Sometimes praying the Psalms feels like just one more form of textual analysis. So, to introduce variety into my practice of praying the hours (at 9am, noon, 3pm, and 6pm), I have begun to take a slow walk around the church building -- or around the block, depending on where I am when my cell phone alarm rings, announcing that it is time to keep the Divine Office. For now, as I pause for a slow walk every three hours -- instead of following a Psalter or breviary -- I am paying attention to Nature, which has been called "The other sacred book."

E. Suicidal (female, painful/troubling)

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

I had been seeing Patricia monthly for direction for about six months. We had spent most of the time reflecting on her desire to grow closer to God and her growing interest in ancient prayer practice. Then, unexpectedly, she came to a session looking depressed and speaking about suicide. She is not currently in therapy.

As a director in this situation, one of the challenges for me is that it is frightening to have someone speak of suicide, and I would want to “fix” the problem. I would hope to keep in mind the “Suicide Intervention Protocol” handout covered in class by Susan Phillips.[1] I would begin by assessing the severity of the suicide, first by simply reflecting back what had been said: “You’re feeling suicidal.” At a minimum, I would likely refer Patricia to a therapist, who could supplement the work we are doing in spiritual direction. In an extreme case, I would call 911, and either accompany Patricia to a hospital or have an appropriate friend or family member accompany her. Most likely, I would facilitate her calling a therapist, perhaps even at the end of the session, and follow-up with Patricia afterward by phone (with her permission), especially if our next session were not for another month.

If the talk of suicide ends, and Patricia is diagnosed with mild depression, I might invite her to experiment with “praying in nature” (or group yoga at a local health club) as a form of active praying – getting her out of the house and engaged with God and the world. Depending on her prayer life at this time, it might also be helpful to recommend Thomas Green’s When the Well Runs Dry: Prayer Beyond the Beginnings and Drinking from a Dry Well.

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[1] Susan Phillips, “Suicide Intervention Protocol,” lecture outline (January 16, 2007).

III. Self as Spiritual Director

When I think about myself as a spiritual director, one recurring image is a variation of the good shepherd imagery from the Gospel of John: shepherding others towards God, who is the Good Shepherd. I particularly appreciate the reassurance in John 10:4-5 that, “The sheep follow the [Good Shepherd] because they know the [Shepherd’s] voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from [the stranger] because they do not know the voice of strangers.” As a spiritual director, I am a shepherd who helps others learn to trust God, who is the true Shepherd. I help them attune their senses to become more aware of the Shepherd’s voice (the inner voice at the center of their being), a voice they have always known on the deepest level of themselves. I also help them discern the voice of the stranger (outside distractions), which they should, in many cases, avoid.

The predominant strength that I bring to the practice of spiritual direction is my mind. It is easy for me to provide directees with language, scripture references, and book recommendations to help them reflect theologically on their experience. It has, for example, been relatively easy for me to provide women with books on feminist theology and to point them to feminine images of God in scripture. Similarly, I can readily provide lesbian and gay Christians with intellectual material regarding the coming out process. In both these cases, I can often speak a word of hope to my directees, help them respond in greater freedom, and equip them to respond to others with clarity and confidence.

My natural proclivity to rely on my thoughts can also be a weakness. It can lead to me depend on the idol of my own intellect instead of listening more deeply for what God may be saying to me through my thoughts. And, even if I am listening for God speaking through my thoughts, I limit the ways in which I listen and respond to God – and the ways in which I help my directees listen and respond to God – if I remain in the comfort zone of my mind. Thus, the biggest challenge I face as a spiritual director is to “widen [my] horizons.”[1] I need to cultivate increasing awareness of the multi-faceted ways in which God communicates beyond the intellectual. Monthly supervision sessions, completing the Contemplative Reflection Forms, and reflection using the Experience Circle are all helping me integrate these lessons into my practice of direction.

As a result, I am starting to pay increased attention to my feelings during direction. This might allow me to say, “When you said that, I felt really sad (or glad or mad),” which might invite the directee to enter more deeply into the affective dimension. I am also starting to pay increased attention to my body. This might allow me to notice something instinctual that I am unable to name cognitively. For instance, a directee might say something that causes tightness in my gut – which might lead me to wonder if there is a deeper concern than what the directee has currently revealed.

My tendency towards the intellectual also means that I am naturally comfortable in the interpretive dimension. Paying attention to (and responding out of) what God is saying to me through my feelings and body can help me invite directees deeper into the affective dimension, but I also need to cultivate my comfort with inviting others into the nonthematic and Mystery dimensions. I have begun to do this recently by inviting directees to “savor” experiences and by leading them through guided meditations. Instead of inviting rational discourse about an experience (the interpretive dimension) or even asking about their feelings (the affective dimension), I am helping them enter more deeply into their experience – where there are often “sighs too deep for words” (the nonthematic). In the future, when appropriate, I hope to invite directees to have intentional, first-hand experiences with God during direction sessions (the Mystery dimension) perhaps through body prayer, prayer in nature, lectio divina, or artistic/creative prayer.

In summary, my growing edges are (1) to become increasingly aware of what God, my feelings, and my body are telling me and (2) to increasingly invite directees towards the nonthematic and Mystery dimensions. The most helpful way I have found for helping myself to accomplish these goals are to respond more slowly to allow time and space for deeper invitations to arise as alternatives to my initial tendencies. This strategy has the added benefit of allowing time and space for the directee to be “self-directed” (that is, to become aware of what God is calling him or her to do or say beyond my awareness of God’s movements).

The theological component to this process is that I need to practice kenosis.[2] In other words, I need to release my grasp on my false self – my learned behaviors of relying on myself, especially my intellect. That means releasing any desire to appear as an “expert,” a temptation to which the ivory tower of the mind is particularly susceptible. And, instead, I need to empty myself (thereby paradoxically connecting to my true self), creating a space that allows God to work through me.

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[1] Elizabeth Liebert, “Supervision as Widening the Horizons,” In The Art of Spiritual Direction: Year I (January 2007), 121.

[2] Philippians 2:1-11 (NRSV).

A poem:

Keeping the Little Hours

The dew still on the ground at terce
The absence of shadows and heat of sext
The shift of shadows in the opposite direction at none.

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.

C. Birth of First Child (male, joyful)

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

My first spiritual direction session with Chip was a few weeks after the birth of his first child, Angela. He was filled with joy. After talking through some of the preliminary matters concerning the spiritual direction covenant we were forming, I lit a candle, and invited Chip into a time of silence to mark the transition into the direction session itself. I said, “You can speak out of the silence whenever you feel ready.” I had barely said one Jesus prayer to myself (as a form of self-preparation for “listening the other into speech”) when Chip blurted, “I’m just so happy. (Don’t get me wrong. I’m also exhausted from getting up all the time in the middle of the night to feed Angela – not to mention all the diaper changing.) But I’m just happy. I’ve never been this filled with joy before.”

One challenge for me as the director in this situation is that I do not have children, nor have I ever cared for an infant for any great length of time. However, I do not have to have had the same experience as a directee in order to attempt, as much as possible, to be fully present to another’s experience. An additional challenge in this situation is the speed and exuberance with which the directee is sharing.

In light of these challenges, I would hope to keep in mind that one of the invitations of spiritual direction is to offer a balance to the frenetic pace of many people’s lives and to allow them to become more fully aware what they are experiencing each moment. To accomplish this, it might at first seem easy to reflect his words: “You’re filled with joy” – but this might keep him in the interpretive dimension, potentially inviting another torrent of words. Instead, to invite him to enter the nonthematic, I might notice his body language: “You have such a huge smile on your face” (to help him be aware of what his body is speaking to him – beyond his thoughts and feelings). I would also hope to introduce some times of silence in the session, when he would be invited to savor some of the many recent moments of consolation– to more deeply enter all the facets of those experiences in order to increase his capacity for experiencing future moments of joy, especially related to his child.

I would also want to give Chip a copy of Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life.[1] I would invite him and his partner to do the examen together each evening as way of regularly sharing their consolations and desolations related to their daughter’s birth. This could also initiate a ritual that all three of them could eventually do as a family.

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[1] Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Matthew Linn, Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1995).

Here's a link to my latest sermon: "The Future is Now."

B. Troubled Marriage (female, painful/troubling)

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

During my first session with Bernice, we agreed that she would practice an Ignatian Examen each evening before going to bed. At our third session, she said that after prayerfully reviewing her notes from the Examen over the last two months, a distinctive pattern stood out: almost all of her desolations were related to her marriage, which had been troubled for many years, particularly since her two children had graduated high school and left the house almost a year ago. She and her husband rarely spent any time together. And since both were often tired at the end of the day, any interaction they did have was often tense and combative. She asked me directly: “Do you think I should get a divorce.”

A challenge for me as a director in this situation would be to bracket my personal opinion. It is ultimately not about whether or not I think she should get divorced. (An exception to this bracketing of my personal option would be the case of abuse – but, even then, it would be ideal to facilitate the directee to seek help by her own initiative.)

In responding to this situation, I would hope to keep in mind the two basic movements of awareness and response. There are many ways of discerning whether to divorce a spouse; however, since this question arose in a spiritual direction session, it seems appropriate to ask Bernice what she feels like God is calling her to do.

The Examen is a tool frequently used in discerning; indeed, it is the tool that was the impetus for the question at hand. However, it would be important to explore more deeply the experience that Bernice has found desolating in regard to her marriage. It could also be helpful to invite Bernice to do a larger Examen on her whole experience of married life, not only to discern patterns of desolation, but also to remember what has been consoling and life-giving – those times when she has felt “most loved” by her husband. This could allow her to see ways of cultivating future experiences of consolation in her marriage.

I would also want to keep in mind two other resources: Gerald May’s reflections on “addicted loving” and Kathleen Fisher’s work on “Spiritual Direction with Women.” First, in his “second freedom question,” May asks,

How free are we within our love? How free are we to be ourselves? To what extent can we play? How much is our freedom confined, restricted, perhaps even imprisoned, by our attachments to the person or thing we love? …The freedom question, then, is not whether we can do whatever we want but whether we can do what we most deeply want.[1]

In light of this insight, I would want Bernice to focus, not only on the desolating thing her husband is doing (or not doing), but also on what she most deeply wants, which may or may not directly involve her husband. There may be a deep longing that could be transformative for her and her perspective on what is consoling and desolating in her life – and perhaps even something that would end up being transformative for her husband and marriage. It is difficult to imagine what that might be in the abstract, but it could be fruitful to invite reflection on the matter.

Second, if traditional “sacrificial theology” were present, I would want to present other alternatives for Bernice other than “I have to stay in this marriage because it is my cross to bear – just like Jesus had his cross.” Based on Kathleen Fisher’s writing, I would invite Bernice to consider, “How can I best love both myself and the other person well in this situation.”[2] In general, this is a helpful question for women, who are taught to embrace the sin of self-abnegation. In particular, this question, as with May’s work, could empower Bernice to consider both what is best for her and for her husband in regard to whether they should seek a divorce.

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[1] Gerald May, The Awakened Heart: Opening Yourself to the Love You Need (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 30-31.

[2] Kathleen Fischer, “Spiritual Direction with Women,” In The Art of Spiritual Direction: Year I (January 2007), 45.

II. Five Scenarios

A. Powerful Encounter with God in a Park (male, painful/troubling)

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

I have been seeing Tom monthly for direction for six months. Although I know he is an avid outdoorsman, he has never brought an experience in nature for use in direction. So, at the end of our sixth session, I invited him to consider a prayer in nature: “Tom, your Centering Prayer practice is deepening, and it continues to shape you in important ways. But I want to invite you to experiment with another prayer practice in the next few weeks. You mentioned that you are going camping next weekend at a state park. While you’re there, I invite you to take a slow, leisurely walk for about an hour. Be open to whatever God has to show you. Be attentive to whatever sticks out to you on your walk.”

At the next session, Tom shared: “I tried the prayer in nature that you suggested last time. This is a little strange, but, as I reflected on my experience, the part that stood out most strongly to me was seeing a dead squirrel that had been run over near the entrance of the park. It was really disturbing – and not at all what I expected my prayer in nature to be.”
As a director, one of the challenges of this scenario would be the element of surprise. My expectation was to invite Tom explicitly into the Nature arena, but suddenly there are issues of death and how God is present in the grotesque, the painful, and the troubling – not just in the beautiful and comforting. It also invokes my own feelings of discomfort at seeing dead animals – and my own anger when I see animals run over and thoughtlessly left on the roadside. I would likely need to bracket my own experience and reflections in order to be fully present to Tom’s experience. I would hope to keep in mind that this experience is an opportunity to invite Tom into the affective, non-thematic, and Mystery dimensions – not just remain in the theoretical realm of the interpretive dimension.

Well, the whole world is filled with speculation.
The whole wide world which people say is round.
They will tear your mind away from contemplation.
They will jump on your misfortune when you're down.
--Bob Dylan, “Ain’t Talkin’”

I. Relationship and Process

In The Art of Christian Listening, Thomas Hart provides the definition of spiritual direction that I have used most frequently both inside and outside of direction sessions:

The purpose of direction will be to sensitize people further to the presence and action of God in their lives, and to assist them to make a fuller and more appropriate response to it. The objectives are that simple: awareness and response.[1]

I continue to be struck by Hart’s condensation of spiritual direction dynamics into two basic movements: “awareness and response.” There are limitations to such a short definition (it masks many complexities), but it is extremely helpful to have an easily memorized definition, especially when describing spiritual direction to someone for the first time. In addition, when acting as a director, I have found it helpful to recall this definition periodically to remind myself of the sessions’ intended focus, which is (1) to increase awareness of God’s Presence and (2) to facilitate a proper response.

Beyond this basic definition, I have also frequently returned to Maureen Conroy’s understanding of spiritual direction in Looking into the Well: Supervision of Spiritual Directors:

The primary goal of spiritual direction is to help an individual grow in a personal relationship with God. Specific purposes are to assist people to:

· recognize, pay attention to, and respond to God’s specific self-communication in life, prayer, and relationship.

· savor, relive, and enjoy the affective touches of God;

· notice differences that take place because of their affective experiences of God;

· explore God’s seeming absence;

· recognize explore, and uncover areas of resistance, darkness, and unfreedom that prevent an individual response to God;

· sift through interior movements;

· grow in deeper intimacy with God; and

· experience greater interior freedom, deeper joy, more grace-filled decisions, a more integrated life, and healthier relationships with self, others, and the world.[2]

In particular, I appreciate Conroy’s emphasis on interior freedom. We often hear about the benefits lifelong learning and proper diet and exercise (a sharp mind and healthy body), but we don’t always have language to describe why we should commit to the long, inner journey of spiritual direction. I have found that, for many, the phrase “interior freedom” articulates a deep longing that remains inchoate until it is named. Many are unaware that they desire to carve out a spacious room inside themselves for play, worship, and exploration. But once this potential is articulated, many desire to seek it.

Overall, for me, the most important dimension of the spiritual direction relationship and process is accompaniment: the director covenants to accompany another on his or her spiritual journey.[3] Spiritual direction, is a specific form of accompaniment, which is principally characterized by the fundamental movements of “awareness and response” to God’s Presence in the life of the directee. “Interior freedom” is an example of equipping the directee with specific language (like “savor[ing]…the affective touches of God”) that helps supplement the basic movements of awareness and response.

It is also crucial to help the directee discern concrete spiritual practices to which she or he is called (for example, Centering Prayer, the Examen, or Journaling).[4] It is insufficient to accompany a directee and provide her with language about God if you do not also help her cultivate first-hand experiences of which she can become more aware and to which she can better respond. Ultimately, however, I am grateful, along with Margaret Guenther, that “when all is said and done, the Holy Spirit is the true director.”[5]

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[1] Thomas Hart, The Art of Christian Listening (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 32.

[2] Maureen Conroy, Looking into the Well: Supervision of Spiritual Directors (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1995), 5-6.

[3] I owe the language of “accompaniment” to Mark Yaconelli in his Contemplative Youth Ministry: Practicing the Presence of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006).

[4] For further examples (body prayer, praying in nature, lectio divina, etc.), see Daniel Wolpert’s Creating a Life with God: The Call of Ancient Prayer Practices (Nashville: Upper Room, 2003).

[5] Margaret Guenther, Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1992), 39.

Here's a link to my attempt at a recommended reading list for progressive Christianity. I'm open to suggestions.

In "Disorderly Disciplines," an article published in the May 2007 Christianity Today, Jenell Williams Paris makes a compelling argument for child-rearing as a source of spiritual disciplines -- a source usually neglected in the 2000 years of Christian history. Christian spiritual writing has been mostly done by either men (who have rarely if ever changed a diaper in their life) or celibate woman (same deal with the diapers). Monastic experience doesn't always translate to family life, especially when children are factored in.

Paris proposes some of the following as spiritual disciplines:

• Breastfeeding: "It's the most disciplined thing I've ever done...every three hours, around the clock, for nine weeks.... Breastfeeding is my daily office."
• Diaper-changing: "cultivates endurance."
• Crankiness: "can nurture quick forgiveness."
• Exhaustion: "calls for humility and community."
• Babies: "provide unlimited chances to live in gratitude and joy."

Men (substituting bottle-feeding for the breast) can practice these disciplines as well. However, the underside of this argument, as my fiancée pointed out, is that, if one isn't careful, promoting the value of child-rearing by women (as noble as that is), can subtly (or unintentionally) undermine women returning to the workplace after giving birth -- another practice that is needed to continue chipping away at institutional sexism.

In an surprisingly related story, Patricia Bennan, an ecologist, has just published an article about duck genitalia. Male scientists studying ducks had long noted (no pun intended) that male ducks sometimes have an extremely large phallus. But, enter a female scientist, and you get a different lens, new questions, and new discoveries: "Gazing at the [male] enormous organs, she asked herself a question that apparently no one had asked before. 'So what does the female look like?' ...Obviously you can’t have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a garage to park the car.'" And, indeed, "When Dr. Brennan dissected some female ducks, she discovered they had a radically different anatomy. 'There were all these weird structures, these pockets and spirals,' she said. Somehow, generations of biologists had never noticed this anatomy before." That somehow being what happens when you don't have women in charge.