The Blogs
People who are spiritual but not religious seek spiritual directors who can be attentive to them without attempting to put them in an institutional box.
In spiritual direction, we explore a person’s experience of God. What we discover is that God loves showing up in really diverse ways! Don’t ever let anyone tell you that an experience of the Spirit always or only happens in a way they find acceptable. Just look at all these ways we find people in the Bible encountering God.
The denomination I am ordained in, United Church of Christ (UCC), has a catchphrase: “God is still speaking.” That means God continues, throughout all of time, to reveal Godself to us, just as God did to the people of Israel in the ancient near-east and in the time of Jesus.
In a world full of solutions, opinions, and advice, listening is one of the most important gifts we can offer one another. It is an act of healing and vision. For people of faith and their communities, the gift of listening both to one another and God offers a path to spiritual renewal and grants congregations a vision of their identity.
We’re stuck online for now. Are Zoom, Skype, or Doxy the way we’ll do spiritual direction forever? This is the question for spiritual directors and their clients after 10 months of pandemic social distancing. There are pros and cons to the online life, and tricks to doing it with style that I will address here.