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SPIDIR newsletter 61

Contents of Issue 61 Winter/Spring 2004

• Sponsorship in Alcoholics Anonymous - anon (Copyright AA World Services)
• Spirituality and daily life - reflections on issue 60 - Lyndon van der Pump
• Book Reviews (text not online)
  • Peter Ball: Introducing Spiritual Direction
  • John Monbourquette: How to Befriend Your Shadow - Welcoming your unloved side
    reviewed by Julia Butterworth
  • Sheila Julian Merryweather CSC: Colourful Prayer: a new way to pray when words are inadequate
    with extract from Foreword by Joyce Huggett

Spirituality and daily life - reflections on issue 60 anchor

Lyndon van der Pump

Congratulations to our Editor for "twinning" Richard Buck's reflections on Kenneth Leech with the report on David Hay's talk at the last AGM.

At the closing "residential" on my last SPIDIR Training Course (which I shared with the late much-lamented Joan Collinson) Richard based his talks on the current approaches to spiritual-direction as against the older versions which were so much more religion-orientated. Life has changed in many ways; spiritual direction must embrace a wider field of involvement. He insisted that spirituality must not be divorced from everyday life; that God is in/with us at all stages of our life and development and concerned with all that we do, good, bad and indifferent. The old concept of God "up there" in a wonderland of prayer and holy thoughts and guardian angels leading us in worship of the Holy Trinity would no longer apply; we have to consider the total meaning of the Incarnation, God-made-man, the humanity of Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth. Some of my course found this rather a difficult challenge: we were being misled down the road of social "do-gooding" and losing the mystery of our faith and its sacramental values and the importance of the Church as the Body of Christ on earth.

As Richard remarks in his comment on Ken Leech, this is often the emphasis of our Ignatian-based directors with a very firm anchor in Holy Church which cannot be let go of. I tend to agree, though as aa priest I subscribe to the value of our Anglican Church but would wish to see it perhaps more elastic in its acceptance of the individual, personal approach to God in order to accommodate so many more people who cannot accept some of the more rigid doctrinal "musts" that designate one a Christian in the eyes of some denominations. The common religious language and terms that we church-people use so automatically are very offputting to many who no longer subscribe to a formal doctrinal faith but who still find themselves asking questions about the mystery of life and "spiritual matters". David Hay makes this point brilliantly in his talk, of which there was a precis in the last Newsletter.

My own experience which began officially with about 5/6 years at the Marylebone Counselling and Healing Centre as a member of the spiritual-direction team quickly blew apart any theories of a church-bound spirituality, of prayer and Bible-reading as the simplistic answer to social or psychological problems. Clients came (by appointment) off the street to ask to "talk to someone" and often brought in many questions that seemed at first to be best dealt with by the Counselling team; but frequently, after considerable conversation perhaps, an odd remark or insinuation would suggest to me that there was a real spiritual confusion at the basis of the problem that had been offered as the premise of our talk together. That there was indeed the finger of God (in MY terms) in action here, though His name was not mentioned and any possible involvement of His church was not conceived as relevant. Then would begin a gentle, patient opening-up to the possibility of a "Being's" presence in that life, known but not identified, corresponding to the Supreme Being I call God, revealed in the human Jesus of Nazareth. This revelation is not in any way to be likened to a conversion experience.

Sometimes, previous medical treatment for mental illness would be seen to have been quite the wrong approach as the problems became clearly identified within unsatisfied and unguided (even on occasions misguided) search for answers to spiritual questions, rather than mental disturbances. Such cases I approached with extreme care and often in consultation with a counselling colleague; but if there came a moment when I could ask my client "where does God come into this situation - call Him what you will?" in the light of the Holy Spirit's guidance within me, spiritual-direction was probably the right ministry to help them through their confusion - occasionally with dramatically positive results. David Hay is, of course, right in saying that everyone has the potential for a spirituality in their lives: the director's task, as a servant of God and the voice of His Holy Spirit, is to meet every suppliant where they are and enlighten the darkness and confusion and so much misunderstanding of religious language, to reveal if possible a supporting Presence, a guiding light and a strengthening power which is the sustaining influence for us all who know God's revelation in Jesus. To be gifted with this charism is a humbling experience and one that may be encouraged and assisted by a SPIDIR Training Programme but is never created by it. As Kenneth Leech protested in "Soul Friend" it is never to be guaranteed by certification or diploma. The Holy Spirit, as Jesus told Nicodemus, blows where it will and soul-friends are found in many different places and situations to further the progress of the coming Kingdom of God on this planet. It seems to me that the Holy Spirit has human feet that are firmly placed on the ground though she may also be simultaneously at the left-hand of God in heaven!

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