Home
History
Who We Are
What's On Offer
Newsletter
Special Articles
Finding a spiritual
adviser or mentor
or director

Diocese

SPIDIR newsletter 62

Contents of Issue 62 Summer 2004

• A Storyteller's Questions: Where do you go to listen to God? - Sandra Pollerman (text not online)
• My Years with SPIDIR - Sue King
• Neurotic Guilt and Legitimate Remorse: Notes from the SPIDIR Refresher Day at Ham on 4 March 2004 - Janet Unwin (text not online)

"All people have their stories.
Each story is important.
We need others to hear our story and to care.
We learn to understand our own stories when we hear other people's stories.
From our own particular stories we can begin to understand the human story.
From this larger story we can learn the divine story.
This is the art of theology."

from "The Spirit, she is a rainbow" a talk by Harvey Gillman

MY YEARS WITH SPIDIR

by Sue King (until recently the Referrals Secretary for SPIDIR)

I have been asked to write a 'retrospective' of my years with SPIDIR, which feels like a psychologically healthy way of taking my leave!

I can't remember the date I joined the Committee, but I must have been a very quiet member at first. It was 1986 when Gordon Jeff first suggested that I should consider joining a SPIDIR Course. The very idea was terrifying and for a year I managed to avoid the issue, but could not avoid Gordon since he was my vicar at the time! So in 1987 I became a member of SPIDIR Course 'C'.

Gordon Jeff and Dorothy Nicholson ran all the courses then - which meant a daytime course in its first year, another in its second year and an evening course as well. When they decided that it would be good to have additional course leaders, Nigel Godfrey and I were asked to run the next one. Henry Morgan later joined me to run two more, and then Nigel and I were back in harness for another. I learnt that discovery takes place leading the courses just as when a member of one. During this time I developed a particular interest in Celtic spirituality and spoke about it at SPIDIR courses in Southwark and in other Dioceses, getting people to write their own prayers in Celtic fashion.

There has been a lot of exploration of different ways of prayer. With many other SPIDIR members, I contributed to the 'Approaches to Prayer' book - now out of print sadly. For a few years I was involved with organising SPIDIR days at Southwark Cathedral when people were given the opportunity to try different ways of prayer. I particularly remember one on St Andrew's Day, when peoples' written prayers were all gathered up in a large fishing net which I had been able to borrow.....

The Cathedral has been the site of some of my memorable SPIDIR experiences, including helping with 'Pools of Silence', a Lenten retreat which SPIDIR ran weekly during the evening and which the Cathedral later took over itself. I met some wonderful people there, and, as always, came away enriched from meeting with 'directees'.

My discovering of circle dance about 15 years ago was the discovering of some very important truths about praying not only with your head but with your body too - truths which I enthusiastically shared with course members at the time! The whole area of creativity opened up more and we had some SPIDIR days of 'God's Play' at Wychcroft, when we danced, painted, prayed with colours, crafted models - amongst other more obvious gifts our present Chair is a dab hand at making squidgy models out of balloons filled with flour!

In 1996 I took over dealing with requests from people looking for a spiritual director and realised anew, from conversations with these people, what a very important ministry SPIDIR has. As well as people training for accredited ministry, who are encouraged to approach us for help in finding someone, we have requests from clergy of different denominations; from 'ordinary' members of congregations across the diocese and beyond; from people who have a faith in God but find difficulty with the Church; from people on the edge who are searching for something but don't know what it might be. To be listened to, to have somebody else take your journey as seriously as you do yourself, is a very special gift to receive.

Someone who has dealings with all the different bodies within Southwark Diocese told me recently that SPIDIR has always been interesting company, because of its loose-knit form, its ability to be spontaneous, open and creative. In 'Christ and the Chocolaterie' by Hilary Brand, which many parishes used as their Lent book this year, I read that "whenever faith becomes an organised thing ... then it is likely to be subject to controlling influences". The day after watching the Billy Elliot film, the author goes to a Communion service and is struck by the contrast - "We should have been tap-dancing down that long aisle, running and leaping and twirling and kicking like Billy Elliot. There should have been a jazz band and trumpets and a chorus of angels jiving above us."

Long may SPIDIR dance!

Back to top of page