D. New Life (female, joyful)

Note: This is one of five hypothetical direction scenarios. All actual direction sessions are confidential.

Tina is twenty-seven, and engaged to be married. We have met once for an introductory session. She comes to her second session – her first, full, hour-long direction experience – full of joy. She has just landed a wonderful new job and found the perfect apartment for a new home.

One challenge in this scenario is that Tina is close to my age and in a similar life-situation: we are both engaged to be married. I would likely need to bracket my own experience to avoid the session having a dual focus – that is, to be about my experience as well as Tina’s. A related pitfall would be having the session devolve into an informal conversation. Tina is not (or at least should not be) coming to direction for a friendship, “spiritual” or otherwise – nor should I be seeking such a relationship from Tina. Spiritual friendship can be a healthy model for spiritual growth, but, in the wise words of Margaret Guenther, traditional spiritual direction,

is unashamedly hierarchal. Not because the director is somehow ‘better’ or ‘holier’ than the directee, but because, in this covenanted relationship the director has agreed to put himself aside so that his total attention can be focused on the person sitting in the other chair. What a gift to bring to another, the gift of disinterested, loving attention![1]

To give this gift of “disinterested, loving attention” to Tina, I would maintain the boundaries of the spiritual direction relationship.

Furthermore, as was the case with Chip, I would also want to give Tina a copy of Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life, and invite her and her future husband to do the examen together each evening as way of regularly sharing their consolations and desolations. This could aid communication in their relationship even as it potentially deepens both of their spiritual lives – and provides much fodder for future directions sessions.

During the session at hand, I would want to invite Tina to enter more deeply into her joy – perhaps through savoring various aspects of her experience – or through a guided meditation related to some of her recent consolations: becoming engaged, landing a new job, or finding a new home. I would also want to increase her awareness of the ways in which God has been (and is) Present in all of those experiences – and the ways in which she is responding to God’s call in each of these new areas of her life.

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[1] Guenther, 3.