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.

Keith Peterson
of the Spiritual Directors Network

Keith was born in Newfoundland and graduated from high school in Corner Brook. He received his BA in philosophy from the University of Maine and his M. Div. from Bangor Theological Seminary in Bangor, Maine, majoring in New Testament studies and Greek. He did further studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was ordained in the New England Synod of the Lutheran Church in America in 1975.

His first parish was in Gimli, Manitoba, followed by Zion Lutheran in Thunder Bay, Ontario. From there he served with the Mission Boards of the Lutheran Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada for twelve years developing missions in Kamloops, British Columbia; Whitby, Ontario; and Okotoks, Alberta. Presently he is being recycled and is back serving Hills of Peace Lutheran Church in Kamloops, British Columbia.

Keith is married to Bonnie who is a special education assistant with the Kamloops School District. They have three children and two grandchildren and are experiencing the empty nest syndrome save for the company of a cat and dog.

Keith writes: Spirituality has always been a troubling word for me. In my early years it had an esoteric nature. I associated it with some strong emotional feelings that were peculiar to certain individuals who had developed their own piety. It seemed to be the possession of those who had created their own personal relationship with God. It was a relationship that I did not experience or seem to be able to possess. From my viewpoint the people who were spiritual were the "good people" who had done all the right things to please God.

It was later in life that I saw spirituality from a different perspective. I saw it coming from God rather than beginning with me. This was revealed most clearly through my understanding of Word and Sacrament. My spirituality became real and meaningful when I understood Holy Baptism as a demonstration of our grace-filled God. Through my Baptism I saw God reaching out to one of his children who was dependent in every way. My spiritual journey began as a gift from God in Baptism. It was a birthing by grace for which I took no personal initiative. Spirituality and spiritual direction became real for me when I realized that God was the divine actor, and I was the recipient of the gift of God's unsolicited favour.

Today I have a sense of spirituality that is made real through Word and Sacrament. It is in this context that I am best able to receive and offer spiritual direction. When word and special music are substituted for Word and Sacrament, when a theology of glory overshadows the theology of the cross, when there is a greater emphasis placed on the immanence of God rather than on his transcendence, where religious experience constitutes the central validation of faith rather than the promises of God, I am still unable to connect with that kind of spirituality or that way of experiencing God. My approach to spiritual direction is more right brain than left brain.

Spirituality and spiritual direction makes the most sense and seems most real for me in the context of the Eucharist. It is here that I feel closest to God. Through Baptism I die and rise with Christ. At his holy table I experience his living presence. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ's body and blood, it is not just a source of grace for me but the acting presence of the risen Christ.

Individualism and subjectivism remain for many a favourite Eucharistic heresy. For many people the Eucharist is a union of individual souls with God and a way of gaining grace. For me, however, spirituality and spiritual direction are more communal. It is in the communal setting while praying, singing, hearing the Word proclaimed and the sacraments celebrated that I feel a special nearness to God. It is often in the midst of God's people that I most clearly experience the presence of God. When others come to me for spiritual direction, the periods of listening, reflecting, silence, prayer, and mediation are always directed to connecting them to a worshiping community where Word and Sacrament becomes the setting for the beginning of their own spiritual journey.