care of another, creating a space for me to notice God's presence and call in my ordinary life.

I chose to share the story of walking the labyrinth just before orientation on the first day of the DASD program (see previous blog). Among other things, I heard an invitation to walk the labyrinth again -- to SLOW DOWN...since I was likely walking the labyrinth TOO FAST on that fateful day (despite my intentions to the contrary and paralleling my need to slow down in general). I also heard invitations to explore the meaning of the word labyrinth in my life (since I said "labyrinth" more times than any other word in the twenty minute spiritual direction session?).

Perhaps it is auspicious that I felt called to walk the labyrinth prior to the beginning of my DASD orientation -- symbolic of my spiritual journey into Yin: passive, dark, feminine, downward-seeking, and corresponds to the night. Symbolized by water or earth.

Many of the assigned readings for this course addressed the distinction between therapy and spiritual direction. In the weeks leading up to the first day of class, I grew tired of this discussion. But, as we have entered into the practice of spiritual direction, the distinction has become sharper and more significant -- particularly spiritual direction as accompanying another on his or her spiritual journey, helping him or her notice the presence of God.

In small group today, we did a lectio on Psalm 139:1-2, using Nan Merrill's beautiful translation Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness. At the beginning of the first of four readings, one phrase leapt at me: "my Beloved."

The strong resonance, especially of those two words, surprised me because a week and a half ago I had the opposite reaction. I was listening to a sermon on the Baptism of Jesus and one of the major themes was remembering that we are God's Beloved. But what I heard for over ten minutes sounded like the Charlie Brown school teacher was delivering the homily: "Blah, blah, blah, beloved, blah, blah blah, beloved." During the sermon, the words didn't seem authentic. It felt like the preacher was just going through the motions -- like hearing Henri Nouwen third-hand (which is ironic because I love, respect, and believe Nouwen's writings about belovedness).

The invitation I heard was to spend more time embracing my own belovedness by God -- and perhaps to lead a congregational retreat about belovedness. If I did so, I might use a format based off Nouwen's Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith.

The national-security expert Gergory Treverton has famously made a distinction between puzzles and mysteries: Puzzles result when you don't have enough information. A simple, factual answer is the key to solving a puzzle. Mysteries require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty. The implication for spiritual direction is that God is a mystery to be experienced -- not a puzzle to be solved.

For more on this, read (or listen to) Richard Rohr's recent piece on NPR, "Utterly Humbled by Mystery." Or, read Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article, "Open Secrets: Enron, intelligence, and the perils of too much information" (which reminded me of Treverton's distinction).

Speaking of Rohr, I recently enjoyed reading his book Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer. But, more significantly, I am interested in learning more about his work on masculine spirituality (see malespirituality.org). I am discerning whether one of his "male initiation," five-day, "rites of passage" retreats would be a transformative way of celebrating my 30th birthday -- which will be on March 10, 2008 for those keeping score at home. And, if you're wondering, it's not about getting naked and sitting around a fire while beating a drum...not that there's anything wrong with that (see Mcconaughey, Matthew).

In short (in my limited understanding of Rohr's work), we live in a patriarchy comprised of much unhealthy masculine spirituality: "The state needs conformists and unfeeling warriors to go about its business." We have also, in recent decades, benefited from women reclaiming their voices to develop an authentic feminine spirituality, grounded in the sacred feminine. What we haven't seen as much of is an authentic masculine spirituality:

"A masculine spirituality would emphasize action over theory, service to the human community over religious discussions, speaking the truth over social graces, and doing justice over looking nice. Without a complementary masculine, spirituality becomes overly feminine (which is really a false feminine!) and characterized by too much inwardness, preoccupation with relationships, a morass of unclarified feeling, and endless self-protectiveness."

Rohr also talks a lot about healing the "Father wound" -- which could be important work for me to do since my father died of esophageal cancer when I was a freshman in high school.

Also, the Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary is providing me with a lot of experience in developing my inner life and feelings -- what Rohr would call "feminine spirituality" (which is great!). But his work in masculine spirituality could provide an important yang to the DASD yin:

Yin is the darker element; it is passive, dark, feminine, downward-seeking, and corresponds to the night. Symbolized by water or earth.

Yang is the brighter element; it is active, light, masculine, upward-seeking and corresponds to the day. Symbolized by fire, or wind.

Yin and Yang are descriptions of complementary opposites rather than absolutes. Any Yin/Yang dichotomy can be seen as its opposite when viewed from another perspective. The categorization is seen as one of convenience. Most forces in nature can be seen as having Yin and Yang states, and the two are usually in movement rather than held in absolute stasis.

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority."

--Martin Luther King Jr.

A few thoughts on Sabbath adapted from The Church of the Sojourners:

• Start and end Sabbath with candlelighting.
• Refrain from using (for example): money, watches, and electronics (computers, cellphones, TV). Do we even need to add washer, dryer, dishwasher?
• Allow the day to unfold without making plans in advance.
• Do physical activity if you sit at a desk all week.
• Allow your work rhythm to adjust to a 6-day work cycle (that is, don’t count Saturdays as a day of potential labor). (I work on Sunday).
• Don’t do any “to-do list” stuff.
• Physically put work out of sight if possible.
• Be in nature.
• Practice a Sabbath mindset throughout the week: contemplative prayer in the morning, keep the hours (the divine office) throughout the day, and do an examen in the evening.

"Stopping is doing nothing...

for the purpose of becoming more fully awake

and remembering who your are."

--David Kundtz, Stopping: How to Be Still When You Have to Keep Going (1988, p. 14)

"Resistance is always an invitation from the Spirit. Pay attention to it. Honor it." And, of course, the resistance can arise in the director, the directee, or both. For example:

On Monday, I checked my e-mail for the first time since arriving on campus Sunday morning. I sat in a chair in the computer lab adjacent to Geneva Terrace, and jiggled the mouse to activate the computer screen. Sunlight poured through the windows. It was a glorious day. I typed in my user name and password as I have done countless times. But when I clicked "enter" to open my account, I felt a sudden construction in my upper chest. I paused and thought, "whoa." My body was trying to tell me something. I took a slow, deep breathe, then exhaled rapidly. I stopped for a moment to center myself before proceeding to read and respond to the messages in my inbox.

As I have reflected on this experience, I have gleaned at least two possible lessons:

(1) In general, check e-mail more mindfully. To help myself be fully present to both e-mail and other daily tasks, I am going to uninstall yahoo messenger and check e-mail no more than once an hour -- not just whenever one arrives.

(2) For next January, I am considering setting up an e-mail auto-response message that would instruct anyone who e-mailed me to call the church office in case of an emergency -- so that I will not have to check e-mail for the entire three weeks I am here. My blog and cell phone will be my only links to the outside world.

Being in class all day again (and sleeping in a dorm room!) invokes occasional thoughts of further study. In that vein, I visited the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) website to investigate details of their doctoral program in Christian Spirituality. Here's a description:

"The doctoral program in Christian Spirituality prepares students to read and interpret biblical texts for Christian Spirituality; to contextualize the major figures, texts, and themes in the historical development of Christian Spirituality; to achieve a dialogical understanding of another spirituality not within the Christian tradition; and to do research and create analytical arguments in this interdisciplinary field. With these skills students have graduated from the program and gone on to teach religious studies, Christian Spirituality, and theology in undergraduate and graduate programs in colleges, universities, and seminaries; to administer and deliver programs at retreat centers; and to serve churches at local, regional, national, and international levels."

After reading that paragraph, I continue to have much more interested in the pragmatic D.Min., than the theory-laden Ph.D.:

The purpose of the SFTS D.Min. program is to improve the practice of ministry. The major objective is the development of professional competencies, including critical reflection on ministry, interpersonal skills, the capacity for theological interpretation, and special skills for service in particular contexts. Specific objectives include: Encouraging trust and cooperation among peers in ministry. Encouraging students to think independently and to take responsibility for their own education as a lifelong enterprise. Developing a critical theological interpretation of life and purposeful activity in ministry, along with new skills. Developing theological breadth through a grasp of current intellectual trends in other disciplines. Developing an understanding of social issues and the mission of the church in an international context. Developing creative forms of ministry through research, writing, and implementation of a major dissertation/project.

I blogged about all my coursepack readings, but I never finished blogging about the assigned books. In short, two of the books we had to read were two of the best books I've ever read as far as being wise, grounded in God, and grounded in lived experience.

(1) If I had to recommend one book to someone discerning a call about whether to become a spiritual direction, it would be Margaret Guenther's excellent book that is full of deep wisdom from years of being a spiritual director: Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction .

(2) If you are interested in learning more about contemplation, try an equally (thought differently) excellent book by Gerald May: The Awakened Heart: Opening Yourself to the Love You Need.

Through the practice of contemplative listening, we seek to "listen one another into speech."

That's a really wise insight. But, as someone who has been intently listened to multiple times everyday for the past week, let me testify that it is also possible to listen someone into silence. Think of it as the collateral damage of a spiritual direction training program.

It may be that there is a paucity of active listening in our society, but when I am listened to with great intensity -- with the other person perched on the edge of his or her seat -- it makes me shrink inside. Instead of wanting to share, I was say, "BACK OFF." Or, "get out of my grill!"

I want to be listened to in a relaxed spirit: a non-anxious presence in a hospitable, open, non-judgmental atmosphere. Extra-active listening is filled with the fear of missing something. That's not the point. A good reminder to me as a spiritual director to relax.

Are you ready to do only one thing at a time?

Contemplation is a "long, loving look at the real" -- as opposed to a multi-tasked, distracted look at the surface. For this program that means that "we begin slowly, so that gradually...we can slow down." For someone like me with a proclivity towards efficiency coupled with an impatience with inefficiency, a slow pace can be frustrating. But, I feel the promise of great freedom and delight (and lack of stress!) in being "wonderfully unhurried, gloriously unharried." And achieving that end requires that I start by slowing down now -- because as old Ray Moss said (my college Health and Exercise Science professor), "If you don't start today, what makes you think you're going to start tomorrow?"

Speaking of tomorrow, I love this dialogue:

Daughter: When will it be tomorrow?

Mother: Go to bed, and when you wake up, it will be tomorrow.

Daughter [the next morning]: Is it tomorrow yet?

Mother: No, it is today.

Daughter: When will it be tomorrow?

Mother: When you wake up in the morning, it will be tomorrow.

Daughter [the next morning]: Is it tomorrow yet?
Mother: No, it is today.

Daughter: When will it be tomorrow?
Mother: When you wake up in the morning, it will be tomorrow.
Daughter [the next morning]: Is it tomorrow yet?

Mother: No, it is today.

Daughter: Oh, I get it. There is no tomorrow.

Are you ready to do one thing at a time? Multi-tasking is always a temptation, but, with God's help, I'm willing to try. I'm starting with "just eating" at breakfast...no reading.

Ever wonder what would be in a DASD supply closet?

• vases - to be filled with fresh cut flowers -- signs of Creation, new life, and beauty
• cloths - to be draped over almost any small table (or just spread on the ground) to create the base of an altar
• candles and lighters - reminders of God's presence
• tissues - for when the feelings flow

All you need to create sacred space, holy ground.

I've never "messed up" walking a labyrinth...until yesterday. A Chartres-pattern labyrinth begins with a short jut forward before you are led to the left, circling a quarter of the circumference, your path three layers from the exterior. Next comes your first sharp turn, doubling back, one more layer towards the center. That's where I went awry: the first turn. I was noticing the lush green hills and distant mountains surrounding SFTS and didn't notice that I had stepped back into the lane I had just walked moments before. (View a 360 degree view of the Geneva Terrace Labyrinth at SFTS here). Still absorbed in the landscape, I found myself suddenly exiting the labyrinth, having barely begun.

I took a sharp breathe. My heart skipped a beat. I shook my head in disbelief before a wry smile crossed my lips. I had come to take this labyrinth walk immediately prior the DASD orientation (the first scheduled event of the three weeks). Maybe God was trying to tell me something: "You've walked many labyrinths in many different places (including this one!). You're familiar with this spiritual discipline. You've facilitated labyrinth walks for many different groups. But you have come to this place for the next three weeks to be formed in the art of spiritual direction by this particular community. You need to return to the beginning."

Phrased another way: "You know intellectually about the spiritual journey of which the labyrinth is a microcosm: purgation, illumination, union. But you need to go back to the beginning. You need to experience the spiritual journey fully with your whole self. This will take a lifetime. Go back to the beginning. For now, descend from the terrace vista. Head down the steps to orientation.

You crown the year with riches

All You touch comes alive:

untilled lands yield crops,

hills are dressed in joy.

--Psalm 65:13, ICEL

God, I give myself over to You. Touch me that I might come ALIVE.