Explaining Spiritual Direction

Several readers have inquired recently about the title of “spiritual director” after my name. My posts mostly reflect my own orientation to finding spirit, or the divine, in everyday life. And that’s mostly what I try to do. But spiritual direction is an actual discipline, although not confined to one religion or denomination; but rather it is a type of counseling that supports one’s relationship to, and engagement with, the divine. I graduated from a three-year program in Spiritual Direction from Mercy Center, in Burlingame, Ca.

I never planned on becoming a spiritual director. It was never something that was foremost on my mind. I was busy trying to write children’s picture-book manuscripts, working hard at a educational non-profit in the City, and trying to start a family. It was ultimately my need to surrender to what I couldn’t control that led me on the path to my spiritual deepening.

But I will say there has been a thread of spiritual consciousness throughout my life. My parents were both spiritual, and were perhaps the first wave of Catholics to embrace eastern meditation as part of their spiritual practice. They visited Japan and experimented with meditation long before it became mainstream.

My mother is herself a spiritual director, and also an early graduate of the Mercy Center program. She is 85 yrs old and still devoted to helping others in their spiritual journey. My father, who passed away a year ago, was himself a man who, in his later years, was able to see his life through a spiritual lens.

What my parents both taught me was that our relationship to the divine is a journey. I don’t pretend to have any extra or special insight myself, but I am deeply interested in the landscape of this journey — both my own, and the people who I counsel, either individually, or in groups.

My father was a big believer in depositing funds in what he called his “spiritual bank account,” because he believed that one way or another, at some point, we all come to the realization that the spiritual dimension of our lives is just as important as our physical or ego-centered dimension. This is the orientation that I’ve inherited, and each day, I struggle with the movement towards, and away, from my spiritual center.

I Googled ‘spiritual direction’ recently and was led to Wikipedia. I was pleasantly surprised to see that spiritual direction had found a place in the mainstream.

Wikipedia defines spiritual direction as follows:
Spiritual direction is the practice of being with people as they attempt to deepen their relationship with the divine, or to learn and grow in their own personal spirituality. The person seeking direction shares stories of his or her encounters of the divine, or how he or she is experiencing spiritual issues. The director listens and asks questions to assist the directee in his or her process of reflection and spiritual growth. Spiritual direction develops a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human. It is not psychotherapy, counseling, or financial planning. The training for spiritual direction focuses on the art of listening. In fact, at the heart of most relationships is the need to develop the ability to listen.

I’m listening to myself right now. One of the challenges in daily life is finding enough quiet to hear oneself. Try driving without the radio on some time. Try being silent for an hour. See what is stirring within you. That is the voice of the divine. Follow the scent, open your heart.