Spiritual Direction By The Rev. Barbara Crafton Many people come away from the Cursillo weekend with a new term in their lexicon: “spiritual direction.” Spiritual direction is a focused friendship intended to give you the help and support you need to enjoy a closer walk with Christ. What should you look for in a spiritual director? How can you find one? How will you know if yours is the right one for you? What sorts of things will you do with your spiritual director? What to look for in a spiritual director Your spiritual director should be a person whose spirituality you admire. He or she should be a person with wisdom, who has had some training in the art of spiritual direction. Many spiritual directors are priests, deacons or religious (nuns or monks), but there are also spiritual directors who are laypeople. Another source for a referral to a director who would be a good fit is your own parish priest: he or she knows you, and might well be able to steer you toward just the right person. It is worth noting here that not all priests are well-informed about spiritual direction, and that a very few actively disapprove of it: you will probably not want to consult your priest about a choice of spiritual director if he or she is one of them. Fortunately, most priests know about it and support it for their congregations, even if they do not feel able to provide it themselves. Often, your own parish priest will prefer not to function as your spiritual director. The direction relationship is something apart from the day-to-day run of life; it may be that you see your parish priest in too many other situations (the vestry when you’re negotiating her housing allowance, the altar guild, the acolyte guild the time you poured wine on his shoe, etc.) to be able to speak as freely as you should speak in direction. One of the things you may need to speak freely about may be your parish priest! So ask your priest if she has a colleague who might be a good fit for you. What will you be doing with your spiritual director? Usually, you’ll meet regularly. Most people come to me monthly, although a few come less frequently, and sometimes when life heats up, they may come more frequently for a time. Your director will get to know you, and you will share what’s going on in your life. Your director will help you to see the hand of God in your life, and the places in which your need of God’s presence may not be clear to you. You will also work with your director on putting in place the spiritual discipline that is best for you. How do you pray? When do you pray? What kind of prayer seems to work best for you? What might you try that’s different from what you’re doing? What kind of reading might you do to help you along? How can you best use scripture in your daily devotional life? Would keeping a journal enrich your spiritual life? Should you be making confessions, or should you be making them more often? These are questions you bring to your director, and your director’s job is to know about a broad range of spiritual resources so that she can make well-informed suggestions to you about things you might try. He or she should be flexible, able to respect your spirituality even if it is different from his or hers. No two people have the same souls, and no one knows another’s spirit. The spiritual direction relationship is not intended to produce a clone of the director; it intends to enable you to be the very best you can be as you. If you do not sense that flexibility and respect in the person you are working with, it may not be the best fit for you. What if I start out with someone and I can see it’s not working? When you find a person who looks like a good match, have a few sessions. You should then be able to tell if the fit is good. If it is not, then you have every right to end the relationship, and you should. Spiritual direction is not a reciprocal relationship: in direction, your needs are paramount, and the director’s needs must be met elsewhere, not in the relationship. So, tell your director if you think it’s time for a change, and don’t feel guilty. He or she should not take it personally, and if that happens, it’s a good sign that you were right in your decision! It may be, also, that a director has been a good fit for you for a long time and then something happens, either in your life or in his or hers, to change that. By all means, raise this issue with the director, and enlist his or her help in finding a new one. Remember that finding one takes time and patience. Don’t be discouraged. The Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton is Rector of St. Clement’s, Manhattan. She is well known as an author and speaker, and serves on the NY Episcopal Cursillo Secretariat as a Spiritual Director. |
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