Why Spiritual Direction?
Greetings, curious ones!
I’m guessing you’re here because you recently heard about spiritual direction and want to know what the deal is. You want to know why people do it, what happens in spiritual direction, and how to find a spiritual director.
And, if you’re like me, you want to know why the spiritual director offers the service in the first place!
Did they always know they wanted to do this work?
Did they have an experience with spiritual direction that inspired them to do it for others?
Or is it just something they do because they heard it’s the newest easy way to make a lot of money?
(Spoiler alert: it’s not the last one.)
To answer your questions, I’ll tell you about my own experience. Hi! I’m Katie. I’m a spiritual director working in Portland Oregon, and I’ve personally had 3 different spiritual directors over the last 20 years. In my story you’ll learn:
what spiritual direction is for and what it might be like
why a person would go to spiritual direction
how to find a spiritual director
Maybe you’ll find something in my story that sounds like yours. I’d love to hear about it if you do.
What Brought Me to Spiritual Direction?
If you’ve never heard about spiritual direction before and feel left out–don’t worry, you’re not alone. The job has been around for centuries but is a “best-kept secret” in many religious communities. Records show that it has been part of the Christian tradition for at least 1700 years! But even with all that history, most people are in the same "just-finding-out" boat as you.
Take me, for example. I have been in Christian communities my whole life and didn’t know anything about it until I was halfway through college. I only heard about it because the university I attended had a training program for spiritual directors. And, lucky for me, they offered direction to undergrads for free.
At the time, my faith community stressed having a “quiet time” to connect with God and experience spiritual growth. If I wanted to grow, I should read my Bible and pray regularly. There wasn’t much instruction beyond “just do it”. The problem was I didn’t know how to pray and the Bible can sometimes be boring and hard to read.
So, there I was at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA), struggling to read my Bible and adrift in my prayers. On top of that, I had been experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety. I often felt restless, uncertain, and afraid of the future.
My "quiet time" during those years mostly happened in the middle of the night. I would wake up for no reason, overwhelmed by stress, and silently beg God to “Help, help, help!
And hey, no shade to the “Help!” prayer—it’s simple, honest, and effective. But it was all I could do at the time, and I felt like I didn’t know how to talk to God. More than that, I didn’t know how to hear God speak to me.
Growing up, I’d been told that “Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship”. But how do you have a relationship with someone you can’t even communicate with?
This communication disconnect became clear in the summer before my senior year. I had a vivid dream that filled me with a sense of foreboding and doom–like a warning of danger. While my fears never became reality, the dream gave me the impression that maybe God was trying to speak to me, and I just didn’t know how to listen.
Thankfully, I was reminded about the spiritual direction program and its offerings to students like me. I had been told that spiritual direction is a place to learn to listen for God's voice and prompting—just what I was looking for! I signed up right away. And, even though I didn’t learn how to interpret my dreams or start having prophetic visions, that decision still proved to be life-changing.
What Happens in Spiritual Direction?
There are a few different styles of spiritual direction, so what happens is going to depend on what style your director prefers. When I showed up for an appointment, my director would have us sit in silence together until a thought or feeling came up that I wanted to talk about.
I rarely went to spiritual direction with a specific thing on my mind. Most of the time I would be walking to the appointment thinking “I don’t have anything to say! Maybe I don’t need this…” But something would always come up in the silence. Sometimes all we need is a bit of quiet reflection to hear what’s going on inside.
The director would then ask me thoughtful questions to help me look closer at what I had shared. I now know that she was practicing an evocative-contemplative style of spiritual direction. Using gentle curiosity and times of silent contemplation, she helped me become more aware of my voice, and the voice of God speaking directly to me.
It was a beautiful gift for which I’ll always be grateful.
How Do You Find a Spiritual Director?
That’s lovely, you say, but we can’t all be undergrad students with access to free spiritual direction from the seminary next door, now, can we?!” How do you find a spiritual director when they aren’t just offered to you out of the blue?
Well, ten years after my first encounter with spiritual direction, I was asking myself the same thing. I had said goodbye to my director when I graduated, moved far away, and virtual meetings weren’t a thing yet. I mean, people had Skype, but it was nowhere near as reliable as what we have these days!
But I needed to find myself a spiritual director–badly. Life had taken many twists and turns and I didn’t feel like I was where I was supposed to be. Or maybe it was that I knew I was where I was supposed to be–where I thought God wanted me to be–but I wasn’t experiencing the ease I thought would come from doing the right thing.
So, what do you do when you need a spiritual director in 2015 and aren’t near the only place you know they exist? You ask the person you know who is most likely to have connections to the spiritual direction world!
You know the type. The artistic older woman with long flowing hair who drinks yerba mate, goes on pilgrimages in Spain; who recommends that you read Richard Rohr and watch Babette’s Feast? Yeah, ask her.
Of course, I’m not saying that all spiritual directors fit this description, because I certainly don’t (not yet). But I am saying that if anyone you know will be able to point you toward a spiritual director, it’s going to be them.
Now–obviously–I could have just done an internet search and found many spiritual directors in my area. I probably would have found the searchable directory at SDICompanions.org, too. But at that time I just needed a referral from someone I trusted, and I trusted my friendly neighborhood earth mama.
Is the Spiritual Director Fit for You?
Asking someone I knew made the process a lot easier for me. I knew my friend and had a good idea of the kind of person she would point me to. She connected me with a lovely woman who has shown great hospitality to me and all of the parts of me that I bring into our sessions.
It’s not always an immediate connection, though, and it is important to find someone you feel comfortable with. This starts when you can be clear about who you are looking for and why you’re coming to spiritual direction.
Before you start searching for a spiritual director, here are some questions to think about:
What is prompting you to do this now?
Is there a specific event or problem you’re hoping to talk through with a spiritual director?
Do you want the director to have specific experience? (i.e. grief/loss, spiritual abuse, deconstruction, etc.?)
Do you need the director to have a similar spiritual or religious background?
Do you need them to share your gender identity?
What do I need to know about the director to feel comfortable with them?
Some answers are on a director’s website (like mine!) or SDI profile. Other things can only be discovered in a conversation. So do your online investigating, set up some phone calls, and be honest with yourself about who connect with. After all, our goal as spiritual directors is to help you connect with God, and not get in the way.
May your spiritual direction journey be blessed!
