Here’s my Spiritual Direction Formation program reflection for February.

He takes for them the form of a begetting father and a bearing mother, that they might take the form of the self-emptying Christ, who himself took our form.

This quotation, and the thought that Christ is manifested in the spiritual director and as the spiritual director, together with thoughts about the Rule of Benedict, provoked much thought in me during the days of the formation program, and since that time.

I have lived as a ‘son of Benedict’ for quite a long time, as I have walked the path as a Benedictine oblate. I understand that vocation to be to live as a monk in a monastery without walls. One of the major conceptual tasks for me has been to consider how to take a part of the Rule that looms so large – the role of the Abbot, and the right response of the monk to the Abbot – when for me the Abbot is a person who far remote geographically. I suspect that whilst it is not easy to be obedient to an Abbot who is present (Thomas Merton, for example, found it difficult to be obedient in deed and spirit), it is even more difficult to be obedient to an Abbot who is not present. Similarly, it is difficult to live in stability, not blown around by the winds of the world, when I do not live in a ‘place’ where I am supported by brothers. To live a life of poverty – using only what I need and not accumulating more than I need – is somewhat easier for me as I grow older.

I have lived with a rule of life, first my own, and since then the Rule of Benedict, for a long time and have found it to be an invaluable aid in stability, and preventing my tendency to both laziness and over-enthusiasm. There is something freeing in living with the Rule of Benedict, reading it day by day, and seeking God’s leading in living it out. I come, perhaps, to ‘working with the Rule’ without too many of the normal prejudices about ‘rules’, as I have experienced them as liberation, by and large.

My life in the Anglican church has involved a commitment to the rhythms and liturgies of the church, which Hale and Pauley note are strongly influenced by the monastic and Benedictine. I feel at home with the Office, and with the Eucharist, with silence and the Bible. I admit to feeling much less at home with less structured liturgy, or modern forms of worship which seem to me to often lack depth, attempting rather to entertain.

The offering of the idea that the Abbot can be a model for the spiritual director is one that is very freeing – but I have never imagined myself to be someone who would be called to serve as an Abbot. To digress slightly – this is probably because of the tendency within the Western church (at least) to project episcopal ‘dignity’ onto the Abbot, which is something I suspect is at odds with the charism of the Abbot (and perhaps, indeed, of the bishop!). I can, however, see how the spiritual director and the Abbot may have vocations that are very similar, and may find that their call to that life comes from the same place – those who seek ‘a word’ coming to them for leading.

An Abbess who is worthy to be over a monastery should always remember what she is called, and live up to the name of Superior. For she is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery, being called by a name of His, which is taken from the words of the Apostle: “You have received a Spirit of adoption …, by virtue of which we cry, ‘Abba — Father’” (Rom. 8:15)!

The spiritual director is both a begetting father and a bearing mother for the directee. As the monastic life is geared towards theosis (cf RB, prologue), so too is the directee’s journey – and it is bringing this to birth that is the spiritual director’s gift. That the spiritual director is Christ in this moment leads me to reflect on the thoughts of John Zizioulas, who asserts that full humanity is achieved only as person participating in the perichoresis of the Holy Trinity:

Since God moved to meet the other — His creation — by emptying Himself and subjecting his Son to the kenosis(self-emptying) of the Incarnation, the “kenotic” way is the only one that befits the Christian in his or her communion with the other, be it God or neighbour.

The spiritual director’s charism as a begetting father suggests a role as one who creates, gives essence, life, as well as one who protects and corrects. The spiritual director is not just called to passively interact with the directee, but in God, to bring something to life – perhaps fanning an ember planted by God, in order to bring the directee into the intimate fellowship of the persons of the Trinity.

Both the directee and the director are called to live and relate to one-another in a kenotic manner. The director is called to constantly and consistently pour out himself in service of the directee, who calls the charism of direction out of the director. God’s gift, in this calling out, is to both of them. The directee’s gift is to be ministered to, and the director’s to serve by giving glory to God through bringing new life and birth about in the directee. This kenotic ministry might have the following character, taken from Benedict’s instructions to the abbot:

In her teaching the Abbess should always follow the Apostle’s formula: “Reprove, entreat, rebuke” (2 Tim. 4:2);  threatening at one time and coaxing at another as the occasion may require, showing now the stern countenance of a mistress, now the loving affection of a mother.  That is to say, it is the undisciplined and restless whom she must reprove rather sharply; it is the obedient, meek and patient whom she must entreat to advance in virtue; while as for the negligent and disdainful, these we charge her to rebuke and correct.

This loving affection, as of a mother, brings to mind characteristics such as sustaining, nurturing, supporting, enfolding, succouring, protecting, drawing out.

The manifestation of Christ in the director, and as the director also has a kenotic character. It is for the good of the directee that Christ is thus manifested and honoured. Christian leadership has a paradoxical quality – the leader is simultaneously servant and leader, just as Christ is – his glory comes through his freely chosen servanthood of and filial relationship with the Father. The choice to stand with Christ, to stand as Christ, and allow one’s life to be poured out in the service of many, is a hard choice. The choice to allow others to see Christ in one, is also a hard choice. It seems to me that accepting the call to be a spiritual director means accepting the call to be identified with Christ, which necessarily involves accepting servanthood, even if it might also involve accepting a sort of acclamation.

So, what might all of this mean for me? Christina’s suggestion that “… our very disabilities, the poverty of teacher and taught, become wounds that stream with glory, filled with utter and unutterable purity” resonates deeply with me. I know myself to be filled with many disabilities and mired in much poverty. That God can, when I allow him to, use these very wounds to his glory, and for the service of those he calls to give me as directees, is a marvellous thing.

That God might call me to be as an abbot to those he offers to me as directees is a challenging thought, not least because of the responsibility it brings. Benedict writes of this:

Above all let her not neglect or undervalue the welfare of the souls committed to her, in a greater concern for fleeting, earthly, perishable things; but let her always bear in mind that she has undertaken the government of souls and that she will have to give an account of them.

He does, however, offer the poor abbot some consolation, which I also take:

Thus the constant apprehension about her coming examination as shepherd (Ezech. 34) concerning the sheep entrusted to her, and her anxiety over the account that must be given for others, make her careful of her own record.  And while by her admonitions she is helping others to amend, she herself is cleansed of her faults.

More and more my thoughts are captured by the vision of theosis, that the way on which I am to lead is this path, which leads to the self-emptying of the false self, and unity and fellowship with God in the Holy Trinity. The vision of the abbot as spiritual director, and spiritual director as abbot (from this year), and also as icon of Christ (from year one) become integrated in this thought, I believe, when the director dies and is buried with Christ via the purgative and apophatic way (year two). As I write this it suddenly sounds trite and pietistic, but I believe that there are great connections here (as no doubt there are intended to be!), which I begin to see and appreciate.

As I allow God to lead me deeper into him, and the mystery of his call for me and my life, I surrender more and more, and exert less control over both it and myself. This is a scary and yet liberating thing. As I am offered this conception – the director as abbot – I am also liberated from attempting to find a ‘novel’ way of being a director. I can trust in the tradition, which the abbot and the director are called to carry, teach and maintain, and take the model from the Rule of Benedict, without attempting to create new paradigms for the spiritual director from elsewhere.

The following reflection was written for as part of the requirements for the Spiritual Direction formation program in which I participate.

What was the mysterious illness from which Lazarus suffered and died? It was the death of his false self. Death is the only cure for the false self. That is why Jesus did not come. Only the death of the false self brings liberation from the drive for survival and security, affection and esteem, and power and control, and from overidentification with a particular group or role.

… Lazarus shows us that the Christian journey is not a magic carpet to bliss, a career, or a success story. It is a series of humiliations of the false self. Divine wisdom works both in prayer and action to free us from the undigested emotional junk of a lifetime that is warehoused in the body.

These words from Thomas Keating are the ‘leaping off’ point for this reflection, which is written at a time of profound pain, searching and barrenness. I fear this reflection will be a little long and quite personal. I am aware it does not deal with many of the readings we were provided with. I have read them all, but it seems right to make a personal response on this occassion.

I am not a great soul. In many ways I am not even a particularly good soul. I know that I am beset by temptations, sins, and I have experienced many failures. In fact, my life seems to have been a tapestry of failure, in many ways. As I look back over the 40 years of my life I see little accomplishment, and much hurt. Nevertheless, in the midst of this the confronting and wondrous truth remains – I am God’s, God calls me deeper into Him, and I say ‘yes’. I fail a great deal, and am very aware of my propensity to evil. My rough edges are very visible to me, and cause me a good deal of pain. Yet, even now, I am aware of the limits of the ‘truth’ of this set of descriptors of me. The descriptors, whilst partly true, are also part of a false self which must die. – my connection to them and comfort in them is a choosing to be false. The effects of the history which drags after me must die. I must die.

As I listened to Christina speak at the last session, and as I read the written materials, and as I have lived my life and ministry, I have found myself challenged by God to continue to allow him to kill my false self – to continue on the walk to transforming union, which Keating describes as the ‘ripe fruit of dismantling the false self.

Christina’s talks underlined the real ‘blood and guts’ nature of these final stages of the apophatic way. This is not a time for scented roses, mystical visions, comfort and certainty – things I had associated (falsely, as it turns out) with saints such as Thérèse of Lisieux. It is a time for trust, guidance and obedience – things she lived and embodied abundantly. It is these things I am trying to live, in the midst of the dying. As I ponder and pray, I am reminded of this writing, from Meister Eckhart:

Our salvation depends upon our knowing and recognizing the Chief Good which is God Himself. I have a capacity in my soul for taking in God entirely. I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself… Thus must the soul, which would know God, be rooted and grounded in Him so steadfastly, as to suffer no perturbation of fear or hope, or joy or sorrow, or love or hate, or anything which may disturb its peace… the soul should be remote from all earthly things alike so as not to be nearer to one than another. It should keep the same attitude of aloofness in love and hate, in possession and renouncement, that is, it should be simultaneously dead, resigned and lifted up.

Whilst this, particularly the final sentence, seems like a rather negative view, it reinforces Keating’s – death must come. Jesus himself taught this, when he said ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit’ (John 12:24, ESV). Keating describes the Night of the Spirit as:

… liberation from the tyranny of the false self. It is the necessary preparation for the full transmission of divine light, life and love.

This is death indeed, as the world sees it. The world constantly seeks to bolster my false self with things, experiences, desires. When the walls of the false self begin to break down panaceas are offered, such as therapy (which can be useful, but may serve to strengthen rather the walls rather than support the individual whilst they’re breaking down), drugs, sex, substitutes for life and meaning. The church, too, is complicit in this, by reducing much of Christianity to a mere consumer experience and failing to call the faithful to growth. I suspect that, in this, God often works in spite of the church, rather than through it.

Much of my false self has been eroded by events in my life – shaking my certainty about who I am, who God is, how the world works and what my place in it is. My brother Brian’s suicide, coming face-to-face with senseless murders, trouble in relationships, being gay and being rejected, being gay and being misled about what that meant, being spiritually abused, having cancer and being treated for having cancer – these, among other things, have served to shake my sense of self. Even now events in life continue to break against me, like waves breaking against a rock on the coast.

In the midst of all of this has been the absence of God, made all the more painful by a searing hunger for God. Over the past couple of years this hunger – a palpable, physical need – has deepened and intensified, but simultaneously, the absence of God has intensified. God’s call to me has become clearer, and I seek to respond, but who I am means that the church cannot or will not respond to me. There is a dying in that, too. Keating described it in the quote above. I am becoming Colin, and being cleansed of the roles and subterfuge – that which is false, in order to become one with God – suffused with ‘divine light, life and love’.

A third ‘leg’ of this experience adding to the paradoxical absence of God and hunger for God, is, as Zaleski describes, a profound doubt in the existence of God. I find myself, for example, giving direction, leading worship or preaching and being racked with doubt and uncertainty about that which I am saying or teaching. At an intellectual level, and remembering experiences, I know the things of God to be true and real. I am, however, assaulted with the wondering that perhaps this is not. I feel all that I can do is to walk on, remembering God and his presence in my life. I do take comfort that souls far greater than I, such as Mother Teresa, were accosted by similar doubts. As I pray the Daily Office, day by day, or participate in the Eucharist, I know myself to be joined through the church’s liturgy with all the saints, and I find sustenance there. My own prayer seems meaningless and vague – the Daily Office is a place of peace amidst the roaring winds of the desert.

I have, lately, been very interested in the journey of Thérèse of Lisieux,  a saint to whom I had found it hard to relate. Her hagiographers seem to have taken great trouble to cover her with gilt and lace, and to make her profound insights into the spiritual way into maxims which have removed them of their shocking truth. O’Donoghue notes that Thérèse’s way is “addressed only to those who seek true greatness. It is a way for the truly heroic, a way that puts all pseudo-heroisms to question.”

It is a way which has a profound concern with the relationship between God the Father, and the soul. God the Father is loving – in fact, the definition of love – but also makes “absolute demands”. Thérèse’s way is the way of Jesus as the path to the Father is through the Son, who taught that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and prayed “that they may be one in us” (cf John 17:21-23) (the non-dual aspects of which are fascinating). This is the Jesus who modelled complete and selfless love for the Father, even giving up his life in obedience to the Father, walking into the depths of the darkness (and choosing to do so) with no consolation.

Thérèse’s love for Jesus led her to suffer, and through her sufferings came freedom from her false self and, divine union. My own small sufferings also bring gifts, to be accepted and embraced rather than rejected as negative and existentially or ontologically hurtful. As I suffer I remember the much greater sufferings of Jesus, and am thankful that I can suffer, for my own sake and for the sake of others.

One of the sufferings in my life is the living out of my vocation to the priesthood, when ordination to the priesthood is denied to me because of my sexuality. This vocation is tied together with the call, I believe, to spiritual direction, which has increasingly become the major focus of my ministry, and to my call to live a monastic life.  Yet… even this suffering is a good thing. Keating wrote:

In a ministry inspired by God, one receives a particular call and has to exercise it on God’s terms. That means the ministry will be characterised, as it was for Jesus, by opposition, rejection, failure, disappointment, persecution, and perhaps death.

I experience “opposition, rejection, failure, disappointment… [and] persecution” in varying measures (though as I write this I think of John of the Cross’s sufferings and almost reach for the ‘delete’ button). When I receive these experiences as they are, and do not allow the rubbish from the past to influence my reactions (easier said than done, as a recent event reminds me) I am able to embrace them and allow them to do their work.

But what does all of this mean for me as a spiritual director? I am tempted to respond simply with the following quote:

A person in this state is totally possessed by Jesus, identified with him in his surrender to his Father. Thus, through her, Jesus is on earth in an incomparable way. His kingdom has come in her and because of this comes even more fully into the world.

And whilst this might seem to be a flip or trite answer, it is I believe, true. I am, self-evidently, not in that state, but to the extent that there are moments of union with God, I am able to be Christ for those he leads to me. That is a high privilege, and one which I must approach with discipline and humility. The process of dying to self is, for me as one who follows the Benedictine way, a road of discipline. The sufferings I experience, rightly accepted, certainly lead to humility.

While 2009 brought some considerable graces, not the least of which was participating in the formation program, it also brought some significant challenges, and a call to consider anew where my spiritual ‘home’ is (if indeed I have one), and also to consider those whom God would have me serve. Increasingly, the people who come to me for direction are gay men or those who have experienced abuse at the hands of the church or her leaders. I believe my call to be in those terms to those outside the walls of the church, to nurture them, challenge them, be with them as a man of prayer, and to provide for them sacramentally. How this will be lived out I do not as yet know. I can only echo Mary’s surrender – let it be done to me as you will.

My spiritual direction ministry website has launched. It is intended to provide a way for people who are looking for spiritual direction to get in contact with me. I see a number of people for spiritual direction already, and am happy to see more. My calling to this ministry seems to be particularly to those who find themselves a little outside the church, or who find the church a hard place to be in.

Visit the site to find out more.

Farther Up and Farther In

The Three Temptations of the Passive Night of the Senses

In my reflecting on the material from the last session, I was very struck by the handout on the three temptations of the passive night of the senses – the spirit of fornication, the spirit of blasphemy and the spirit of dizziness. These three are all things that I have experienced, though I tend to be more plagued by the spirits of fornication and dizziness.

For me the spirit of fornication is usually temptation related to sex, and is bound together with, as I see it, an offer from God to lead me into wholeness and integrity as a gay man. The gay world makes many offers about sex, about sexual indulgence as a road to fulfilment and happiness, and, indeed, the necessity of being sexually promiscuous as a way of being a ‘good gay man’. It is possible that sex decoupled from the possibility of procreation always brings these tensions. One of the learnings that God has offered me has been that creativity through sex is something that occurs not simply due to the fertilization of an ovum by a sperm, but that in the act of sexual intercourse meaning is generated, and that in a loving relationship God’s creative presence is with me and my partner during sex. The spirit of fornication, however, offers something completely different – sex for the reward simply of sex, or sex as conquest, or sex as distraction – which is perhaps the most destructive at all. Sex as distraction leads me away from God, and for a time ‘blocks’ the creative presence of God within me. The act of sex differs little whether it is sex as gift of God and self, or sex as distraction – what differs is the end. My own struggle with this is largely in the context of coming back, again and again, to the offering of myself to God and my partner in sex, rather than to indulge in endless trudging in the mire of sensuality. I tend to use the Buddhist technique of simply acknowledging that the temptations and imaginings are there without becoming too engaged with them or upset by them. I find this more effective than obsessing about them and worrying that they are there.

My experience of the spirit of dizziness is quite similar to the description of Nathanael’s experience, in a way. I tend to be the sort of person who is easily irritated by others, and I am often not keen to suffer fools gladly. Both of these things lead me to judge others harshly. I often do nothing about that – I don’t shout, scream or become overly harsh, but I can become cold and distant. In the last few years I’ve become much more aware of the need to work with God to change me. I have certainly, in the past, used self-help ‘techniques’ and ‘systems’ which have been more or less useful in the short-term – none had any long-standing effect. Thomas Keating’s (2001, 75-6) comment, “the night of sense enables us to see that the core of the emotional programmes for happiness is selfishness” is particularly appropriate for me, I believe. For me it is clear that a key need for me is to be right and to be at the centre of my own universe. God’s action in drawing this tendency to my attention repeatedly and without alloy is intensely painful, but very useful when I see it for what it is – an offer to grow and be purified (O’Donoghue, 137). Williams (98) notes the real meaning to deny oneself – the decision that I will not shape the truth to my wants and needs, that I accept reality as it is, and that I accept that I am not the centre and controller of that reality.

The spiral back to theosis – to becoming what by nature I am called to be – strikes me powerfully. I see, also, the vast value of the tradition and of the schemes that fathers and mothers such as Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross describe for the work of the director. By being familiar with them, alive to the tradition and contemporary insights, and by noticing the movements of God in myself – as well as co-operating with and becoming the deifying light – I am able to be the director God calls me to be for those he calls to me.

The Dark Nights and Depression

My own experience of depression is that it is something that God may be in, and can use for God’s good ends. It has been an experience that God has used to remove certainties and false conceptions of reality from my world. This has caused me to fall back on trust for God in the bleakness of fog. I have described this situation in my journal as like being in a dense bush, full of trees and undergrowth. The bush is, however, foggy and misty, with a deep and pervading silence and stillness. There are no signs in it, no clarity of direction forward or back. I am simply in it, and am required to trust God in the process of being in it. I cannot feel God, see God, or even know that God is here – I just have to trust and remember that God loves me and wants me to trust and love God. My love for God is at the core of my desire to go on, however. I had a profound experience, years ago, of Christ as lover, and this mystical gift (really the only one I have ever had) stands as a reminder to me of the reality of God, and of Jesus’ burning love for me. O’Donoghue (136) puts it well, I think, when he refers to it as a “powerful inner dynamism”. However, it is very hard at times, as I am often plagued with the horrible thought that the entirety of my journey may simply be a ‘spiritual wank’ – a fantasy designed to meet some needs in my defective personality. What if I am deluding myself and, much more importantly as I make this spiritual direction formation journey, others? As I write this I remember the distress Jesus felt in Gethsemane, and wonder if his journey, too, consisted as much of the absence of God as the presence? Certainly, his asking why God had forsaken him is something I can relate to, and why the words of many of the psalms prayed daily in the Office resonate with me.

The Household of Bethany

Thomas Keating (2007, 22) writes that Lazarus is a paradigm of Christian transformation – the movement from false self to transforming union. I understand this to be the journey of theosis (see also Keating 2007, 30). I find Keating’s (2007, 26) observation “… hence, there is no place to go to find God [.]… We just have to stop running away” to be a great truth for myself and for those who come to me for direction – for “contemplative service” (Keating 2007, 25). My job is to help them to stop running away, and to help them become the Word of God (as my own job is, too). It does strike me as terribly sad that the last paragraph of that section seems to be so far from the reality of the churches in which we worship:

The Christian community is where Jesus is experienced as a living reality. It is where people are struggling to move through the traditional stages of the spiritual journey and are supported by the presence, example and wisdom of like-minded companions or soul-friends. (Keating 2007, 26).

It strikes me that spiritual directors, as soul-friends, have a particular responsibility to provide support, example and wisdom, especially as those things are so absent in many of our churches. This is an awesome responsibility, and requires that those of us who work as spiritual directors are absolutely committed to the spiritual journey, are in an obedient relationship with a wise spiritual director, and are willing to be present to the community as pilgrims on the way. I suspect this is even harder in today’s church where there is a great deal of emphasis on covenants, orthodox purity, programs, plans and vision statements. It seems to me that the leadership we often receive is stunted and far from pointing people to the place of authentic living water, of transformative union with God.

Open to Judgement

Rowan Williams, with his characteristic insight, penetrates to the centre of the matter. The journey God is leading me on “makes nonsense of all religion – conservative or radical – and all piety” (Williams 96). For myself, the catalyst to the journey was a series of crises which destroyed certainty and pushed me to the edge and beyond. I was forced to ask the question Rowan Williams poses – did I (do I) want spirituality or mysticism, a type of experience, or did I (do I) want God? I answered that I want God – and although the path is unmarked and I seem most of the time to be lost, I don’t regret the journey. I doubt myself and the call that I received to enter into union with God, but I don’t regret setting out to walk on the journey.

“Intimacy with God means refusing all consoling substitutes for God and bearing the consequences” (Williams 98) – this is something that we need to tell people and help them through. The ‘caramel cremes’ of religion which people are fed (for whatever reason) only serve to maintain them in a sort of stupor, with only a vague connection to God. The consequences of intimacy with God for me, as Williams notes, are that I too will bear the marks of the crosses I carry, and I will continue to bear them. I must be prepared for that and not in fear of the pain, the lack of consolation and the lack of clarity.

Works cited

Keating, T. Invitation to Love. Continuum: NY, 2001.

Keating, T. The Better Part: Stages of Contemplative Living. Continuum: NY, 2007.

Merton, T. New Seeds of Contemplation. New Directions: NY, 1972.

O’Donoghue, N. Adventures in Prayer. Burns and Oates: London, 2006.

Williams, R. Open to Judgement: Sermons and Addresses. Darton, Longman and Todd: London, 1994.

Cave of the Seven Sleepers

Into the castle and up the mountain

I have to admit to a certain sense of unease when presented with ‘schemes’ seeking to describe the spiritual life. Partly this comes from interactions with a past director who was very keen on telling me that I was lurking in the courtyard of Teresa’s Interior Castle, with the toads and reptiles (and in deference to Christina, the spiders). Partly it comes from a particular contemporary reluctance to label spiritual progress. And partly it comes from a sense of unease about the mystical (Williams 97).

When Christina spoke about this reluctance to talk about progress I was challenged. My work with those I currently direct has tended to skirt around the issue of ‘progress’ – either up, down, in, out or in whatever direction. I suspect this comes partly from my training as an educator – one is supposed to be endlessly encouraging of attempts and recognise the individual worth and journey of each learner. And, I admit, I don’t want my progress to be labelled, particularly. However, my reflections over the past months have led me to feel that my reluctance to speak the word to those I direct, and to hear the word my director offers, does little to assist those I direct or myself. Instead of pointing the way, and using the resources in the tradition as a road-map (recognising that a map isn’t the real thing, but is a useful guide to it), I have tended to be too warm and cuddly, even when prompted by God to be clearer and more direct – Green notes this tendency, and calls it for what it is: poor direction (33).

In fact, as I read more of Teresa and John of the Cross, I see that God has given them as a great gift to those called to direct and those called to form directors. They provide helpful and objective diagnostic criteria, to use medical metaphors I’m comfortable with, and to continue the meditation on the helpful idea of the spiritual midwife from last year. John of the Cross reminds me of the need to seek a wise guide and trust them – “Sometimes they misunderstand themselves and are without suitable and alert directors who will show them the way to the summit” (Ascent 3).

It is around 10 years since I last read New Seeds of Contemplation, and Merton’s writing reminds me of my own journey. My experience has certainly been of ‘long and patient trial and slow progress in the darkness of pure faith’ (233-234), and there have been times when the wilderness seems appalling (235) and seemingly free of the presence of God. Since a pivotal event in 2001, when what I had accepted as certain in the world was changed in a moment (Williams 96), I have walked on a path which has been difficult both in my life circumstances and challenging in my faith. My certainty of the presence of God was also taken away – it was through the support of my spiritual director and reading from the spiritual fathers and mothers that I was able to walk forward, up the mountain, or as Merton describes ‘farther and farther on into the wasteland,’ (237) which is where I find myself – feeling alone and beset by temptations (Keating 71).

Of late I’ve found myself wondering if I might not have reached this place sooner had I not reacted against the abusive experience with one spiritual director by walking away from church and God for a time. Bede Griffiths struggles during his youth, in response to God’s calling ‘heard in the silence of prayer’ (Trapnell 43) are something that I can relate to in part. I did respond to God’s call through prayer, fasting, service, silence, wrestling with the difference between the world’s demands and God’s invitation but then found that the cost of continuing along that road with my director too great, as his abusive behaviour escalated. I do believe that God’s offering at that time was ‘out’, but perhaps the way ‘out’ I chose was my own rather than God’s – perhaps I avoided a moment of Gethsemane (Williams 98). The reading from Keating describes a move towards freedom from the false self (67). This is certainly my own experience. Through a range of traumas and troubles I experienced a gradual ‘unravelling’ of some of the masks and boundaries which surrounded me, and kept me from God and others – self-knowledge came, at a price and with not a little pain. It continues to come, and I am often confronted by how wounded I am, and how these wounds affect my life with God and with others. Paradoxically, the fact that ‘the muck’ is known and acknowledged brings a great deal of freedom and a capacity to move forwards (Keating 68, 73).

As well as a deeper self-understanding, I believe that my understanding of God has been purified by the death of an unhealthy esteem of the institution instead of a pure love for God. Rowan Williams’ insights about this also ring true – to a large extent my ‘God’ was a projection and wish-fulfillment (95), and as Ron Rolheiser describes in Seeking Spirituality – there is a need for a certain idea of God and of the church to die.

As I walked through this period with my directors I found a way back to the church, and discovered that while I may have stopped paying attention to God, I had never strayed very far away (Green 34). Having a wise, insightful and tenacious director was important then (as it is now), to see that which I’m either unable or unwilling to see (Green 36). Having a wise guide also enabled me to continue to choose to seek God rather than mysticism (Williams 97, John of the Cross, Living Flame 30).

As I read the excerpt from The Living Flame of Love I’m reminded of the awesome responsibility of the director. The directee entrusts themselves to the director (in a way similar to a dance, as Phillips describes [21]) and seeks something – perhaps not knowing what, except that they are called to be there in that moment. As I continue to make this walk in trust and faith – not knowing where it will go – I know I’m called to be here in this moment, and to listen to God and experience the way of learning in this period of formation. Through it God continues to change me.

Works cited

Green, T. “The First Blind Guide: John of the Cross and Spiritual Direction” in Presence 9:1, 2003.

John of the Cross. Ascent of Mt Carmel in The Collected Works of John of the Cross. Tr Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. Institute of Carmelite Studies: Washington, 1973.

__________. The Living Flame of Love in The Collected Works of John of the Cross. Tr Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. Institute of Carmelite Studies: Washington, 1973.

Keating, T. Invitation to Love. Continuum: NY, 2001.

Merton, T. New Seeds of Contemplation. New Directions: NY, 1972.

Phillips, S. Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction. Morehouse: NY, 2008.

Rolheiser, R. Seeking Spirituality. Hodder and Stoughton: London, 1998.

Trapnell, J. Bede Griffiths. A Life in Dialogue. State U of NY P: NY, 2001.

Williams, R. Open to Judgement: Sermons and Addresses. Darton, Longman and Todd: London, 1994.

Beam of light in a cave

Prayer

Mother Mary Clare SLG wrote a little booklet, Learning to Pray, which was one of the most foundational teachings for me when I was learning to pray. I had become a Christian when I was 15, been baptised and confirmed, and was trying to find out what this ‘prayer’ thing was. Somehow I had missed out on learning this basic thing, but I sensed a call to do it and to encounter the depths of God I knew must be contained there – because the Christian life as I saw it lived around me, and as I lived it was not enough, and not close enough to Jesus’ call in the gospels. I asked some people about prayer, including my parish priest and a man who has since gone on to become a bishop, but sensed that what I was asking made them uncomfortable – they responded by saying ‘well, you just do it.’ For a long time I confined myself to saying the Office and to brief prayers of petition. It was not until I encountered Mother Mary Clare’s booklet, and the spiritual director who gave it to me, that I began to understand what prayer was about, and began to really pray.

Prayer is the gateway to the vision of God for which we were created. It is the means of free and conscious intercourse between the creature and his [sic] Creator and it expresses the union between the two. It is the art of spiritual living and will be incomplete if it includes only the art of the presence of God without the necessary complement of the practice of the presence of man [sic]. (Mother Mary Clare, 1)

My own experience of prayer accords with another of Mother Mary Clare’s suggestions. She writes (17) that “[p]rayer is essentially a love affair with God, not schemes or techniques or ways of prayer, but the most direct open approach of each of one us as a person to God our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.”

The encounter between God and Colin which takes place in prayer is intended to draw me deeper into a relationship with God, by and for whom I was created (Ward, 59). There is a great privilege in being able to come to God in prayer, because God is both creator of the universe and a loving parent. To be able to be able to do that, and to know that I am accepted ‘warts and all’ is a profound gift, the experience of which I can offer to others as a teacher of prayer. Indeed, my experience over the past few years is that others, not limited to those I direct, but groups and individuals, have sought me out and asked me to help them to learn to pray.

The prayer I practice falls largely into the forms described in the various readings. I read the Daily Office each day, using the form from Common Worship, as I find a form which is traditional in shape but contemporary in language helpful. Winward (14) describes the corporate nature of the Office, which is one of the aspects I find most helpful. I am comforted by the awareness that my sometimes weak and feeble attempts at saying the Office are part of the overall opus dei of the church, joining with Jesus in the prayer which goes on unceasingly in the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. Winward’s characterisation of the Office as theocentric (16) is another important part for me – it allows me to focus on that which is important for me in my calling as a Christian and as a human being – to give thanks to God for God. The flow of the church’s year (Merton 216), the psalms and scripture is sometimes comforting, sometimes dull, sometimes confronting, and sometimes transcendent, as Norris (1996, 90ff) notes in her description of the role of the psalms in prayer. The discipline of saying the office is another valuable aspect, as returning regularly day-by-day to the routine of setting aside time and space, as well as making a firm intention to pray, forms me into he who God would have me be. St Benedict (chapter 43) exhorted those who sought to follow his Rule to prefer nothing to the work of God. As I seek to live in the spirit of the Rule, as a Benedictine Oblate, I try to find a way to build opus dei into my daily life as a response to God, as a way of participating in the sanctification of the world (“… this deep healing,” mentioned by Bobrinsky [113]), and as a discipline which brings about conversion of life.

Conversatio morum is touched upon by Bobrinsky (115), where he describes the transformation of the human through nourishment by the Word of God and Christ’s Body. This transformation allows the human to be an icon of Christ to those she meets, bringing the love and healing of God into a broken world and into broken lives, to hold the world together (Norris, 1998, 58) – this is the work of the director, and is one of the fruits of prayer.

Winward’s description of the heart (17, cf. Ward, 61) in this context is something I find particularly helpful. The orientation to prayer, and towards God, is not simply something which is of the will, or based on emotion, but on a response of that part of me which God has created to be the ‘place’ of contact with God. This place of contact with God, the heart, is the place where the living waters of God well up, to feed the world (Bobrinsky, 118).

Bobrinsky (112) notes the connection between the Eucharist and the prayer of the heart, and draws a linkage between the formal liturgical prayer of the church – the Divine Office and the Eucharist – and the prayer of the people of God in their lives. I’m struck by the following statement by Bobrinsky (113, 114), which seems to speak particularly to the director:

Concerns for this world are laid at the feet of the Savior, in His heart of compassion. Without this method, the weight of the sufferings of all those who come to us would destroy, submerge and crush us and render us incapable of carrying these burdens. Only in the love of Christ can we descend and remain in the hell or the desert of human hearts and not despair.

This exhortation reminds the director that she is to pray in a “secret, solitary” way, for the world, and including those who come for direction, so that the burden of their hearts does not become too much, and indeed so that the sufferings become something useful and redemptive.

The director, as a teacher of prayer, is to be a person of prayer in a profound way. God asks me to offer myself to God in prayer, which I understand to be the centre of my life, and the primary orientation of my life (Ward 67). The tension for me is to balance this with the other things to which are necessary and which God offers to me as a means of grace – in this I can perhaps be a teacher for those who come, by giving practical suggestions about what works for me, while discerning to what they may be temperamentally inclined (Thornton 30 ff.) Thornton’s reminder to the director that she needs to discern the ‘preferred style’ of the directee is one that resonates with me, as for a number of years I struggled with practices suggested by a director who was enamoured of them and sought to offer them as ‘the practice’ to all who came to him. Merton (214 ff.) notes that methods and practices are all very well, but they are like a scaffold for the creation of a tall sculpture – when the sculpture is done, the scaffolding needs to be removed. It is not an end in itself, but a means to create the sculpture. I am comfortable, for example, with the Daily Office and with Christian Meditation, but I understand that for some these may not be helpful practices. I am less comfortable with the use of art and more physical means of prayer, but for some these are more helpful practices to remind them of the presence of God (Merton 224), and to bring them into God’s presence. I prefer the ‘dark’, ‘wrestling, ‘barren’ and ‘silence’ in prayer (Merton in Norris 1998, 59), but for some of those who come to me consolation, rest, peace may be what God offers them, and what I as their director am asked to point them towards, at least initially.

Thomas Merton, as usual, provides a lot of food for thought (221 ff.). Particularly of resonance is his reminder that the desire to follow God, to be in relationship with God, and to pray, is of key importance, and is more important than sweet feelings and fleeting emotion. I wish I had read this as a new Christian, when I believed that because I frequently felt little my prayers were in some way not technically correct or appropriate – I was not, I thought, doing it right. When my directees come to me, I am able relate my own difficulties and make suggestions based on my own seeking, as well as provide reassurance that there are often cul de sacs on the way.

Norris’s reminder that charity is the measure of the effectiveness of our prayer lives, not sensation or experience (1998, 58), is a timely one. I am reading Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers: Prayer of Ordinary Radicals (Claiborne and Wilson-Hartgrove) at the moment. This book reminds me that the call to prayer and the call to action are intimately linked. When I pray for peace, God calls me to be a peace maker, and to work for peace. When I pray that the hungry might be fed, God calls me to feed the hungry. Reminding God of these needs is not sufficient, for God has given responsibility for these things to God’s children.

My grandmother died recently, and some books I had lent her were returned to me. One was a copy of Michel Quoist’s Prayers of Life. The following prayer (113, 114) is one I have reflected on as I wrote this reflection:

To be there before you, Lord, that’s all.

To shut the eyes of my body,

To shut the eyes of my soul,

And be still and silent,

To expose myself to you who are there, exposed to me.

To be there before you, the Eternal Presence.

I am willing to feel nothing, Lord,

to see nothing,

to hear nothing.

Empty of all ideas,

of all images,

In the darkness.

Here I am, simply,

To meet with you without obstacles,

In the silence of faith,

Before you, Lord.

But, Lord, I am not alone

I can no longer be alone.

I am a crowd, Lord,

For men live within me.

I have met them.

They have come in,

They have settled down,

They have worried me,

They have tormented me,

They have devoured me.

And I have allowed it, Lord, that they might be nourished and refreshed.

I bring them to you, too, as I come before you.

I expose the, to you in exposing myself to you.

Here I am,

Here they are,

Before you, Lord.

Works cited

Benedict of Nursia. The Rule of Benedict.

Bobrinsky, B. The Compassion of the Father. St Vladimir’s Seminary P: NT, 2003.

Hill, C. “Preface” in The St Paul’s Cathedral Psalter. Canterbury P: Norwich, 1997.

Mary Clare SLG. Learning to Pray. Fairacres Press: Oxford. 1990

Merton, T. New Seeds of Contemplation. New Directions: NY, 1972.

Norris, K. The Cloister Walk. Riverhead Books: NY, 1996.

Norris, K. Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. Riverhead Books: NY, 1998.

Quoist, M. Prayers of Life. Gill and MacMillan: Dublin, 1954.

Thornton, M. Spiritual Direction. SPCK: London, 1984.

Ware, K. The Inner Kingdom: Volume 1, The Collected Works. St Vladimir’s Seminary P: NY, 2001.

Winward, S.F. The Daily Office. The Joint Liturgical Group. SPCK: London 1969.

I met with my spiritual director a couple of weeks ago, and she offered a thought for me to meditate on. I’ve been doing that, and found it very provocative…

She began by saying she’d read my most recent reflection for the spiritual direction formation course. In it I wrote about the idea that the transfiguration isn’t about a change in Jesus – it is a revealing of Jesus’s true nature to the disciples there. Their vision is clarified. The process of divinisation (or theosis) in the life of the believer is also a progressive journey to participating in the truth of who we are and what we are called to be (divine, but in a different sense to the divinity of God). My director’s thought was that perhaps I could meditate on the idea that I, and my sisters and brothers who are different and therefore discriminated against by the church, stand with Jesus. Our real nature isn’t seen because of the scales on the eyes of those who look.

My other spiritual direction thought came out of the final formation session for the year. During the praxis session, during my direction, our mentor and several other people said they had a sense of my gaze and presence being Jesus’s gaze and presence. This was very confronting and unsettling for me, because during the early part of the formation course I found the idea of the director as an icon of Jesus wonderful, but beyond me. I know that I’m sinful, broken, and fall far short of the ideals of the director that Kallistos Ware describes. So how can this be me? I guess the answer is that it isn’t. This is the work of God in me. And I don’t feel equal to the challenge!

The next reflection for my spiritual direction formation program. The theme is ‘Whom am I becoming?’

He has become like a man, so that men should be like him (Bonhoeffer 301).

The viewing of the deifing light, in the time-defying moment of the Transfiguration , leads to an active change in the one who watches – sight is given to those who are blind, what was hidden is unveiled, and the one who watches is forever changed by the moment of illumination of the divine light. This change, towards deification, is the ultimate end of all of God’s creatures, and of the whole order of being. Israel suggests that the Transfiguration is one of the key works of the Holy Spirit, describing the transfiguration of the body as “… the consummation of the Holy Spirit in the world” . Valantasis notes that divinization may well look different for different individuals and communities, but that the same divine spark runs through all, with the same end – the divinization of the universe . It is for this reason, divinization, that spiritual direction is so important, and is of such utility and value

The movement towards deification, which is always a response to God’s offer , takes place as a movement from something – the state of being out of balance with God, of being embedded in original sin , towards something – being in relationship with God, at one with God in the energy of God . Squire observes that original sin:

… is a situation of disharmony in which we find ourselves, as opposed to that in which we can place ourselves by our personal choices (italics original) .

A striking image used is of being pulled apart in spite of all of the efforts of the individual . This being ‘pulled apart’, and the experience it brings, to which I can certainly relates, leads to a feeling of powerlessness. Bernard of Clairvaux alluded to this when he described the predicament faced by the individual – of the true nature being obscured by the ‘false’ self, which can cover but not obliterate the true self – being made in the likeness of God . The result of this lack of coherence, this covering of the true self and the loss of integrity this entails , can be a search, more or less successful to find a means of obtaining a sense of coherence. The process of divinization, is the work of “… our Lord Jesus Christ … perfect man, who restores to the sons of Adam the divine likeness” .

The salvation of the human being comes through deification – the human being finds their fulfilment through God . Andrewes describes both the historical moment in time during which the once-for-all work of Christ was accomplished, balanced with the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer . The work of the Holy Spirit is deification, saving the individual for right relationship with God, rather than simply understanding the work of Jesus as saving the individual from their sin . The saving work of Jesus, then, is understood in terms of the eternal dimensions of the cosmic drama of redemption. While the human being is broken, each individual is precious, unique, full of potential and of infinite worth.

The move is towards becoming a person in union with the creator – not one person, but four persons – Father, Son, Spirit and seeker . The spiritual director works with the seeker to walk along the true way of theosis rather than self-deification , co-operating with the Holy Spirit in the work of refining and revealing the potential of the seeker, the mysterious true self , in much the same way as a sculptor works with stone . This restoration is a work of redemption of the human-ness of each individual, and a rebuilding of the disrupted relationship between God and human, because it is only in relationship with God that the individual finds true meaning , and only in the recapturing of the image of God that the human being knows that they are loved as they are, not as they feel they should be . Hooker describes the search for God:

God is in us, hidden at the centre of our being, precisely because he creates this being from nothing and is thus intimately exterior to it. … Our life supernatural [consists] in the union of the soul with God .

Relationship with God leads to a new world, and a transfiguration of the personality through the work of the Holy Spirit . The renewed personality is open to God in a new way , a higher way which speaks to the purpose for which the individual was created . The individual is progressively opened in new and more accepting ways to others, and to the world , becoming a kind of sacrament of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the world . The deified person becomes a means for the redemption of the whole of creation, bringing “… the transfiguring light down to earth so that it may also be changed” . Indeed, Israel suggests that the mystic has a responsibility to bring “… down to earth what he has been shown on the mountain of transfiguration” . This conception is similar in some ways with that of the Buddhist notion of the bodhisattva – one who, while enlightened, continues to be a pilgrim with others on Earth in order that they too might be enlightened . God creates, sustains and redeems us to work with God for the good of all creation and works within us to make that possible .

Deification, or theosis, is the aim that underpins the growth of the soul , and thus the spiritual direction relationship – the revelation of God by one believer to another . The reasons for the important of the spiritual direction relationship are clear, and in some ways speak to the predicament in which human beings find themselves. Being sinful, we are not able to perceive ourselves or our own motivations clearly. We are not able to hear God clearly, and be are not able to be aware of what is best for us, or even what ways on the path of divinization are open to us. The guide points the way towards a relationship of real intimacy with God, which “… requires a growing capacity for deep, inclusive love and genuine self transcendence” . The spiritual direction relationship between an open , experienced and knowledgeable guide and a seeker, with the aim of helping the believer to a mature friendship with God can be vital in this journey : “… the guide assists in tailoring the path toward divinization to the particular character, sensibilities, desires and inclinations of the seeker” .

Because the relationship between seeker and director is so important, Valantasis suggests that that there must be a ‘match’ between the seeker and director, inasmuch as their ‘struggles and contexts’ should overlap. The guide will spur the seeker to continue, be a frank and honest companion, probe that which is hidden, and direct the way consistent with the tradition in order to find the best ‘fit’ for the seeker, and to ensure that the seeker avoids pitfalls . The director will be, to some extent, a ‘vision of the divinized life’ , one who is alive to the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, who brings the transfiguring light to the earth, and who dies to the conventional world whilst becoming alive to a “new world of relationship with God” . The director, through their own journey towards divinization, becomes a person through whom the light of God shines, and in whom the indwelling of the presence of God is obvious . The director applies what she has learned through her own journey and through her engagement with the tradition, to sustain the seeker, to “… learn the lessons his malady has to teach him” . Ultimately, the path points the seeker towards “… a yearning for unon with all the energies of divinization manifest in the world”

The seeker, through their journey of faith, walks along a path from knowing about God to knowing God , a path of deepening in the relationship of friendship with God. Barry likens this maturing relationship to the developing and changing relationship between a child and her parents . The form of relationship right and appropriate at one stage is not necessarily right at another. God seeks a relationship of intimacy with me , a relationship of which I am capable .

Reflection

There are number of different areas I have been reflecting upon after working through these readings and the worksheets.

Original sin and the disruption of relationship with God, with others, and with the world. Squire clearly describes, through a discussion of the writings of John of Damascus, Bernard of Clairvaux and the Second Vatican Council, the origins and effects of, and the remedy for, original sin. Original sin arises in me, because “… man who is already out of true begets those who find themselves in the like condition” . I am out of harmony with God, myself and with creation, because of a situation in which I find myself (the state of being in original sin). I am also out of harmony with God because of the situations that I place myself (my own sinfulness). My true self is covered by a false one, not diminishing the value or perfection of the true self – being in the likeness of God, but making it hard to recognise or be in touch with. It seems to me that divinization is, at least partly, to remedy the effects of original sin. I’m not sure who observed it, but I’ve heard it written that Jesus may still have been incarnated even if there had been no original sin, to bring the possibility of deification to human-kind.

Relationship with God as a radical co-operation with the soteriological mission of God. God desires me to be in relationship with God, because I am made for God, and find my full purpose in God. My relationship with God means that I co-operate in God’s action redeeming the universe, by allowing the presence of God to shine through me and change the lives of others. Relationship with God means that I’m called to be open to God, to yearn for, and expect union with God, to minimise myself, to be receptive to the Holy Spirit, live in truth and be transformed.

Deification as a return to relationship with God. If I understand original sin as a disruption of relationship, then the process of deification is a progressive return to right relationship with God.

The high call of the spiritual director. Valantasis describes the role of the guide, and of the seeker. The guide is one who is experienced, knowledgeable, wise, and above all, co-operating with the deifying light. From those positions the guide can be a useful tool in the hands of God for the benefit of the seeker. But this places a high degree of onus on the director. Not only do I need to know about God (in a way similar to knowing about, say, the theories of Marx), I need to be know God. Knowing God means being in relationship with God, and yearning for union with God. Valantasis describes some potential dangers – some of which I’m aware of through my own journey as a seeker, through a relationship with a dysfunctional spiritual director.

The various schemes describing growth. As I read these ‘a-ha’ sounds went off in my mind, for at least a couple of reasons. Firstly, they’re the sorts of schema I’m familiar with from other areas, including developmental psychology. In that sense they’re seductive, and need to be balanced against the other readings which speak of different and less ‘practical’ things. Secondly, as I read through them I seek to place myself in one or other of the categories, or perhaps place others in them too. Again, this is seductive, not least because of the capacity I have, as we all do, for self-delusion.

Allchin, A.M. Participation in God – a forgotten strand in Anglican tradition. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1988.

Barry, William A. ‘Spiritual Direction: Facilitating an Adult Relationship with God’ in Presence: An International J of Spiritual Direction. 13:3, September 2007. pp.6-11.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. New York: Macmillan, 1966.

Israel, Martin. Smouldering Fire: The Work of The Holy Spirit. London, Mowbray, 1978.

O’Hare, Briege. ‘Opening to Love: A Paradigm for Growth in Relationship with God’ in Presence: An International J of Spiritual Direction. 10:2, June 2004. pp.27-36.

Palamas, Gregory. The Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts: Classics of Western Spirituality (John Meyendorff and Nicholas Gentle, eds). Mahwah: Paulist, 1982.

Papankolau, Aristotle and Prodromou, Elizabeth (eds). Thinking of Faith. New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008.

Ray, Reginald A. Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism. Boston: Shambhala, 2000.

Squire, Aelred. Asking the Fathers. New York: Morehouse-Barlow, 1973.

Valantasis, Richard. Centuries of Holiness. London: Continuum, 2005.

Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Way. New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary P, 1990.

[W]e must be unflinching in our willingness to know ourselves. This is more than a self-indulgent  “getting in touch with our feelings”. It is to look deeply into ourselves and to become aware of our capacity for both good and evil… (Guenther 111)

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (Gen 1:26, TNIV)

The post-enlightenment tendency to reduce the human being to parts whilst simultaneously neglecting the whole is seen in both the secular world and the world of the church. Paul’s espoused anthropology (1 Thess 5:23), describing spirit, soul and body, is often treated without a consideration of the preceding thought – the whole. Ware’s (60-61) description of these three elements – body, soul and spirit includes a consideration of the interlinked aspects, which combine to form the whole. Squire (17) also notes that while the Hebrew scriptures indeed treat these elements as different things, they are not considered to be distinct – rather, there is a unity of material and immaterial, a rejection of duality.

Ware (63), after the Orthodox fathers and mothers, contends that the understanding of the essential unity of the human person is vital to realising the role of both the individual and of humanity in the economy of creation. Ware goes on to describe the integration of body, soul and spirit – the manifestation of “… the spiritual in and through the material” (64, italics original). He describes this as a vocation – that is, a call from God rooted in the very being of the one called, something ontological. Being made in the image and likeness of God means that there is an innate relationship between the human and God, between humanity and God, and between all of the members of humanity (Ware 67). Thich Nhat Hanh has written eloquently on the nature of connectedness between all created things, which he termed ‘interbeing’. This interbeing, or mutual life is part of the fundamental nature of things, by virtue of their status as God’s creations, and participants in the life of the Trinity. Harrison (207) describes this as sobornost, mutual interrelatedness.

Ware’s description of the integration of body, soul and spirit is striking, and provokes many thoughts and responses. The working definition of ‘spiritual’ and ‘good’ which I have inherited from much of the Christian teaching I have received has been of a tension between the nobility of the spiritual and the basesness of the body. This system sees the body as something at worst bad and at best flawed, but in both cases the body is something to be feared, managed and sanctified. The body fights against the spiritual, rather than, as Ware suggests, being foundational to the way that I respond to God. My illness and sexuality are constant reminders of the body. In the case of my illness, of the fallibility of the body, which contains valuable lessons and learnings of its own. If my vocation is “… to manifest the spiritual in and through the material,” (Ware 64), what does the chronic brokenness of my body say about my vocation, say about me? Surely it does not lessen it, but changes the nature of it. My brokenness and frailty reveals the love of God, the choice of God to work in, with and through that which is broken, perhaps a ‘thin place’, where the grace of God can be made manifest. Again, as my sexuality is made manifest through my body, and is embodied, what does my exercise of this ‘thing’ which is considered by the church as sub-optimal (at best) or sinful, say about the working out of my vocation to manifest the spiritual through the material? My use of my body in this way is a response of love and of self-giving, and of accepting him who I love, for I am created for communion with others.  Squire (18) notes the intimate unity of body and soul, quoting Pederson who stated that the body and soul “… are more than ‘united’; the body is the soul in its outward form.” The body is not just a container for the soul, it is an expression of soul, and as soul is a gift of God through the gift of God’s breath (Gen 2:7) the use of the body is an expression of the divine.

Ware (65) writes that “… being free, each human being realize the divine image within himself in his own distinctive fashion.” If my sexuality is part of who I am, then my living out of it is realizing the divine image within me, and my response is a free response, to the extent to which, in my brokenness I am free (cf Harrison 218). This response makes me consider, and think anew about Irenaeus’ statement: “The glory of God is a living man”. As I participate in the process of theosis, of refinement, healing, and walking deeper into unity with God, of becoming one with and in God, I become more alive, and respond more fully to my vocation as a human, manifesting the spiritual through the material:

To be united with God within the midst of the Church does not mean that our unique personalities are destroyed. We are not engulfed by an impersonal force or power. As with all love which is true and valuable, God’s love for each of us respects our personhood. His love is not one which destroys. God’s love is one which reveals, elevates, and perfects our true selves. By entering into the life of God, we become the persons we are meant to be.  (Fitzgerald)

Ware (65) notes that a key aspect of being a person is to be a “… moral agent capable of right and wrong, a spiritual subject endowed with inward freedom.” My work as a director is to co-operate with the leading of the Holy Spirit in the directee to uncover the inward freedom to make a response to the call of God. The divine image is often obscured (Ware 66) in me, and in others, and it is the task of the director to work with the Holy Spirit and the directee to remove that which obscures, and to uncover the distinctiveness and the distinctive gifts of the individual, gifts which Harrison (218) notes “… arise out of the communal context within which we always already exist.”

Because the human being is a moral agent (Ware 65), the process of direction always involves an honest appraisal of the directee’s lifestory, not falling into the trap of assuming a model of direction which seeks to diminish the responsibility of the directee for their behaviour (Allen 122, 128). This behaviour is always worked out in the context of relationships, with the Creator, and with the created (Squire 19). I am someone with whom God can talk, and I am someone intimately linked with others with whom God can talk, and for whom God loves, nourishes and cares (Squire 20).

There is a tension between the uniqueness of each person and the unity of humankind. Each person is a unique creation of God, a beloved daughter or son, who is of value for who they are, not what they are, even if what they are, or what they can do is superlative or of overwhelming value to the world. The value of the one who is a child of God comes out of that ontological reality, their nature as an image of God (Squire 21), not out of their perceived value to the world. At the same time, the human being is in some sense one of a type, with similar joys, challenges, strengths, and frailties, and a similar path to walk (Harrison, 208-210). The director works with these tensions, noting that although each woman or man who sits with them is unique, there is a common experience and way from which lessons can be drawn. The danger, however, arises when either distinctiveness or unity is elevated, or when one doesn’t inform the other. Theosis works within the distinctiveness of each human being, building on the human identity which we all share – “the humility of being made from dust and the dignity of bearing God’s royal image” (Harrison 214). In Jesus this dignity is made most clear (2 Cor 4:1-6). One of the tasks of the director is to help the directee on the journey of transformation, described by Irenaeus as a process of growth and maturation (Squire 24), from children to adults, and further on the way of deification. God’s work of creation is continuous and ongoing in all of his creations, a work in which the director participates as a midwife (Guenther 82). It is the task of the midwife to be aware of the natural course of things, and to be ready to intervene with their special skills and knowledge when things do not progress as they should. The midwife interprets the signs to the mother-to-be, using their learning, knowledge and wisdom, and listens to the words and movements of the body which come from the mother-to-be. The midwife seeks to stand with the mother-to-be, not dominate them or force them into one direction or another, but guide them in a way which helps them to grow and realize who they are becoming. In a similar way the director uses the gifts God gives to help the directee to perceive the leading of God towards change, growth, repentence and perfection.

Allen, Joseph. Inner Way: Eastern Christian Spiritual Direction. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.

Guenther, Margaret. Holy Listening. Cambridge Mass: Cowley, 1992.

Harrison, Nonna Verna. “Human Uniqueness and Human Unity” in Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West. NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003.

Fitzgerald, Thomas. “Spirituality”. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. 2005. 1 Sept 08. <http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7114.asp>

Irenaeus. Against Heresies. Book IV, chapter 20, 7.

Nhat Hanh. Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism. 3^rd edition. Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1999.

Squire, Aelred. Asking the Fathers. NY: Moorehouse-Barlow, 1973.

Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Way. NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990.

I went for spiritual direction on Saturday.

What came out of the time of discernment was that God is offering me a chance to grow deeper into Her life, into my own life, and into what She is offering me. This arose out of my thoughts about my work and church situation. My work is unrewarding but taxing at the same time. I am finding it very hard to stay motivated, as I trudge through each day. Some of this is about my differing priorities and sense of ‘what is right’. Some of it is because I find it hard to agree with my boss’s personal management and decision making style, though I like him personally. Church, my current parish, is a barren and sad place for me, where I have a real feeling of not being able to be myself.

The challenge, I think, is to be in the mundane and ordinariness. Neither church nor work are really offering anything in the way of challenge, so I can hold them and be in them, deal with them as well as I can and be as good as steward of them as I can be.

Jesus, my brother, in this time of ordinariness, of soap suds and travel, of lawns and shopping and washing, be with me. Bring me deeper into your life, and the life you are offering me. Keep me grounded, keep me honest. Allow me to see the gold in the ordinary, and not to seek for novelty or adventure save that which you offer me. Amen.

(The image of God the Mother comes from a page on the artwork of Farid De La Ossa Arrieta CMF)