Composury Colleagues

 

 
Spiritual Direction

Have you a longing for something more in life?  Do you sense that your life is meant for some deep purpose that you sense but feel there is more yet to know?  Do you desire a stronger and more flexible relationship with the underlying Mystery of the universe, by whatever name it's called?

Spiritual direction involves giving attention to your life, reflecting on daily experience and noticing those events that seem to evoke strong positive or negative feelings in you: sadness, delight, anger, warmth? Perhaps there are moments when you briefly sense a tenderness of touch that cannot be explained.  In spiritual direction, all these and more can be explored, seeking the presence of the divine in the moment of life itself. Over time, you can discover how the Mystery normally communicates with you, usually subtly, and how you typically respond.

Spiritual direction is the ancient name for soul tending, the companionship one person gives another along the path of life.  It offers an intentional time to talk with another who invites you to listen for the mystery moving in your own life. Spiritual direction rests on the conviction that each person is precious and exists for some special reason, that each life is intended to be lived to the full, contributing uniquely to a wholeness shared by all.  Spiritual direction is also undertaken in the belief that we are offered help along the way, guidance from the deep and holy reality undergirding all things, which manifests itself in the events of everyday life, in dreams, even in symptoms. While the emphasis is on the personal journey, reflection can also be given to how one’s own experiences are related (or not) to an overall period of shifts from traditional to intentional ways of following God.

 

Both Doug and Norvene are formed within the Christian tradition, and specifically within the progressive stream of the Episcopal Church.  We are centered in the experience of Christ as a living and transformative presence, supportive and challenging, who is helping to form us toward becoming the persons we are.  We listen for God within life experience itself, looking for the signs of the Holy within deep desires no less than within difficult experiences. Our emphasis is on noticing how God is present in one’s life and holy history, alongside God’s presence in scripture and tradition.

 

 
 

 

As longtime directors, we do charge for spiritual direction sessions, which usually happen once a month at Westminster-Canterbury or St. Paul’s Memorial Church. Norvene is also experimenting with webcam spiritual direction sessions with people she has already met. Other contacts for spiritual direction include:

Spiritual Directors International, the professional association, http://www.sdiworld.org.
 

and in Central Virginia:

Richmond Hill’s ecumenical fellowship: http://richmondhillva.org

Southern California:
 

Stillpoint's Art of Spiritual Direction program (Los Angeles and New Mexico), http://www.stillpointca.org

Center for Spiritual Development (based in Orange County), http://www.thecsd.com/spiritual_direction.html
 

and in Southern Arizona:
 

The Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction,

http://www.desertrenewal.org/rrc/programs/hesychia.html

 

 

 

 

 

 


If re-invited past re-enters present,

do postponed futures turn prematurely old—

losing their impulsive freshness?

Or do they mellow,

perhaps like wine, inviting tastes?

Or maybe letting me,
independent of concatenating months,

move forward,
able to welcome newness,

to enjoy…endure…anticipate…create?

 

 

 


 

WHAT DO I MEAN?

What do I really mean
saying I love God?
Am I expressing thanks
for the reversal
of something
which had kept me anxious,
but is now resolved?
Did my insistent surge of prayers
finally get through
to the Great Remedy?

Now that I am feeling better,
I dare to ask,
am I in love with a concept
of the Almighty 
(which happens to be quite different
from what is held by several folks I know)?

Or is it admission
I’m becoming
willing to accept the gift
without claiming to fully know
my secret lover?

 

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