What is Spiritual Direction?

 Spiritual Direction is the practice of journeying with an individual seeking ‘direction’ (a directee) as soul friend, spiritual mentor, or spiritual companion. This journey focuses on the growth of the directee’s awareness of themselves as a spiritual being and involves meeting monthly for intentional spiritual formation.

Spiritual Direction is guided by the vision that we are all striving for spiritual growth, to live into the image of the Holy that is at the core - the heart - of each of us. It is a process in which a person chooses to make a commitment to their own spiritual growth and maturity.  This is a discipline that requires practice, including focused time each day, each week, each month and each year as we seek to deepen:

 Our understanding of Self

 Our awareness of the movement of the Holy in our lives

 Our relationship with the Divine

 Our connection to the community and the Creator’s vision for the world

Our need for balance between Spirit, self and other

What is a Spiritual Director?

A Spiritual Director assists us in reaching into ourselves and into the world to know the Divine more deeply. This reaching draws us closer to the Divine, which deepens our understanding of ourselves as individuals, and calls us into deeper communion and commitment to our community and our world.

 Other terms that are commonly used for Spiritual Director are:

Soul Companion

 Holy Listener

Spiritual Companion

 Soul Guide

 Spiritual Mentor

 Soul Friend

The role of the Spiritual Director includes:

 Listening

- being attentive to the movement of the Holy in the life of the directee

 Companioning

- being a fellow traveler, alert to the Spirit's nudging, prodding & opening of the directee

Guiding

- offering guidance that highlights the weaving of the Spirit's presence in and through the landscape of the life of the directee

 Helping

-  assisting the directee to see and feel and know more deeply the movement of the Divine in their life

Contemplative - Evocative - Spacious

In Spiritual Direction, Rick uses a model adapted from the Pacific Jubilee Program in Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Direction:

Contemplative:

¨     seeks to be connected to and grounded in the Holy.

¨     is attentive to his own spiritual formation.

¨     practices what is needed to continue growing into the image of the Holy.

Evocative:

¨     asks questions that draw out the richness and diversity of the directee's own experience.

¨     explores ways of deepening the directee's experience through readings, meditation practices and creative exercises.

¨     encourages, supports, and challenges the directee to listen to and be attentive to the Spirit.

Spacious:

¨     allows room for the Holy to work.

¨     acknowledges that the Spirit is the "director" in all sessions, and that he needs to listen and be open to that movement.

¨     creates a physical space that acknowledges that this is the time and space of the Holy.