Introduction: What is spiritual direction?

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I was hungry for God in my early twenties. I bought a book with that very title, hoping that reading would lead me in the right direction as it so often had before. When someone suggested spiritual direction, I had no idea what it was but was willing to try anything that might answer my spiritual desire for more. My first director was a male priest who sat behind his desk and listened to my faltering description of how I prayed. It was a very old-fashioned approach, but it sustained me enough to seek another director when he moved away. This time it was a very different approach, though with the same aim as before. My director, a lay woman, listened as we sat together in her sitting room, and occasionally interjected with a well placed question. At the end she would gather up all the fragments of conversation and offer it to God with me. Since then I have had a number of spiritual directors from different spiritual traditions, all of whom have offered me hospitality and time in which to have a conversation about where God is at work in my life.

Spiritual direction is a relational ministry between two people whereby both are seeking to listen to the Holy Spirit. Directors make themselves available to those seeking direction, offering prayerful support and encouragement to help them listen and respond to God. It is God the Holy Spirit, in fact, who is the real director, so the essential foundation of spiritual direction is a three-way relationship. From the start there are three persons involved in this shared conversation, for conversation is the stuff of spiritual direction. The term describes a structured ministry of listening and spiritual formation on the part of the director, with the aim of enabling another Christian to grow in relationship with God and in obedience to God. A typical meeting for spiritual direction will last about an hour, and frequency of meetings can vary considerably. Often when a person is just beginning, there may be shorter gaps between meetings, perhaps four to six weeks. Later on many people find that three or four times a year is sufficient, especially if they have to travel some distance to see their director. Some relationships last for years and grow through many changes, but no one should feel tied to the same director for life. When embarking on spiritual direction for the first time, both sides involved should feel free to explore possibilities and say if they feel things are not a good 'fit'. Finding a director may be a challenge. Some Anglican dioceses hold lists of names of people who have undergone some training and/or have the reputation of being good directors, but often it is word of mouth that really counts. 'When you find a good person, make tracks to his door' is wise advice, and matters more than any courses completed, though these help to hone skills that may be already latent.

Signposts and guides

Throughout the story of God's involvement with humanity, one person has been used time and time again to point the way to another. The Bible, the Christian Scriptures, tell the story of this relationship between God and the world. In both Old and New Testaments we see instances of spiritual direction taking place, and we will examine some of these in the course of the book. In particular we will explore how the Gospels depict Jesus in his relationships with those he encounters, for above all he shows us the way to the Father and the way to live well.

With the birth of the Christian Church at Pentecost, the good news about Jesus began to spread, and in the book of Acts and the epistles we see how the first Christians learned how to put into practice what they had heard and understood about him. Christian faith according to the New Testament is something to believe and also something to do. It involves a new way to understand ourselves and who we are and also a new way to live. Most of the letters in the New Testament are written to churches, and the Gospels are understood to have arisen out of Christian communities. Between the Gospels and the letters is the Acts of the Apostles, which is the story of the early Church. We see that discipleship is something learned alongside others and that often it involves one Christian guiding another on the way. Indeed those first Christians were known as people of the Way. It is helpful to regard the 'direction' part of spiritual direction as a signpost along the way rather than as one person telling another what to do. Spiritual direction is not in the least about handing over responsibility for our lives to another human being. Keeping the Scriptures central to spiritual direction is an important means for both director and directee to remember this vital point. God desires that we should grow to be mature men and women, not kept in bondage to someone else's agenda or subservient to someone else's power.

'Spiritual' direction?

The term 'spiritual' is open to so many interpretations that many people feel that talking about 'spiritual direction' is altogether too confusing. 'Spiritual' may suggest the non-physical world but spiritual direction is concerned with the whole of life. The focus in direction is on prayer but that does not mean that only prayer is talked about – we do not pray in a vacuum. There is a story of a Russian staretz, or holy man, who was criticized for spending so long talking with an old woman – who had come to him for spiritual direction – about her turkeys. 'But her whole life is in those turkeys', was his response. Spiritual direction is for people who want to know God in their daily lives, whatever it involves and however mundane it may seem. Finding God in the ordinary is fundamental to knowing God personally and learning to hear God's voice. Spiritual direction embraces the totality of life, and this is far more important than whether we are using a particular method or following a defined tradition.

The New Testament helps us to get a better understanding of the word 'spiritual' in the context of spiritual direction. When the apostle Paul writes about the spiritual life he uses the word pneuma and contrasts it with the flesh, or sarx, meaning life without Christ or the old self. Sarx is sometimes referred to as the false self as it involves a way of living that is inauthentic. This false self desires independence from God and struggles against surrender to God's rule. One writer has described this false self as a fearful, protective, possessive, manipulative, destructive, self-promoting, indulgent, distinction making self. The Christian life is about the transformation of this old self into the mature human beings that we are meant to be. For all of us there is work to be done regarding the old self!

It is in the pages of...