The Contemplative Crisis

Having a spiritual director has  become a little like having your own therapist or your own personal trainer at the gym. “It gives one spiritual status”, notes Alan Jones in his forward to Margaret Guenther’s book, Holy Listening, p. viii.  Not all would share this benign view of the spiritual director. Some when they hear the word, ‘spiritual director’, think of a guru figure who tells them what they must do. This view is entirely the opposite of their role.  Other misperceptions abound, not just within the Evangelical churches, but also Roman Catholic and Orthodox as well. Spiritual directors are perceived to be either too clinical or authoritarian and possibly for good reason.  Many ministers within these traditions have been overbearing, moralistic and focused on peccadilloes and it is easy to assume spiritual directors will be the same. In the recent history within the Roman Catholic Church, their role was frequently fixated on issues of morality. Thankfully, things have moved on and the traditional role of the spiritual director of guiding someone in their journey with God has been recovered.

Others think the whole idea of seeing a spiritual director tantamount to entering  ‘therapy’, meaning  they are weak and in need of someone to put their life back together for you.  In this view, the role of the therapist and the spiritual director are both being misunderstood. A spiritual director simply guides you to pay attention to where God is at work in your life. This often this involves helping you identify what happening in your prayer life and helping you discern between the good and the better. And the discussion doesn’t have to be anything particularly ‘spiritual’ either. Anything which is happening in your life, even if nothing is happening, can be brought for discussion and reflection because God is at work in all the different aspects of our daily life. They are there for you, particularly if you are going through a rough patch and nothing in your spiritual life is working. If a mother with a baby comes and says that she has no time to pray, the spiritual director’s role can simply be to support you, hold you and assure you that this is will be only for a season. Your prayer life need not be compared with a saint living in the cloistered life; it will be by necessity different now and practiced at different times and in different ways from when you were child free and had hours to journal and reflect.  Their presence is a stabilising influence in our lives at such a time.

Spiritual directors come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and I am often surprised at how ‘ordinary’ they are. Most are not (if men), ‘monkish’, or  (if a woman), grey haired and with wizened face, although for many of women spiritual directors, the need for excessive makeup and other artificiality has long been discarded as a façade.  But most spiritual directors I have met are in the older age bracket and it is for good reason. They have spent years trying to sort out this thing of living with Christ in daily life. Time has had its effect with good result: they are weathered like the drift wood on the beach, once rough, now smooth, at least on the inside.  Their wrinkles and whitened hair have accorded them the depth which has been hard won from years of struggle with God and the struggle in understanding themselves and others. Often they have seen the gamut of life – its  joys, its  pain and its disappointments and somehow, in spite of things which would have crushed me, they have risen above them and continued holding onto God.  Some have even abandoned God or lost him, but come back again. They have reached the cross roads in life where they considered that there was either no other option but to return, or everything and anything else had been tried but found wanting and was empty, so they came home again to discover how much they had really missed being away.

What are the qualifications for being a spiritual director? The obvious one would be that they have listening skills, but not in the modern therapeutic sense of Rogerian listening as if this is all that is required of a spiritual director. They must have the gift of being able to listen for the voice of your true self that masks itself in the narrative we share and behind the busy life we pursue.  Good directors also ask good questions, which help us clarify what we are struggling to articulate. They must be men and women who know the paths we take with the best of intentions toward God, but then get sidetracked. And they must be studied in the classical mystical literature of St Theresa of Avila, St Bernard of Clairvaux, St Ignatius of Loyola and so on.  Kenneth Leech in his book, Soul Friend lists the different qualifications from pages 37-45. One quality he lists which has stuck me is that the ‘spiritual father’ didn’t teach a spiritual technique, but was a father who helped shape the inner life of his children through prayer, concern and pastoral care.  The spiritual director is a mother or father who gives their life to the directee and gives them the freedom to become the person they are meant to be in Christ. They don’t ‘impose’ themselves on their directee but love them.  Somehow they create in the relationship with the directee the space for the directee to be there with God, while remaining unobtrusively on the sidelines.  Leech also notes that a director should speak out the depths of his or her own prayer and lifestyle experience. (Leech, p. 39) This ability to speak about their prayer experience is important as much of direction is about our prayer life and what’s affecting it. As a consequence, they must be able to teach us to pray in the appropriate way when a different method is required and the old ways (of prayer), no longer work.

Some of the qualifications I like are that they are someone who has sinned much and now lives a life of continual repentance.  They are someone in touch with their own brokenness, faults and weaknesses to sin, but without being morbid. This provides them with a freedom from the need to enter into the relationship with a judgmental spirit. They are able to welcome the directee, as Christ would himself, because they are have learnt to apply the grace of God to themselves first, and now offer that grace to others. The grace and peace of God have so worked within them that they have become the embodiment of grace.  Perhaps they are someone who has been prepared by withdrawal from the world and even  the affairs of the church - a common method of preparation in the past. They have left for the far country, and on returning, have something which is lacking in much of the church leadership. Church leadership is often priestly, preoccupied with maintaining the institution; spiritual directors are sometimes awkward prophets, saying things to us we need to hear and know we need to hear, but it’s a voice the institution would often like to silence because its  values, the ones we often live by, often lead to a place of death, burnout or idolatry.  On this point, good spiritual directors are not concerned about making you feel good, but helping you find yourself in God and sorting out why you may have drifted away or lost your bearings.  They are not about rescuing you (from the situation you find yourself in), but sitting with you in the situation and helping you to find God there too. They challenge our assumptions and our ego driven need to be ‘doing stuff’ asking us to consider where we are experiencing God’s grace and freedom.

Despite their awkward relationship within the church community, one value I nevertheless would require of a spiritual director is that they are rooted in a church tradition and a church community. This will mean they are not operating as a lone ranger or unaware of the roots and traditions of the church and in the rich heritage of mystical theology. Undoubtedly they are not indifferent or unaware of the problems of the institutional church, but have a judicious eye of distance by which they offer a vision that is refreshing. Entering into spiritual direction is to enter into a very long conversation in the Church of how do we grow more into Christ; how do we move though phases in our life of prayer; how do we become more holy. The director is well versed in the nuances of this conversation and is sensitive to only recommend what is appropriate for you in your situation, and not a particular ideological line.

The ability to be a spiritual director is dependent on having a calling by God. This calling often only emerges late in life as a consequence of getting some way along the path and realising that you have something which others come seeking. Sometimes it is the in depth conversations which begin  to alert you to the idea that perhaps these conversations are not accidental and are resting on a certain kind of depth often lacking in others. However, the plethora of spiritual direction courses would imply that all who wish to be a spiritual director can be. Training, although important in itself, is not enough. The charism of the Holy Spirit is needed.  Spiritual direction is an art and acquired skill like that of a qualified tradesman or surgeon who has practiced under the direction of an experienced practitioner. It has been noted that the directee will draw the gift out of the spiritual director, as when the friends of St Anthony broke into the fort where he had prayed and meditated for twenty years to draw out his gift because they were in need of his counsel.

Spiritual direction is not for the spiritually elite but the average person. How then do I find one? The first place to start is with yourself, by praying that God will open the way for you to find one. This will help prepare you. Next, you might know someone who is already seeing a director. Ask them about it.  Ask your minister for a referral. This might scare them a bit, but it will be good for them. There might be churches or centres offering retreats which you see advertised, such as through a monastery or convent. These often have spiritual directors attached to them. You could approach Ignatian centres or other contemplative centres which offer spiritual direction. The Spiritual Directors International offer a locality map for most countries that show where directors live and their religious and denominational background.

What is spiritual direction? Inevitably when I have explained what spiritual direction looks like, I find many people want to see it as a type of counselling, but this leaves me feeling uncomfortable.  Counselling tends to be more about giving solutions to problems, helping people cope with their problems and the problems are usually treated as an unwanted obstruction in their life. I also find that my deep commitment to God is subtly pushed aside in favour of employing various secular techniques to deal with the issue at hand. As a Anglican priest, this has left me unsatisfied and unsettled that there is little integration between my religious calling, theological training and life experience with God with the practice of counselling. Please don’t misunderstand me, counselling is vital and helpful to those in pain or struggling to cope with life. As a practice, spiritual direction is open to a variety of intrepretations but also misunderstandings as well. How does it work if I was to meet with a spiritual director? Can only those who have spent years in academic study of theology be a spiritual director? Perhaps the following illustration from my life will help.

While undertaking a day walk to climb a mountain in northern Tasmania, an island of rugged beauty to the south of mainland Australia, I could hear water rushing through rocks beneath my feet. I was thirsty; we had been walking for only about 40 minutes, but as I was slightly unfit and it was a relatively clear day, I had become quite hot from the climb. Although I could hear the sound of water below me, I could not locate its source or see it. I could only hear it’s alluring sound.  I had not brought water with me because normally there are creeks and little rock pools of fresh water available in Tasmania’s national parks.  But I was still to climb up onto the plateau where pools (tarns) dot the high altitude landscape like a series of swimming pools or wash basins fit for a giant.  I contemplated the walk ahead as the sun beat off the rough surfaces of the greyish basalt. There would be no tree cover because of the boulders strewn everywhere, the remnants of the last ice age. I could do nothing to relieve my misery until I had walked further up the mountain side of boulders until a creek was found.

Perhaps to divert my attention or to fill the time in while I cooled down, my brother in law Ian then told me the story about the stone track on which I was standing.  I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and looked at it more closely. Where we stood it was straight and level, but when I looked down on my left and right, it was apparent that the rock had been carefully piled up from a wide base with a slight incline to form the level track on its top. It appeared that what I was standing on was something like a bridge that spanned between two sides of a chasm on the side of the mountain but without the customary arch in the middle.

Ian went onto explain that following World War Two, European immigrants had come to Tasmania to help build the hydro-electric dams. They were keen skiers and would climb the mountain to its summit along this path in winter and ski down its slopes until exhaustion set in and the brandy came out. This occurred in the era before the windy road had been bulldozed up to the summit that tourists now enjoy. These keen skiers also built a rudimentary lodge on the mountain and carted the building materials on their backs up along this track. On their route to the summit, they had to cross a ravine through which a small creek gushed with melting snow water. Someone had a bright idea one day. Why not fill the ravine in using the large boulders and rock screed from the mountain side so that they did not have to descend sharply into the ravine and then clamber up again on the other side? The water could continue to flow through the ravine in between the boulders. Within a short time the bridge of rock had been put into place where it still stands.  This Ian explained, is where we now stood.

It has been about ten years since we made that day walk together and only recently that the memory of the day has come back to me as a way of explaining what spiritual direction offers those who thirst for the living water which they have heard beneath their feet in daily life. Hot and bothered, with my hope evaporating under the hot sun that any relief to my thirst might be found, my brother in law had enabled me to stop, to listen and to understand where I was located on the path. He had become an unintentional spiritual director and encouraged me to continue our walk  in the hope that what was illusive and unable to be grasped now, would be eventually given by continuing up the mountain.  Unlike counselling which would have seen my situation as a problem to be solved or relieved, Ian saw my thirst as an opportunity to learn something new about the journey and the location I had found myself in. My ability to hear the water beneath my feet was treated as a gift, even though my thirst was not going to be sated in the short term.

Sometimes the sound of the water trickling through the boulders may awaken a person to a deep desire to pursue a contemplative lifestyle, but they are uncertain about what to do. They may want to be more intentional in their practices and would like to know what practices would be helpful to strengthen and encourage them. At these occasions, the spiritual director can be both a teacher and a guide to the pilgrim. She can encourage the pilgrim to stay true to their calling and faithful to a certain kind of internal posture of waiting, of seeking to find this water even when its hot and lifeless on the path. 

Once a person has heard this stream of water flowing beneath their feet,  life cannot remain the same. Choices will inevitably need to be made about commitments, obligations and other activities which although good in themselves, are sometimes unnecessary hindrances or distractions to the pilgrim’s interior sense of calling to find the source of this water. They may have a desire welling up within them to experience this moment of contemplation again and may wish to explore their experience more deeply with someone who has been this way at an earlier time.  Attentive to the sound of the water’s splash, they may want to know the location of its source and more about those who have been this way before. In this role the spiritual director can be of great help as someone who has trodden this path before and experienced the hardships, struggles, temptations and periods of dryness.  The director is not so much someone who knows, but has lived the journey and knows the struggles involved in making the climb.

Sometimes we face the possibility of loosing touch with the sound of the water beneath our feet, such as when we are facing moral temptations which could divert us from our path or the impact of trauma, busyness or a difficult time in our lives.  Regular spiritual direction can help us to stay immersed in the contemplative stance of listening for this hidden stream of water in daily life. As one of several spiritual disciplines, spiritual direction helps us to notice or see God’s activity in our life which we could otherwise overlook or misinterpret, such as my experience of the illusive water. 

Occasionally we meet someone who is unaware of the sound of water which is flowing below their feet, yet they are thirsty for it and frustrated by what they see is a lack of relevant spirituality and spiritual practices in their religious community. The spiritual director can direct their attention to where they already stand, above the stream of water which flows just below the surface of their daily life;  a sound which may be deafened by external noises. With patience, compassion and care, the director can guide them to the source of their frustration and give them the space to become aware of their surroundings and awareness of what is already at work, hidden, but nonetheless, pervasive in their lives. On other occasions, the director will help the directee to be faithful to their heart’s desire to seek the water’s source. When distractions have intervened, the director’s role can be to help the pilgrim identify these and to encourage them to lay them aside. Sometimes the director’s role will be to explain, as Ian did to me,  how it came about that God’s presence and work is flowing through our lives in a particular way. In this role, they act as a guide to the pilgrim as they make their way along the path. The spiritual director will know the particular tradition they have come from so that they can draw upon it at the appropriate time to explain to the pilgrim the landscape they are now standing in.

Some climb mountains solely for the aloneness they provide, the space they provide opens up the life inside.  Others walk in order to seek the face of God.  Most of us however, need not just a guide, but a companion, who is able to interpret the unfamiliar terrain; someone who will encourage us to stay firm to our commitment. As I cast my mind back to remember that particular day walk, I remember how good it was to have someone who knew where I was located and what lay ahead. It was good to have someone who has remained my closest friend on what can sometimes be, an isolating and sometimes confusing experience. This, I think, is the role of the spiritual director.

I had gone into a large Christian bookshop to buy some books to give as Christmas gifts and just inside the door was a prominent display of suggested purchases for Christmas. The title of the book “10 Minutes A Day with Jesus” grabbed my attention. Next to it was another devotional book probably aimed at women looking for something to give their husbands. It had the title: “The One Year Book Of Devotions For Men On The Go”. Now I was intrigued. Both books promised that I could have a Bible reading, think about it and pray, all in about ten to twenty minutes. I picked up the devotional book aimed at men with such a busy life that they had only at best ten minutes in their day for God and had a look. The book was well laid out. The content was generally good. It had some insightful comments on the text which I thought might make good material for sermons or bible studies. It made some thoughtful suggestions about how to apply the text to our daily life. I even considered buying it.

But what these well intentioned books offered, was in the end, inadequate and superficial. No one would advocate that we eat fast food every day as a healthy diet, let alone suggest to a growing teenager that the consumption of fast food will be sufficient for them to mature into a healthy adult. But ten minute devotional books are the equivalent of spiritual fast food. They might be useful for occasional consumption, but are no substitute for a good solid meal of meat and veggies. They suggest, misleadingly, that all we need in life is a quick devotion with God and that this will be enough when it will not be enough. I left the devotional books and went further into the shop to find something else.

My thoughts turned to the topic of a very important but related issue which every Christian faces sooner or later. The issue is whether Christian maturity can be achieved with little effort and quickly, or does it require hard work and a long period of time? The ten minute devotional books give the impression that maturity can be achieved quickly and with little effort – if the idea that we should be maturing is even considered at all. Reading the writings of John Cassian and other Desert Fathers of the fourth century highlight that maturity and how it occurred, was their concern also. Like us, they lived in a period of history undergoing much change in the church; it was riven with doctrinal controversies and sects. Charismatic individuals established new and exciting churches which attracted a large and excitable crowd. What concerned some who were sincerely seeking God like the Desert Fathers and Mothers, was the feeling that nominalism was sapping the church of its life. It was too easy being a Christian now that the Church was a legitimate institution of the Roman Empire.

For the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Cassian and Benedict, Calvin and Luther, William Law and John Wesley and many, many others, maturity was understood to be the goal of the Christian life. It has been a distinguishing feature of many religious movements in church history that maturity and how it is attained is recovered and then given prominence in the life of the Christian. These leaders did express it differently as ‘perfection’, ‘union with Christ, the Beloved’; ‘conformity to holiness’, or ‘entire sanctification’, but it was the centrifugal force around which all other Christians doctrines revolved. Within the Spiritual Direction tradition, it seems to have disappeared as a model for listening to and interpreting the life and experience of another person. There is much talk about ‘the journey’, but not much is said about the destination or what it looks like. Evangelicals focus on conversion through faith in the gospel, and in doing so, allow the focus of Christian experience to fall predominately on the beginning of the experience. Spiritual Direction tends to focus on the process of transformation; but perhaps we need a recovery of the teleology of Christian faith – maturity in Christ.

This blog post is an introduction to an essay on this topic which will be put under the ‘Essays’ button at the top in several days.