Copyright: © 1999 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.
Pneuma is a journal on spiritual direction and
formation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Canada. Clement Mehlman is a chaplain at Dalhousie University
in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
During the past months I have been thinking of my learnings from several years ago while I was enrolled in a practicum in spiritual direction. Frequently these days, after a conversation with a student in my work as a university chaplain, I become intrigued by the distinction between pastoral counselling and spiritual direction. How do these two types of talk and interaction differ and how are they similar? When does my talk move away from - and when does it move towards - a model of presence and talking that I was learning during that practicum? Rereading my notes from that course called me back to those classroom experiences.
The following three pieces were written at intervals during the spiritual direction practicum. I expect readers will be able to follow the structure of the assignment without my stating it: a series of questions which focused on finding fresh metaphors for spiritual direction. My writing is compressed since the exercise had strict limits imposed. Nevertheless, I hope these notes are reasonably intelligible and possibly useful as you reflect on your own training and practice. The design of the practicum reflects a school of spiritual direction that has been termed the contemplative model.
"Sometimes a-Floatin', Sometimes a-Fishin'"
During the first round of five sessions, I was the director in a triad that also included the directee and an observer. During two of the five sessions a supervisor was present and joined in the follow-up evaluative discussion.
These days I am more aware of images from Walden. As I sought an image for the five meetings with the directee, I thought first of sitting - Henry-like, contemplatively - in the sunlight on a cabin's door step and then, a second image, of sitting in a boat with a fishing companion, bobbling about on the pond, moving according to the wind's breath or gust, occasionally dangling a line below the surface. These familiar images of the pond I know well, having walked around its perimeter. These Thoreau images convey in some way the feelings and tone of my preparation for the meetings and of the meetings themselves. The contemplative sitting in the entrance way was part of my preparation: once outside in Indian summer's warmth, other times at home listening to John Michael Talbot, and always for a half hour in the room before anyone else arrived. I found it helpful to become stilled, to be prayerful (echoes of another professor who urged us to remain in a prayerful space during direction), and to review my journal notes of the last session.
I tried to stay in touch with my emotions and an awareness of my body during the times of preparation for the directee's arrival. (There were shifting emotions during the preparation period, during the session itself, in the three opportunities for group reflection after the session, and then the affectivity of the solitary time after the session. The most marked shift between the first and last sessions was from a confidence and gratitude to "fear and trembling.") These darker emotions cohered around a need to stay in touch with the humility of direction, a consciousness of my "fiveness" (the enneagram) and the distancing of myself from the other - in examining and not companioning, but also a recognition that the Holy Spirit was floating with/in us.
The approach to spiritual direction that was used involved an engaged and attentive listening to whatever the directee brought to the meeting, and a desire to be helpful as the directee came to understand and interpret her experiences. There was strong eye contact, silent attentiveness, nodding, a voice low and gentle, and an open and receptive body language. As the sessions progressed, I grew more comfortable and expressive, more natural, especially in the use of facial muscles. My verbal responses in the listening involved asking for clarification, paraphrasing, raising my voice with hesitancy at the end of statements, weaving together the threads with tentativeness to aid the directee's reflection. I tried to listen, or go fishin', for deeper desires and with regularity the directee came back to these: how God's face was changing, the need to find a language and perspective to reflect her innerwork, the desire to equip herself for ministry. I had to resist taking the directee's responsibility for discovery and insight and allow the quest, the disorder, and the disparate pieces to remain unexplored. The directee was aware that I was listening with attentiveness and acceptance and so felt heard and affirmed. The listening invited a richness of detail and a layering of insights from session to session. The deepest fishin' happened when for two sessions the directee focused on recent dreams: symbols were lingered over, the directee hypothesized meanings of the dream figures, and I encouraged her to recall more details. At times I would check in with having had similar experiences, concerns, and perplexities which helped us get acquainted and helped her feel reassured, affirmed, and confirmed, especially in unfamiliar territory. On occasion the director would add commentary that did not fit into the directee's story, but the directee would continue, easily ignoring such intrusions; other times a question by the director would throw the directee. But several times the question that stumped or silenced was helpful and the directee found value in the question. As the directee said, "That's what I really want to talk about. . . . I really want to say this." As director, I was engaged, expressed gratitude, and was able to enter into the experience of the directee. The directee controlled the agenda of each session, but the directee was aware that I had approached the sessions with preparation and reflection. The tone that developed was captured by the directee in the review of the last session: "I was very much at home with you."
One of my significant learnings was the need to be both bodily and verbally more affirming as well as being more inviting of affective feedback. I needed to remind myself to affirm with more frequency and authenticity. Secondly, I was surprised by the slow development of love for the directee, a richer love for and sensitivity to the directee. Holding the other in one's prayer life helped strengthen the "unconditional positive regard."
This first experience influenced my assumptions about a number of aspects of direction. As I am inclined to take too much responsibility, I need to be more conscious of "the hand of God reaching out to the world" in the direction moment. God spoke so powerfully through the words of the directee in our final reflection. I was touched by the beauty of her concluding insight: "I had my boundaries all set. Relaxing boundaries for God to work in the midst of this. Not frightened by all this. God, I thought I knew who you were. I had boundaries around God. Show me who you are in all this. I'm freer." When impatiently I want some "truth" to emerge, and it seems not to, the Holy Spirit takes care of that. I was reminded as well that as persons we are always bridging "difference," and between us it was a Roman Catholic and Lutheran bridge, particularly for the directee. There is a need to acknowledge such difference and foreground it in order to develop trust. While we may look for counseling or direction from another, in our personal growth it is critically personal work. I need to be on guard so as not to devalue the other's work, especially as the directee moves into puzzling and perplexing areas.
There is also a danger in my assumption that spiritual companioning is "heavy." As I relaxed more, my questions were less intrusive. As we engaged each other and were investigative and exploratory, we were quite intense. This is perhaps a problem, and lightness ought not to be neglected. In the spontaneity, our openness to surprise, as in session four, the observer noted that it was "shared and companionable as if we were participants in a Theatre of the Absurd." Spiritual companioning is a ministry made up of reflections of feelings, sensitive and skilled questioning, interpretations given or withheld, and prayerful silence. Knowing how to use each of these skills and knowing when to use them is the challenge and magic for such companioning.
My desire to practice this ministry was affirmed. I was grateful for being able to talk with the directee. I struggle with matters like how, in my own enthusiasm, not to interrupt or impose my agenda on the other's needs and movements, to pick up on sensory cues, especially asking affective questions, and to be more aware of the Spirit's presence. Sometimes I was puzzled about when my comments were intrusive and when they were helpful. I do realize that interruptions can give a new approach. As the directee said: "I needed that pinpointing." "I was stumped - a good stumping. . . . Though I was silent, that was the right question." But I need to be vigilant of my need or desire to interject my material.I am appreciative, as well, of the dissonance in feeling from the initial high of the first session to the "fear and trembling" of the last session.
"From Fluorescent to Lamplight"
During the second round of five sessions and with two different people, I was the observer. Again a supervisor joined the three of us for two of the five sessions.
The movements of this direction brought to mind homey images of neighbourly visits with rocking chairs and hooked mats, memories of country kitchens from my past. The easy familiarity between the director and the directee was an extension of a previous relationship of trust and interest that they have shared over time in the student lounge.
An intuitive, nonverbal communication existed between the two. The director showed responsive facial expressions and receptive body language through strong eye contact, a low and gentle voice, and hands folded on her lap. She came across as relaxed and accepting, quiet and attentive, interested and supportive. She used affirming and encouraging gestures like smiles and nods - at times clear and at times subtle. There were occasions when the director more animatedly expressed her enjoyment of the directee's responses. Verbally the director clarified and paraphrased. The directee was helped by paraphrasing, knowing that the director had listened carefully, supported by the accuracy of her intuition and perceptions. The directee expressed gratitude for the director's affirmations in the midst of his uncertainty. Freedom was always offered for the directee to explore his concerns.
Their empathy allowed the directee to share vulnerability and pain. The care of the director showed at times when, in response to his turmoil, she offered help and suggestions. Once these were refused, like the suggestion to keep a journal which the directee resisted. There was repeated returning to personal and spiritual dimensions of the directee's experience and a focus on the life of prayer. Sessions began and ended with prayer by both the director and the directee.
While at the outset and at various times of supervision there were nervous and awkward moments in the conversation, foreign to what the two ordinarily experienced, there always was a desire to help the directee relax. Even when he asked for more direction in the second session, like a focus on a scripture passage in lieu of the freewheelin' openness, the director agreed and offered a poignant passage that resonated the concern of the directee. By the fourth session the directee said he felt greater freedom.
A theme during the five weeks was that of honouring feelings, exploring them beyond labels, and being present to them. This reflects what Tad Dunne terms the "praxis of noticing." Directees need occasions to enter affective states in all their messiness, like guilt and unacknowledged anger. The directee was helped by reflecting on his feelings, describing the most upsetting of these metaphorically as his being "stretched to the limit" or "strung out emotionally." At times, once the feeling had been named by the directee, there would be a shift by the director to other areas of his life. She seemed a bit hesitant in staying with his insecurity, shifting perhaps too quickly into "faith" and "prayer" language, not exploring the affective experience. Normally such shifts come from the directee. While such shifts could convey an avoidance in naming a feeling, that was not the case. The director intuited when to linger and when to leave. Staying with the feeling of desolation gradually helped the directee to stay with himself.
Secondly, the sessions were varied in the use of silences, and generally these caused some anxiety for both director and directee. Before the fifth session the silences were brief, usually at the times of opening and closing prayers, usually directee-initiated. But in the final session, there were only one-third of the verbal starters or questions by the director as in the previous sessions. The pauses and silences in that final session allowed the directee to explore feelings during which he shifted from "you" and "we" to "I." One thirty-second pause framed a powerful statement of the directee's self-regard. Observing silence affords safety and support and opens time for naming, experiencing, perhaps disclosing.
How this experience influenced assumptions:
Of God: Feelings are important cracks for the entrance of God and becoming more conscious of God's movements towards and within us. We learned that sharing reactions and feelings as they occur frees a person interiorly to be attentive to her or his response to God.
Of the human person: While the directee described himself as a thinker, he expressed a desire to name and be aware of his feelings. Instead of ignoring feelings when they do come, it is important to pay attention to them. In order to move towards deeper emotional and spiritual maturity, emotions need to emerge unfiltered and uncensored.
Of personal growth: Entering into these affective states - especially the dark nights and confusion - is critical for the deepening of conversion.
Of spiritual companioning: In spiritual direction there needs to be a surrendering on the part of the directee. Signs of the difficulty or fear in surrendering may be nonverbal and an important cue to resistance. Perhaps these moments are indicative of the need to build trust. Surrendering may be more difficult for men.
A discussion in the observers' group led me to this concern. British linguists several decades ago in A Language for Life spoke of life being sustained by talk: that life is afloat on a sea of talk. Essentially spiritual companioning is a matter of this "language for life," a life centred in Christ Jesus. The supervisor in this example of spiritual direction shared her frustration with language that is facile and filled with religious clichs, a language prefabricated, inherited - and thus suspicious. Speech during direction has to be authentic, avoiding the glibness and unreflectiveness of right answers. I found myself writing in the margin once during my own observations: "this is so frighteningly orthodox." Finding the words to describe our experience is never easy, and spiritual direction ought to reflect this struggle.
My vocational pull: I also observed a little more about premature summations and even closing prayer as problematic when there needed to be further exploration of what needs to be taken to God in prayer. My appreciation of sensitive questioning also deepened; there is a harshness to questions, and we need to linger more with the "quest" aspect, perhaps the "probe" feature of these constructs. Also as part of these transactions, I see the danger of an overuse of verbal affirmations like "good" and nonverbal signs like frequent nodding and smiling in sending unintended messages; I am aware of the need to keep in balance a desired authenticity and what actor's term "neutrality."
I learned to regard direction with a bit more trepidation. I became more aware of the jarring effect of risky and lengthy intrusions and allusions by the director, which the observer helpfully described as "Clem's stuff" during the first round of practice. Even though the directee may feel helped by the allusions, as an observer I did not see them in the same way. In the sub-text of the intrusive anecdote there may reside a confusing mixture of desire to empathize but also to rescue.
I said that the image of hooked rugs, rocking chairs, and friendly listening characterized the direction. In the early sessions the directee or the director always switched on the fluorescent light, but by the last two sessions they mutually chose the dimness of the lamplight. For me this symbolized the gradual surrendering that occurred in these meetings: a surrendering to feeling, to naming the self as "I," to more freeing exploration and conversation, to the space as a place for the Spirit's movements in his life.
"Of Graceful Gazing, Sensitivity to Symbols, and the Building of Bridges"
During the final round of five sessions, I was the directee.
The director's style, allowing me the freedom to initiate, was characterized by attentive, affirming, and supportive listening. Able to enter into the other's spirit, she was hospitable and compassionate, relaxed and at home. Her gentle and receptive presence calmed and helped me slow down and centre, encouraging me to enter my joys and pains. As a result, I felt understood and valued. Welcoming whatever was shared, she enabled times of deep sharing. She framed challenging and insightful questions that became invitations to explore experience: How did you get to where you now are? How did you become aware of this? How has this altered your view of Jesus? Such questions connected to previous sessions and helped me discover patterns. At all times her questions were done with respect by her always seeking permission. Dreams, too, were seen as signs of God's revelation.
Her style allowed a sharing beyond words, based on an emerging relationship between us that the observer described as two trusting souls in a canoe carried by a river's flow, the river being God. When one or the other felt rushed, our meeting became a time of stilling, a time for getting in tune with the self and each other. Stillness and silences were respected, honoured, practised. Silence, with time for the gathering of our prayers, was shared with ritual frequency. The director, attentive to body signals, showed a concern for my physical being: for calloused fingers and a back pain. What are the fingers and the back telling you in all of this? The director's face and eyes were inviting and loving, revealing an expression and intensity that encouraged my discoveries. Her hands were expressive as she spoke. Her body reflected her heart and intent; for example, during the session that I had brought a recent piece of art, she held it during the entire conversation. The director was alert to the shifting emotions of the sessions: through the excitement of relocating, through worry over a parent's surgery, through an intense moment of loneliness and longing for "home." The director fashioned a safe place to be vulnerable and a sanctuary for tears and for my asking for support.
The class experiences and a reading (1) made me more conscious of the aspects of direction that might be termed (a) a symbolic awareness, (b) the creating of sacred space, and (c) the use of ritual. (a) Symbols become the means of grasping the dimensions of our interiority, that is, the inner experience of our mind, heart, and spirit. More than ideas and words, symbols are the way personal meaning is stored. The director picked up on the possibilities of symbolism in my language; for instance, fingers as a sign of a larger concern led to projecting the present experience into a future possibility. The symbolism in references to a Holy Saturday experience or to a dream of a rolled carpet was noticed and opened to reflection and prayer. A theme of the sessions became the ambiguity of the symbol of the empty spot as a place of both fear and longing, of both desolation and consolation. The director helped me see that it is in such empty spots we encounter God. (b) The director was careful to create a sacred space in which ritual and prayer could occur. As the authors of the article said, "We can choose to create such miniature theatres of symbolism." There was freedom for bringing my own symbols, like the print of the Grnewald Christ, to make clear my reflection on the Calvary experience. The use of scripture and silence, of light and gesture, were especially beautiful in the closure of the final session, which offered a blessing and occasioned the mutual expression of gratitude. An embrace ended the meetings. After the sessions the director gave me a scented candle, the focus of the beauty spot, during our five meetings together.
Another significant learning was that of spiritual direction as a moment of bridging or a crossing of difference. Early in the sessions the director expressed her concern over a language barrier that might inhibit the direction. During that session she elaborated on her culture's valuing of a right sense of guessing what the other is thinking and feeling. It was such sensitivity to, and consciousness of, the differences of experience that became a prerequisite for the subsequent grace-filled sharing and discernment of our oneness in Christ. The sessions gradually built a bridge between two people of different cultures and backgrounds, genders, thought patterns, and faith traditions. Out of these differences there emerged the common bond of the experience of grace.
I feel I gained deeper insight into the importance of presence and authenticity in spiritual direction. Spiritual direction is a privileged meeting of hearts. At various points in the five weeks, and through various readings, I reflected on this quality as being "Experience-near," that is, moving close to the experience of another person.Direction expresses cummings' idea that "We are for each other"; direction is living an "at-one-ness." Such a "disrobing of the heart" as the highest intimacy echoed a similar idea. David Augsburger uses the term "interpathy" to express how the director is able to enter the world of the other in his or her uniqueness. Knowing that my director was in tune with her own homesickness helped me express my own longing with more honesty and less fear.
This experience influenced assumptions. Of God: My loneliness is eased by getting in touch with "the great loneliness of God." God comes to us in the Other. Sometimes at our lowest moments that is all we have.
Of the human person and personal growth: Repeatedly I am made aware of how critical it is to stay in touch with affectivity by way of questions like: How has this experience been for you? or my own spiritual director's simple, "How are you?" Even in our negative affects we may see how God is caring for us at such moments. Affectivity and discerning of the frightening emotions are also ways of God's bringing us back home. Perhaps in the long haul the affects of our life in the Body of Christ are more important than the most water-tight and impressive doctrines. Secondly and personally, it was made very clear to me that it is okay to be needy and to ask for support. I experienced a very powerful moment, after a two-week interval, in my loneliness and homesickness when my director and observer were the only supports I seemed to have as I experienced a vulnerable time. I began to wonder if my vulnerability is clear to others or hidden behind my aloofness. Is my vulnerability transparent and helpful to others?
Of spiritual companioning: Supervision is forever. Spiritual direction is a space to be vulnerable and a place for tears as we touch on issues of the heart. Spiritual direction gives a surrendering place; during the couse I noted when directees had difficulty in surrending the need to control.
In the last session, I mentioned how much I appreciated the love and delight in the eyes of my director, and I like to play with the possibility of spiritual direction, to alter a familiar phrase, as "Looking at me with love in your eyes." And then these words from St. John of the Cross came to mind:
When You looked at me
Your eyes imprinted Your grace in me;
For this You loved me ardently;
And thus my eyes deserved
To adore what they beheld in You.
Perhaps we come to direction in the beginning for a deeper experience of being loved.
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End Note
(1) Radha Parker and H. Shelton Horton, Jr., "A Typology of Ritual: Paradigm for Healing and Empowerment." Counseling and Values, January 1996, 82-97.