Watch a video interview of Richard Rohr, OFM, as he discusses how spiritual direction contributes to peace. He also answers questions about who the next generation of spiritual directors will be. Thank you to Spiritual Directors International member Tara Owens for creating the interview.

"The developing of spiritual directors is at the heart of the renewal of Christianity and all religions. Keep doing it!”     

     --Richard Rohr, OFM

Judy Romero-Oak and Rhoda Parker

Spiritual direction is usually considered an ancient practice. Today, it is being rediscovered in the emerging culture that is changing every religion, including the church. According to speakers and church leaders at the Emerging Church conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, a deeper spiritual consciousness is springing up. According to author and speaker Brian McLaren:

We need to restore contemplation to “know” God. We need to bring back the contemplative practices of spiritual formation and social justice. It’s been amazing for me in my travels to meet so many pastors and other leaders for whom spiritual direction has become an important part of their spiritual lives. I think we need a growing corps (and core) of trained people for whom spiritual direction is a primary vocation.

Shane Claiborne, who is helping organize emerging communities around the world, said the young generation of emergents are recognizing their need for deeper spiritual training. “We are recognizing that we need help,” said Claiborne. “We need some seventy-year-olds living in our communities for spiritual direction, spiritual disciplines.”

The emerging church is part of the Great Emergence which is the cultural, technological, global, economic and spiritual movement that is affecting all of civilization. No one started it, but we are all part of it.

 “We have been set up for the contemplative mind,” said Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque. “We have, however, become the dualistic mind. We have left to will power what should be out of the flow of non-dualistic thinking.” The Center for Action and Contemplation sponsored the conference March 20-22.

New Mexico spiritual directors hosted a table of information on spiritual direction, and the Seek and Find Guide for people seeking a director. Questions included, what is spiritual direction, and how do I find someone who can help me understand and develop my spiritual life? Many were interested in becoming a spiritual director.

This listening ministry of spiritual direction must be ready to hear what is emerging wherever and in whoever it appears.

 

Member Bernie Miles writes from Australia:

It is now six weeks since these devastating fires swept across Victoria on Black Saturday. So many of us have been touched by people we know who were affected or who gave help and hope to the many who suffered as a result of these fires. One heartfelt response that touched the team at Campion was a poem by Marlene Marburg, our resident poet that I would like to share with you.

Ours



There are no shoes, no walls or boundaries.
Hot, black feet stand equally
on the ashen face of earth,
where mountain ash last week
made worship easy. Today


spindly charcoal arms reach
from embers to a clear blue sky.
All looks well in Doncaster,
but thirty minutes north east,
a fire licks with legion tongues,


feather and fur, possession
and possessor. It mocks,
spitting fire four kilometres down wind,
random as the massacre of Hoddle Street.
There is nothing to be done but


bare the soles of feet and
fear the ground of earth and urn,
listen to its lone and dull voice;
the cry from somewhere in hot breathless smoke.

Five persons huddle

in the front seat of a ute, disconnected
from everything that doesn’t matter.
My God, this country holds the souls of only those

who can stand in ash and flood;
who feel chaos draw the deep shared moan.


Today the community of Marysville start the journey home to what remains of their community and homes and our heartfelt prayer goes with them. Many other communities and individuals now struggle with rebuilding their lives and their homes.

If you know anyone who was affected by the bushfires in Victoria and would benefit from spiritual direction and retreat time, please contact secretary@campion.asn.au.

 

 

Member Marian Cowan, CSJ, has written a new article on spiritual direction in the Liguorian.

Spiritual direction is a time-honored term for a conversation, ordinarily between two persons, in which one person consults another, more spiritually experienced person about the ways in which God may be touching her or his life, directly or indirectly. In our postmodern age, many people dislike the term "spiritual direction" because it sounds like one person giving directions, or orders, to another. They prefer "spiritual companionship," "tending the holy," or some other nomenclature. What we call it doesn't make any real difference. The reality remains conversations about life in the light of faith. There was much to talk about, to sort out in the light of faith in those days when confusion in the Church became a daily reality.

Although spiritual direction has had a burst of new life, it is really quite ancient. Across both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures, we find people seeking spiritual counsel. The Queen of Sheba sought out the wisdom of Solomon. Jesus gave us examples in his conversations with Nicodemus, with the woman at the well, in the ongoing formation of Peter and the other disciples. In the early church, people flocked to hermits in the desert for spiritual counsel. Across the centuries we find striking examples in some Irish monks, in some German Benedictine nuns, in Charles de Foucault, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, and others. Today, spiritual directors come from many traditions.…

Click here to read the full article.

Bighearted Spiritual Directors International members Gary and Mary Becker financially made possible the SDI booth at LA Congress.  Thank you! They enabled the ministry and service of spiritual direction to become more well known and for training and formation programs to offer personal guidance to people sensing the call to spiritual direction ministy. Kudos, Gary and Mary!

  

The Spiritual Directors International exhibitor booth buzzed with visitors. Thank you LA Congress presenters (Bill Barry, SJ; Nancy Reeves, Kathy Ja-Eun Cho, and Wil Hernandez pictured below), and formation and training program directors (Tony Haas, Christopher McCauley, and Kathleen McAlpin, RSM pictured below) who generously gave guidance to seekers.

People new to spiritual direction enjoyed meeting SDI members and learning how they might find a spiritual director or training program in their local area. Visitors came from as far away as Australia and Hungary, and as near as Garden Grove, California.

SDI members Megan McKenna and Betsey Beckman shared creative ideas and insights

 

while greeting visitors to the Spiritual Directors International booth at LA Congress. Thank you Megan and Betsey for hanging out with young adults attracted to the SDI booth by your presence.

At LA Congress Tech Center, Liz Ellmann demonstrates how to find a spiritual director using the online Seek and Find Guide.

Where might you offer a demonstration of how to use the online Seek and Find guide? At your local theology school? In your local hospital's spiritual care department? During a community fair?