Introduction

What a journey it has been – it is good to finish with a bit of reflection. This common prayer is burning in my heart as I reflect on spiritual direction as the metaphor of a midwife. I have come to appreciate this metaphor as I reflect on spiritual direction.  The coming to this present moment, certification, has certainly been a journey of waiting. 

“But this waiting is not a passive waiting. It is an active waiting. As any expectant mother knows, this waiting also involves preparation. Exercises, nutrition, care, prayer, work, and birth involves pain, blood, tears, joy, release, community. It is called labor for a reason Likewise, we are in a world pregnant with hope, and we live in the expectation of the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth. As we wait, we also work, cry, pray, ache, we are the midwives of another world.”   -A common prayer 

 

Personal Formation and Growth

How my own spiritual life has evolved during this program

        It has been a wonderful/powerful formation experience in my time in the Spiritual Direction program. A growing heartbeat deeply felt is the goodness of being able to better recognize and discern God’s voice. Recognizing God’s nature/tone/beauty/strength has been a rich discovery for me during my RI journey. I have found that God leads me gently and tenderly and invites me every moment into His presence. Pushing, driving, pressuring me to come to Him is not of God’s nature. God’s nature/tone is safe, quiet, healing, and restoring – Abba invites my soul to rest in His love. I am tuned in to God’s trinitarian whisper to me . . . “You are wanted, loved, and treasured Terry!” I discern I hear God’s voice deeply… when I sense peace, overwhelming goodness, mercy, embodied inner healing, and an exhilarating desire to flee from vices and run towards virtue. Increasingly, I am noticing God’s voice is simple and definite -  not complicated or confusing.

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Personal insights, challenges, or transformations

        Over this year I have really learned what it means that “silence is golden,” for me in my inner being and for the one being listened to. I love what Annie Brewster in The Healing Power of Storytelling, shared about an experience she had as someone listened to her in silence as she shared a time of deep grief. Regarding being deeply listened to with no words being offered back, she said . . . “It didn’t take the pain away, but it changed my whole day.” I was struck her transformational insight – “No words were said, but I felt seen and heard” (Brewster, p. 54).

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Spiritual practices that have shaped me

        To sit often in Viso Divina with “Rublev’s Icon” and “The Banjo Lesson,” captured my heart/soul and has deeply formed me. Both are incredible, soul-restoring practices that provide a safe, quiet, and calm space, and are such a balm to my sore heart and often hurried-worried pace to fix things, healing my sometimes-anxious heart so prone to overconcern/worry. Before and after meeting with my directees, I have engaged in Visio Divina and Centering Prayer to ready myself for attentive listening.  

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Understanding of Spiritual Direction

The Purpose of Spiritual Direction

         In her book Kaleidoscope, there is a quote Henri Nouwen offered by Maurice Nutt in chapter one, that I sat with for some time regarding the purpose of spiritual direction. She quotes  Henri,  “Any spiritual direction commitment affords the opportunity for spiritual friendship with another person that provides the time and structure, wisdom and discipline, to create sacred space in your life in which God can act” (Nutt, p. 12).  Spiritual direction for Nouwen was giving ourselves permission to surrender to God’s love and grace and letting God hug, heal, and restore our lives. My heart resonates!

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Role as a companion and listener

        In Spiritual Direction – A Practical Introduction, Sue Pickering writes, “We companion directees as they work through the implications of their salvation questions. We do not offer ‘cheap grace’ or minimize people’s accountability for their actions, but we help them bring uncertainty to God, we help them deepen their relationship with Jesus, we help them listen to the compassionate Spirit” (Pickering, p. 42). Dear God, I pray, help deepen my rest as a spiritual director to companion and listen, the holy role of a spiritual director, with ears to hear and a heart set to seek out the compassionate Spirit. 

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Practical Integration

Practicum Experience Preparing Me As A Spiritual Director

        One of the delights of the spiritual direction “cohort” practicum journey is to grow together as treasured colleagues and friends, my cohort friends have become deeply loved and trusted spiritual companions. This friendship and trust developed beginning with residency week, and grew through our weekly discussion groups and class meetings. But it blossomed especially during the intensive practicum experiences. Meeting with cohort fiends is always an eager anticipation - fills my heart to listen to what each person shares in such felt safety/warmth of a trusted community. Trinitarian love, a sense of mutual connection, and shared love for each other is authentically palatable, and has prepared me to sit with others as a spiritual director.

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Philosophy and Approach

Theological and Spiritual Anchors

       One of my most treasured reflections on Spiritual Anchors while swimming in the stream deep listening this year as a Spiritual Director in training was reflecting on the life of Issac Pennington who joined the Society of Friends in 1658 at age 41 - the Quakers (just love this word - so charismatic – quake with the presence). He is such a confident, quiet, and unshakable faith. He was jailed six times for living out his unshakable convictions. He also spent five years in prison as a result of his desire to worship in a manner other than the one prescribed by the established church. Living out his Quaker faith, meant spending time in silence and humility in the presence of God! Confident, quiet, silent, trusting waiting - was the signature of Jesus (theologically sound)  branded on and in his heart during incredible trials. I am drawn to his heart – so burning with never changing faith, tenderness, wisdom, and so full of the spirit.

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Ministry Vision

Vision and Calling in Spiritual Director

        Pilgrimage is the word that comes to mind as I think of my vision and calling as a spiritual director.  To step out into a journey out myself in order to encounter God – where he reveals himself – where his grace shines with particular splendor and produces rich fruits of conversion and holiness of those who listen for “Spirit”  - together! Love Henri Nouwen’s words in Reaching Out, as he talks about living with the heart and  knowing the Kingdom of God is within me! He writes, “When we empty our mind from all thoughts and our heart from all experiences, we can prepare in the center of our innermost being the home for the God who wants to dwell in us” (Nouwen, p. 135). This is the posture of my vision and calling as I think of sitting with others in spiritual direction.

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Sustaining My Spiritual Health and Well-Being

        The Incarnational (sacramental) Life makes helps me sustain and live in the present and the real - the realm of the invisible Spirit. Through it, I can experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in my daily life. Recently, reading once again, my favorite book by Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice, I took notice of words I had underlined years ago, “You must trust the depth of God’s presence in you and live from there – this is the way to keep moving towards full incarnation.” Chris Hall, one of my treasured living mentors said these words during the last lecture of my residency time with Renovare and I hold onto this thinking about spiritual direction, “God is taking care of things – the wonder of the incarnation/resurrection,” (Hall, session 10). Practicing Centering (contemplative) prayer is a discipline that keeps the spirit simmering in my heart. Attending silent retreats and spiritual formation conferences continue to be a spiritual massage for me.  

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Conclusion

        How will I cooperate with God in His desire to continue to transform me as spiritual director. The intention of my heart is to seek to spending time engaging in the practice and activities of Jesus, attentively and playfully - thus developing a deep enjoyable friendship/ relationship with Him. I am only an apprentice in this new vocation of spiritual direction but dear Jesus, know this – “I am with you, and I want to be more like you friend. Your servant is listening!” 

 

References

Brewster A. (2023). The healing power of storytelling. North Atlantic Books

Nouwen H. (1975). Reaching out. Image Books Doubleday 

Nouwen H. (1996). The inner voice of love. Image Books Doubleday

Nutt M. (2019). Kaleidoscope. Church Publishing Incorporated

Pickering S. (2008). Spiritual direction – A practical introduction. Canterbury Press

Lecture notes from Chris Hall, June 2025, Residency IV Lecture, Session 10