The global community of Spiritual Directors International invites you to pray with  K’T’U, a spiritual director, and notice how your relationship with God or the sacred invites you to respond …

 

 

Prayer for Haiti

Together let us join in prayer
wrap a mantle of compassion upon Haiti
for the babies, sisters, brothers, workers, family, friends, strangers, enemies, animals, and more, more, more who died and will die,
who are wounded and ache
and will ache, suffer,
who grieve, breathe in shock
crawl
paw through the rubble of time
a violent collapse of daily routine.

 

.....


May fresh air breathe with vital necessity.
May we sacrifice and share.
May we enable compassionate action, and service—now. Right now.
May our mantle of compassion console and heal.
And may our prayer build grateful action, life.

--K’T’U, 13 January 2010

 

 

To add your prayers and thoughts please click on "add your comments" below.

In many traditions, to light a candle is considered a sacred action. Add your flame to the "SDI" group and click this link to light a "SDI" candle, in the "SDI" group at gratefulness.org.

Click for Photograph source

Spiritual direction is the featured topic of the Winter 2010 issue of Hope, a publication from The Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, in Indiana, USA. In this issue, Connie Schnapf, a member of Spiritual Directors International, describes spiritual direction as "a gift you give yourself." You can read the feature article, "Spiritual Direction: You Are Not Alone," discover how spiritual direction has aided the faith journey of several women, learn about the role of doubt, and peruse additional articles and suggested resources. Sister Catherine Livers explains, “In our spiritual journeys, we are always growing, we are always learning more and more about God’s love and grace.” Sharing about her experience of spiritual direction, Vanita Moore says,

“After meeting with Sister Catherine [Livers] for two or three times, I remember looking at her and smiling and I said, ‘I really like spending this time with you. I feel like I can ask you anything and talk to you about anything and you’re not trying to fix me.’ And she laughed and smiled great big and said, ‘Oh, honey, you don’t need to be fixed; you just need somebody to travel the path with you.’ I love that. That’s what our relationship has been."

Follow this link to read the online issue of Hope, Winter 2010, Volume 5, number 2.
Please offer your comments here to continue the conversation.

 

In the New Year, what ancestors are you grateful for? Where are you searching for treasure? How do you know when you have found pearls of great price?

Today, I am celebrating the founding members of the Spiritual Directors International Coordinating Council: Janet Ruffing, RSM; Gerald May, MD (rest in peace); Lucy Abbott-Tucker; Rev. Donald Schell; and the first executive coordinator, Mary Ann Scofield, RSM (pictured above circa 1990). These extraordinary servant leaders recognized the treasure in the ministry and service of spiritual direction. They created an organization to foster global collegial care for the pearls of great price related to spiritual companionship.

For twenty years, Spiritual Directors International has been offering educational programs, inspiring publications, and raising awareness of the importance of spiritual companionship. Of course, spiritual direction has been around for a lot longer.

During the December Parliament of the World’s Religions, my heart awakened to a deeper awareness of how ancient the treasure of spiritual direction is. While I was listening to an Australian Aboriginal presenter, Vicki Walker, share her faith and her Aboriginal heritage, she said, “For 40,000 years, my ancestors have lived here. We have been listening to each other and to the land with our hearts. We know the land is treasure given to us, and we need to live in sacred relationship. I am related to you, and you are related to me and to the land too.”

The phrase, “for 40,000 years” is still opening in my heart and seeping into my mind as a pearl of great price. I often tell people that spiritual direction has been around for thousands of years. Depending on the person asking, I talk about Jewish mashpiahs offering spiritual guidance for more than 2000 years, or tell stories of Christian desert ammas and abbas from about 170 CE, or site Buddhist spiritual teachers who have been listening with compassion since about 450 BCE. Now, because of my encounter with many Aboriginal and Native people during the Parliament of the World’s Religions, I will as well be telling the story of spiritual companionship that dates back 40,000 years. I am grateful for our Aboriginal ancestors.

In this new year, I am also grateful for YOU! Grateful for your commitment to a ministry and service of spiritual companionship that dates back 40,000 years. I invite you to join Spiritual Directors International in thanking our treasured ancestors during the April 2010 educational events in San Francisco. Come participate in the amazing educational program, Gratefulness: the Heart of Spiritual Care.

In the comments section below, please share your stories of the founding of Spiritual Directors International or searching for treasure in your spiritual heritage.

Happy New Year!

Are you seeking a spiritual director, spiritual guide or a compassionate listener to accompany you at this time in your life?

Spiritual Directors International is offering a FREE one hour teleconference for everyone who wants to learn how to use the online Seek and Find: A Worldwide Resource Guide of Available Spiritual Directors to find a spiritual director or guide.

From the ease of your own telephone you will discover practical steps to locate and interview a spiritual director and learn good questions to ask yourself during the process.

January 12, 2010 12:00 EST; 5:00 GMT/UTC or
May 11, 2010 12:00 EDT; 4:00 GMT/UTC

Click here to RSVP for the January 12, 2010 Teleconference
You will receive an e-mail one week ahead of time with the telephone number to call for the teleconference.

"How to Seek and Find a Spiritual Director" specifics

WHO: Everyone interested in learning how to seek and find a spiritual director or guide.
WHAT: A one hour FREE teleconference. Your only cost is the telephone call.
WHEN: January 12, 2010, 12:00-1:00 EST; 4:00-5:00 GMT/UTC (To calculate 12:00 EST; 4:00 GTU  in your time zone click here: www.timeanddate.com)
WHERE: Location of your choice, using your telephone.
WHY: Discover practical steps to locate and interview a spiritual director. Learn good questions to ask yourself as you begin this process. Find out about new and updated features in Seek and Find: A Worldwide Resource Guide of Available Spiritual Directors - the first-ever comprehensive, global listing of available spiritual directors.

Click here to RSVP for the January 12, 2010 Teleconference
You will receive an e-mail one week ahead of time with the telephone number to call for the teleconference. Everyone is welcome.

Sacred listening transforms lives through the art of spiritual direction, spiritual guidance, spiritual accompaniment, anam cara in Gaelic, and mashpiah in Hebrew. SDI offers resources for spirituality, contemplative prayer, compassionate listening, discernment, education, and retreats. 

Kwanzaa is a seven day festival celebrating the African American people, their culture, and their history.  Kwanzaa begins on December 26 and continues until January 1.

Kwanzaa was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966, during the period of United States history when African Americans were involved in struggles for their civil rights.  Dr. Karenga wanted to create a holiday that would unite African Americans in celebration of their culture.  He was inspired by the "first fruit" festivals that were celebrated throughout Africa.  These first fruit festivals shared important characteristics.

   1. To gather together to celebrate their crops and harvest (community).
   2. To give thanks to their Creator for a good harvest and life (faith).
   3. To remember and celebrate their ancestors and the past (history).
   4.  To recommit themselves to their community (purpose).
   5.  Celebration of their history, culture, Creator, and promise of another year (creativity).

These characteristics inspired the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa.

Unity—Umoja

Strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

Self-determination—Kujichagulia

Define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

Collective Work and Responsibility—Ujima

Build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems to be solved together.

Cooperative Economics—Ujamaa

Build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses, and to profit from them together.

Purpose—Nia

Make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Creativity—Kuumba

Always do as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Faith—Imani

Believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

--Therese Taylor-Stinson, Spiritual Directors International member, and a Presbyterian spiritual director.

Christians begin celebrating the feast of Christmas today. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays rings throughout homes, in cars, on radios, in shopping malls, through halls and walls of buildings and businesses, on computer and cell phone screens. Merry Christmas reigns in streets where kids die, and where poverty, abandonment and abuse deepens. For practicing Christians, Christmas is a time to engage the significance of the incarnation, the birth of Jesus Christ in everyday life.

The invitation for us to ponder at Christmas could begin as simple as this,

Where might love want to birth within me?

The Gift
God did not come into the world wrapped with a shiny red bow, pretty and perfect, labeled precisely. No, God came as a vulnerable, helpless infant who needs us as much as we need God. Emmanuel, “God-With-Us” is birthed, unwrapped, and encountered within us and through our own ordinary and mysterious life experience. In the article "The Eternal Christ in the Cosmic Story" Richard Rohr, OFM, explains, “... Christianity is not just that we believe in God. The mystery we are about is much more than that: It’s that the material and the spiritual coexist. It’s the mystery of the Incarnation. Once we restore the idea that the Incarnation means God truly loves creation then we restore the sacred dimension to nature.”

Celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas!
Christmas is not over on December 26. The Feast of Christmas begins on December 25, and culminates January 6, on the Feast of Epiphany. Every day is an opportunity to say yes to love, and wake up to the present moment. For the Twelve Days of Christmas we can practice genuine delight and forgiveness. We can gaze at people and our world with wonder and reverence. We can play with our family and friends. We can be willing to reach out with compassion to a stranger or someone in need. We can offer understanding and courage in difficult situations. We can receive, celebrate, feast, and rejoice in the reality that the material and the spiritual coexist, and that “the word became flesh.” We can become grateful for the gift of the incarnation of God!

Please join the many spiritual seekers who want to unwrap the ever-deepening meaning of “Yes, I will give birth to love. There is room and desire within me.”

Merry Christmas, Joy to the World!

Sneak peak! The new issue of Listen: A Seeker's Resource for Spiritual Direction is online now!

Take a short break and peruse this new issue. Then ask yourself, How will I incorporate the essence of play into the last days of 2009 and as a new decade begins?

From the January 2010 issue of Listen, "Playful and Grateful"

"Play awakens and engages our sensuality and sexuality. Playful activities create the glue for mutual, innovative endeavors and meaningful relationships. An antidote to suffering, play is healing and restorative."

"Spiritually, play is integral to a vital, healthy, and whole life. Playing is a profound way to pray, and only one letter separates pray from play!"

"Today I rarely give myself permission to play. I’m duty bound by some abstract should tape..." --"Field Guide"

"How did you play as a child? How do you play, now? What makes you tick? What enlivens you?" --"Field Notes"

"Offering a transformational exploration of sex throughout history, in religious experience, and in masculine and feminine spirituality, The Spirituality of Sex challenges us to celebrate matter and our potential as embodied, ecstatic human beings." --"Book Review"

"Are spiritual directors self-appointed? I realize Spiritual Directors International does not certify spiritual directors, but is there any kind of screening?" --"Ask Owl"

To read current and past issues of Listen, click this hyperlink; then click on any cover image on the page.

About Listen: A Seeker's Resource for Spiritual Direction:

• Assists seekers in a search for every day encounters with meaning, significance and the Sacred.
• Simple, inviting, contemplative, and educational.
• Includes short articles, book reviews, poetry, and global resources for retreats and education.
• Published in January, April, July, and October.
• Read around the world by more than 15,000 seekers, subscribers, and members of Spiritual Directors International.
• Distributed to major theological libraries, retreat centers, spiritual direction enrichment, formation and training centers, and individuals who express interest in receiving mailings from Spiritual Directors International.

Listen is a FREE outreach publication from Spiritual Directors International.

Please share your thoughts about this issue by adding your comment to this blog post.

 

 

A December Solstice Blessing … (for Southern and Northern Hemispheres)

On that December day when the sun is directly overhead, and light reigns generative power for hours and hours, may you know the blessing of sunlight to spark your heart of compassion with joy and delight, truth and vigor.

On that December day when darkness is most prevalent, may you rest in the power of fire, stars and moonlight to illumine your heart of courage with tender kindness, gentle friendship, and starlit dreams.

May you surround yourself with family and friends on this particular day.

May you create and celebrate customs and rituals to honor the geography of your time and place.

May our planet bless you with its beauty and mysterious generativity as seasons revolve.

May you listen to the thousand simple ways that the life you live embraces you with love and vitality, offering you an invitation to awaken to this present day and night, this new season unfolding.

And on this December solstice, may your heart of grateful care and compassion grow and grow, relentlessly.

--Pegge Bernecker, December 21, 2009, Kasilof, Alaska, USA

Spiritual Directors International gives a Gratefulness Tree to Australia at Campion Retreat Centre

 

From the opening prayer:

We celebrate with deep gratefulness the planting of an oak tree, as a symbol of gratefulness from Spiritual Directors International to Australia, to Mother Earth, to Melbourne’s hosting of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, “Make a World of Difference: Hearing each other, Healing the earth.” We celebrate the contribution that spiritual direction is making around the world and across traditions to build community capacity for compassion, peace, justice and stewarding all of God’s creation.

On 2 December 2009, fourteen people gather for a tree planting followed by a beautiful reception at Campion Retreat Centre. Together we contribute dirt, water the tree, reflect upon what are we grateful for, and ask ourselves, "What do we want to grow in our hearts and in our world, how does planting a tree and offering spiritual direction?"

The Jesuit superior, Laurence Leonard, loved the gift of a tree because a 101 year old oak tree recently died and fell down. The tree gift from Spiritual Directors International symbolizes new life in the public meditation gardens.

Liz Ellmann, executive director of Spiritual Directors International shared, "Vicki Clark, an Aboriginal woman I met during the Parliament, gave me a painted rock to include in the planting with her blessing. We shared what we are grateful for and what we hope will grow as a result of the Parliament and spiritual direction: PEACE."

May this tree, and our lives contribute to “make a world of difference.”

 

A Chanukah poem to light our way...

Holy Sparks

Creator of miracles,
in the darkest days I marvel
at blue-black silk sky,
majestic backdrop for Your seeds of light.
Every flicker an angel,
a Divine reminder,
the gift of our own darkness.
You are wick and wax,
flame and heat,
reflecting in the front window,
in my heart.

May each of us see ourselves
as fractals of Your Infinite Light,
as rainbows,
as You have created us,
pouring our Divine sparks out to the world.

© Karen Erlichman, member of Spiritual Directors International
December 2009

Attune to the October 2009 Spiritual Directors International educational events in Ireland through photography ...

Delight in the shared experiences of presence, learning, listening, and engagment. A photography slide show and three page montage share the experience with us in the present time of here and now...

Click here to see a slideshow and the three page clickable photograph story from the conference and pilgrimage.

"Religion is hard work. Above all it demands a compassionate lifestyle. This is the test of religiosity in every single one of the major world traditions. Most of our doctrines were originally calls to action." --Karen Armstrong

Spiritual seekers often engage and wrestle with growth in spiritual practice, faith, prayer, and a theological understanding of God or the Sacred. In an interview with U.S. Catholic magazine, Karen Armstrong (author, thinker, and 2008 TED Prize winner who wished for help in creating, launching and propagating the Charter for Compassion) responds to questions such as:

• How do people understand God in Western culture today? 
• What's wrong with seeing God as fact?
• Science and religion are often cast as opponents today. How has the relationship between them changed?
• What happens to religion when you mix science and faith? 
• Are there other doctrines that could help us recover the sense of religion as practice?
• How is the experience of transcendence connected to compassionate action?
• But isn't the goal of [Christian] faith to get to heaven, "to meet our Maker"? 
• What do you make of those who say they are "spiritual, but not religious"?

Perhaps you too ask questions such as these, or companion seekers who study and seek to live their faith in the context of the world today. What do Armstrong's responses evoke in you? How do you think and talk about God?

Click here to read the entire U.S. Catholic interview with Karen Armstrong.

Click here to learn about the Charter for Compassion.

Please respond by adding a comment to this blog.

December 14 celebrates contemplative Christian spiritual guide, Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591). The Doctor of Mystical Theology, Saint John of the Cross was a Spanish mystic, Carmelite friar, and priest. His writings include Ascent of Mount Carmel, Dark Night of the Soul, and The Spiritual Canticle.

During the Season of Advent, his poem "If You Want" invites each of us to become a midwife for God...

IF YOU WANT

If
you want
the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy,
and say,
“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,

as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us
is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation
come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim—
the sacred womb in your soul,

as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is
His beloved servant
never far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light and sing ...

--St. John of the Cross, “If You Want” in Daniel Ladinsky Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (New York: Penguin Group, 2002), 306-307.

How might you provide shelter, becoming a "midwife for God"?

After months of international conference calls across continents and spiritual traditions, the Parliment of the World Religions workshop was well-received!

 

Spiritual Companionship: Listening with a Grateful Heart
More than a hundred twenty people attended the Spiritual Directors International sponsored workshop at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, “Spiritual Companionship: Listening with a Grateful Heart.”

People listened intently, engaged deeply in the experiential exercises, and many stayed after the workshop to learn more about spiritual companionship.

Sacred Space
Later, participants from the workshop showed up at the Listening Post. The Listening Post is a sacred space that Spiritual Directors International is hosting in collaboration with graduates of the four spiritual director training programs in the Melbourne, Australia area. At the Listening Post, silence space for contemplation and spiritual direction are freely offered as a way to support participant’s integration of the Parliament experience. The Listening Posts happen daily from 4:30 – 6:00 p.m. in room 217 of the Melbourne Exhibition and Conference Center.    

"Thank you for your prayers. We felt them, and the workshop illustrated for all of us that international collaborative projects to benefit spiritual direction are not only possible but fun! Lots of hard work, and fun!" --Liz Budd Ellmann, MDiv

View more photos at the "Spiritual Directors International for spiritual care" Facebook fan page.