On the Need for Ongoing Spiritual Direction in Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister, is it the case that over time hermits can need less and less to work with a spiritual director? I read that on another blog by a Catholic hermit under private vows. I wondered if you agreed with this? Would it be more true if the hermit was doing spiritual direction himself?]]

I think I have answered this question in the past (cf., Spiritual direction as accompaniment 2014 different title in original) but perhaps I can say something new about it here. My basic answer is that in my own estimation, no, it is not the case that we need spiritual direction less and less over time as we grow in our vocations. I believe this is a kind of temptation specific to those who are more or less "arrogant," ignorant of, or perhaps just complacent about their degree of spiritual maturity, or their "possession" of a given vocation. It also betrays a mistaken notion of living a vocation as ceasing to need ongoing formation which, while it differs in kind from initial formation it is still absolutely essential -- itself requiring good spiritual direction -- even if this direction is less frequent than formerly.

We cannot see where we have not grown, or rather perhaps, we cannot necessarily see where or how we are called to grow in a given situation. We may know in a general sense that we are called to holiness or union with God, or a better or deeper relationship with Jesus, but also not know how specifically such holiness, union, or relationship actually looks or how we take the next steps toward this, especially when we are speaking about a deepening of one's relationship with God in Christ and the personal work needed to be entirely open to this. In such a case, it is my experience that far from becoming less important and necessary for living one's vocation, it actually becomes more and more important that we are able to talk about it with someone skilled in spiritual direction who has a vital relationship with God and knows us well. 

In some ways it reminds me a bit of the kind of coaching or masterclasses required by a musician who truly takes her vocation as a musician -- an artist -- seriously.  We can always play the way we have played for many years, improving gradually simply by learning the music in front of us. In orchestra, for instance, that always stretches a musician to some extent, but when you watch a master musician working with someone, the experience is inspirational. One watches the master teacher bring out in that person places where they specifically can transcend their own levels of achievement and realize an almost unimagined potential within themselves (and within the music they have been playing almost routinely for many years). 

I have spoken before about a spiritual director as an accompanist and the special gifts and skills required in such a relationship. I noted that it was important that the director be a person of prayer and be under spiritual direction themselves. In other words, it is important that a spiritual director know herself well, know God in Christ well, and know the person she directs well. When all of these elements come together in spiritual direction the director can accompany her client in a way which allows for steps the directee would never have taken on her own. It will be because the director knows (in at least a general sense) and trusts the potential within her directee, and because she knows what God offers in terms of an ever-deepening relationship, and also because she knows the kinds of steps one needs to negotiate to grow in this way, because really, in good directors, all three of these will be true. But, as in work with a master musician, the spiritual director sees all of these elements in a way the directee well may not and assists her directee to take the steps needed to come to the abundant life God offers and wills for her.

Again, we truly cannot see ourselves well enough to achieve the growth and conversion God wills for us, nor, perhaps, do we know God (or allow God to know us) well-enough. We need people who have travelled the same road before us who also know us and our unique capacities, potentialities, and also the various obstacles to growth/conversion which are part of our personal "obstacles" to seeing and growing. Over time we may become complacent with the degree of growth or conversion that obtains without spiritual direction. This can happen because our directors are not particularly skilled or committed to their own growth-with-direction, because we cannot find a good director, because we fail to trust our directors (or to entrust ourselves to their wisdom and expertise when that is real), and it can certainly happen when we become comfortable in our own life, career, or vocation and treat that comfortableness as though we have "arrived" in some sense. With hermits it sometimes occurs because one mistakenly believes a director must also be a hermit or a mystic, or that they must experience the same kinds of exceptional things in prayer that we do (if, in fact, these do) --- which allows the hermit to dismiss the ways in which the director actually challenges and blesses or could challenge and bless them. In such cases the hermit will say they have no access to a good director and go it alone. 

You ask if it might be more likely that a hermit who is also a spiritual director would eventually not need to work with a spiritual director. In this too I would say no, it is actually less likely true precisely because such a hermit would know well the importance of accompaniment (and the danger of relative complacency, false humility, or "arrogance") in genuine ongoing conversion. One final note, there is a now-abandoned blog by someone calling themselves a consecrated Catholic hermit under private vows you might have read posts re the position you describe. Please know no one becomes a consecrated Catholic Hermit with private vows. They are a dedicated lay hermit, but neither consecrated nor a Catholic Hermit.

N.B., for a particular vivid illustration of the way a master teacher/coach can work with a skilled musician check out Zander Interpretations Class. (Benjamin Zander, Interpretations class, Gabriel Faure's Elegy for cello. Alan Todas Ambaras, cello) The initial presentation of the piece is wonderful and any cellist would be really pleased with it, but the work Zander does with the "student" (and too, the accompanist!) is truly inspiring, and startlingly transformational in several significant ways. 

Spiritual direction requires the same kind of depth of seeing or vision, confidence (especially in God and the person being directed), and capacity to accompany another in a way which draws the very best -- indeed, the most true and real -- from the musician (hermit), instrument (prayer or relationship with God), and the music itself (the life of God offered to and dwelling deep within the hermit coming to fulness of life in God). Zander notes that his power as a conductor is about empowering his musicians to play "well" (and here he means helping his players tap into the power, life, and truth within themselves); otherwise he is powerless to make music or bring the music to life -- for as a conductor he does not make a sound. So too the job of the spiritual director to help their client get in touch with the life of God within and around themselves. No one outgrows this need to be helped (accompanied) in this very special form of hearing, understanding, embracing, and expressing what one hears and understands with regard to oneself and the very Life of God.

[Benjamin Zander is a noted conductor and inspirational speaker, the founder and conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Zander began his career as a very gifted composer and cellist who studied with Gaspar Cassado.]

Questions on Spiritual Direction

[[Sister, if a spiritual director offers "companioning", does this mean they are simply offering companionship for the lonely? Would they be offering "in depth" spiritual direction? How about accompaniment? I have heard that term used also. Why is there such a difference in names? Since you do spiritual direction how would you feel about someone writing you to ask for prayer and for advice on or help in discerning what they should write about if they are planning a book? I read some of this recently on another blog but have no way to ask the author these same questions.]]

Thanks for your questions. The discipline and art of spiritual direction goes by a number of names including" direction, companioning, and accompaniment. A less-often used but very valuable term is spiritual midwife. Spiritual direction is often misunderstood because of the word direction: folks believe the director is going to be telling the directee what to do. Really, the term means assistance in discerning the presence and directions the Holy Spirit is taking in one's life. In conversations with a director one learns and is helped to attend and respond to the presence of the Holy Spirit in one's life. There is no such thing as superficial Spiritual Direction and that is true no matter the term used to describe the work. Still, because the term direction can be so misleading many directors today prefer other descriptions of the nature of the work.

The one I prefer is "accompaniment" because one accompanies another on their journey through life with God. If you have ever played in an orchestra or piano where you are asked to accompany a soloist you know a lot of what this word means in spiritual direction as well. In a piece I wrote here a while back I described the relationship between director and directee in terms of accompaniment. Here is a part of that post. One question which raised the notion of accompaniment was the inequality of the relationship and I address that here. Still, it is the idea of accompanying which is most fundamental.

[[While I understand your difficulty with terms here (it is indeed hard to characterize the inequality along with the equality of the relationship without thinking in terms of superior and inferior polarities); but I think we must find ways to do this. The direction relationship is one between persons relating to one another in two different roles. The director and directee are equals in Christ and the director serves Christ and the directee with her time, her commitment, her prayer and her expertise. At the same time, she necessarily sets her own story, desires, and needs aside (including the desire or need for friendship in the usual sense if it exists) for the benefit of the directee and her relationship with Christ. Everything that occurs in SD must serve Christ and his desire to love and be loved by the directee and it must do so in a focused  and self-deferential way. 

While some directees may want the relationship to be more like two violins playing the Bach double together, the work of direction makes the relationship more like that of a solo violin being accompanied in the attempt to play Bach's A minor concerto with passion and integrity. [For those who don't know the Bach Double, in this piece the two violins are incredibly equal voices and are sometimes almost indistinguishable regarding who is first violin and who is second; is is wonderful in this way among many others!] In this situation (the A minor concerto) the accompanist serves both the soloist and composer and/or the composition by stepping back. Her work requires a strong sense of what Bach wrote and what the soloist desires the music to be to reveal that fully. As accompanist she also needs technical virtuosity (and a psychological capacity) of a different kind than required in solo work; she may be a soloist in her own right, but in this situation she is there to facilitate the expression of a kind of union between artist and composer and/or composition. Her role is indispensable but unless she is able to work skillfully as an accompanist rather than someone playing a principal part of a duet, the entire theological dramaturgy will be damaged and the revelation that was meant to occur will be prevented or at least significantly impeded. Most directees come to understand such limitations on the director's part are part and parcel of a significant form of reverence and love. ]] (cf., Spiritual Direction and Mutuality

Companioning, however, has much the same meaning, perhaps with some slightly different connotations or overtones. A spiritual director is a companion to us in our Journey with God in Christ, She listens as we describe what is occurring for and within us, she finds ways to help us bring that to expression, she assists us to discern what God is calling us to and how we should live that out, and she celebrates with us when we are faithful to the God we both serve with our lives. Spiritual direction, though often therapeutic, is not therapy and it does not work like therapy does.

For instance, while transference and counter-transference may occur, they are not used in the way therapy uses and even depends upon them. Instead, they will be pointed out and the directee will work through the problems that led to the transference in the presence of God, just as the director will work through her own --- but in the privacy of her own space and time, and perhaps with a supervisor or her own director. Transference is a central tool in therapy. The therapist is a kind of blank slate to the patient or client upon whom transference can be worked out. The relationship is quite different in spiritual direction, for in direction transference gets in the way of one's relationship with God as well as with direction itself because direction always keeps that specific relationship at the center. Neither is the director to be seen in the way a therapist might by a person in therapy.

In such a relationship and process, companioning is a good description for what happens; one does not tell a directee how to live their life; one accompanies them in their living of it, and especially in their relationship with God. Spiritual direction is a long-term relationship which, while problems will be solved, does not generally focus on problems. Instead it focuses on living and living ever more fully the abundant life which God desires for and offers us at every instant. Both director and directee are focused in the same way on this single all-important reality and relationship. Both will gain from the spiritual direction relationship --- though not in the same way, for it is still not a relationship of absolute equality. Companioning is a good description and, contrary to what you read recently, it certainly is not a kind of glorified "baby-sitting" for the lost or lonely.

My own availability for the kinds of things you describe in your questions is quite limited. Neither of these is spiritual direction. If someone wants advice or is writing a book on eremitical life or some aspect of theology I am fairly expert in, I will find time to discuss the matter with them if I can, or I will refer them to someone who might be able to do this. Anyone is free to ask me for prayer anytime, however. Of course I have the time and will make the time for that. If they have a problem they want to talk with me about, I will make an appointment to meet in whatever way seems helpful in the short term. I simply won't call this spiritual direction nor, despite the intense listening which will be at its heart, will the appointment look like spiritual direction.

Followup Question: Sister, isn't transference inevitable in this kind of work? You don't simply "disallow it" so what does a spiritual director do when faced by transference?

Good question. Transference does occasionally occur, yes. When it does, I don't dismiss it, no. Neither do I dismiss my own counter-transference when it occurs. I am aware of these and when a client reacts in this way I will help them explore it and what triggered it. We will explore when else they have felt this way and in this way they will begin to understand (if they didn't already know this --- often they do) that they are projecting onto me/our relationship something with roots elsewhere. Then I will do whatever is necessary to help affirm the direction relationship in the present.

My job here is to do what I can to keep the client rooted in the present moment and especially in her relationship with God in the present moment; we can and do explore the past but, generally speaking, we do it from a strong rooting in the present. Transference and counter-transference militate against this. (My own countertransference is something I note, hold for later, and then work through as soon as I have the time and space to do that.) My point about transference and direction is not that directors don't work with it at all, but rather, that it is an obstacle to the direction relationship per se and so, generally speaking, we do not use it in the way therapy does.

Sources and Resources for Inner Work

[[Hi Sister Laurel,
      You have referred a couple of times to doing "inner work" in relation to spiritual direction and recommended it for formation and discernment. I wondered what you meant. Is this something one could do if their spiritual director does not usually expect or use it or does one need to do it with someone? What you wrote about developing the heart of a hermit was very powerful for me, it resonated with some of my own experience so I was wondering if the kind of inner work you are referring to could be of any help to me. I am not sure about wanting to become a hermit but I think I might have "the heart of a hermit" as you describe it. Anything you could suggest to help with this would be appreciated.]]

Great questions and I am glad you appreciated the piece on developing the heart of a hermit. It's always special, I think, when something someone writes like that "resonates" with our own experience. Anyway, I think I have been asked about "inner work" one other time --- though it was a few years ago. The post might be of some assistance as background so I'll see if I can find it and create a link even though I am sure I will repeat a lot of it here.

When I speak of inner work I ordinarily mean the personal work that stems from and prepares for spiritual direction or from everyday situations or things that arise from prayer. In spiritual direction it often happens that I become aware of places where healing needs to happen or where significant growth is occurring which requires conscious attention not only to help things along but also to honor the way grace is present in my life. Some of this work means using the tools I learned or am learning to better understand and use from my director who is also an animator and/or facilitator in PRH (French for Personality and Human Relationships). We also call this growth work but it provides a focused approach to healing and maturation with a significant spiritual dimension. The idea behind PRH as I understand it is that it provides a fairly systematic approach (PRH would say "methodical") to the very human task of becoming fully alive --- which is exactly the reason Jesus came to us.

What I most appreciate about it (something which is an essential part of its incredible power and contribution to contemplative life) is that it always begins in the present. It is not given to random or "feverish" (to quote my director) "emotional archeology" (my term). It can certainly lead to the past and help accomplish the healing needed there but unless that need is showing itself in and affecting one's present functioning one does not spend time and energy on this. As part of this work I do journaling using a number of really effective tools including "topographies" (a kind of written illustration of the emotional journey one makes in relation to situations which trigger disproportionate recurrent reactions) and occasionally my director will give me a specific question or set of questions which allow me to explore and "live into" what is "alive" in me at a given time. I also use dialogues (a way of learning to listen to and integrate my unconscious with my conscious mind as well as to resolve inner struggles with various parts of myself).

Inner work also thus includes the kinds of things Carl Jung found so beneficial to the process of individuation and to what he sometimes referred to as the "transcendent function", namely dream work or analysis and active imagination.  In doing this I tend to use the work of Robert Johnson and others as guides. (Johnson is a Jungian and writes clearly and practically about a four step process to work with both dreams and active imagination as tools to personal integration and transcendence. Others provide ways to work with our "shadow.") The book I have mainly referred to in this is Johnson's, Inner Work. I would recommend this. Jeffrey Miller's, The Transcendent Function, Jung's Model of Psychological growth Through  Dialogue With the Unconscious is not a how-to book but it is profoundly helpful in explaining what is going on in some of this inner work. Finally, of course, inner work involves prayer in all its forms, lectio divina, and any of the creative activities I might participate in including music, writing (especially journaling and some forms of blogging), and drawing. All of these allow or facilitate one entering into a liminal space where dialogue, healing, greater integration, and transcendence can occur.

By the way, both PRH and Jungian approaches are entirely consonant with theistic approaches to inner work and with Christian thought and spirituality. PRH especially has an underlying theology which some may choose to ignore or leave entirely implicit, while Jung's psychology seems to me to call for an explicit theology supporting the dialogical and teleological dimensions of the human being Jung honors and describes so well. The point is that one need not compromise one's faith to use these or some other methodologies (various approaches to journaling, for instance) and in many ways can enhance that faith with these approaches to inner work. One final approach I should mention which can accommodate or even be used collaboratively with PRH and Jungian approaches, and which also respects one's spirituality is the IFS or Internal Family Systems approach to inner work. This approach is profoundly respectful of the whole person and does not pathologize parts of us that may be deemed "maladaptive" by some. Like Jungian approaches IFS tends to see the human being as a theatre of characters or "subpersonalities"; it recognizes a core "Self", the life of which all the "subpersonalities" protect and foster or at least seek to protect and foster. Like the other methods mentioned this approach (IFS) also allows or facilitates entering into a liminal space where dialogue, healing, greater integration, and transcendence can occur.

Working With Another:

Most of these approaches work fine as solitary enterprises. One can always journal, write, draw or paint, etc, and do so entirely on one's own. (IFS, given the caveats I will mention below, is especially recommended for working alone or with a companion; a workbook is available for this.) At the same time I have to say that spiritual direction is always helpful and too-little used today (it is not just for religious or monastics, for instance, nor only for the "super religious"). PRH works optimally when another can teach, guide you, and in particular truly hear (accompany) you in the work you do. Healing tends to be a function of being heard by another (ultimately we will rest or achieve quies in God who truly and exhaustively "hears" us but for some work one MUST have someone accompanying them); this is especially true when one has suffered alone and even carried the burden of trauma and woundedness with him/her for years and years without being able to articulate, much less share the pain and import of it all.  In such instances accompaniment is absolutely essential even though one will work on one's own between meetings. At many points PRH and  the other forms of inner work can be done alone and then the results (which involve God working within us) can always be shared and further explored with one's director or another professional (including INS therapists or peer counselors and PRH accompanists), for instance. What all competent spiritual directors are really skilled at is listening and that means they will be able to discern the working of God and, through questions, etc, shape the conversation so you can also continue the work begun in the session itself.

I have one caveat here. If you have not really worked with a therapist or in some other way done enough work to have gotten your own healing (whatever that may be) relatively well in hand, I think it is best to work with someone on a regular basis. Spiritual direction itself is a stand alone discipline which can also be a fantastic complement to therapy, for example, but generally speaking it will not and should not be used to substitute for it. For this reason most directors will assess the person they are directing to see if their needs include therapy. Spiritual directors do not make diagnoses nor do we usually have the capability to do this but we can ordinarily tell whether a person is going to be able or unable to benefit from direction and do the work associated with it, or whether therapy will be necessary to achieve this --- either prior to beginning direction or in conjunction with it. (Sometimes a directee needs medication (usually for depression and/or anxiety); once they are medicated appropriately they will make normal strides in direction; in these cases therapy itself may not be necessary and a physician is needed simply to monitor the medication. I have done this with clients myself; when a physician is willing to work this way it is quite helpful to the client and to their spiritual direction.) At other times, the inner work can be undertaken on one's own, in conjunction with spiritual direction, or with PRH or something similar. Similarly, Jungian psychologists recognize the work can be done on one's own but that sometimes one's unconscious can "get out of control;" at these times it is important to have access to someone who can help one negotiate the situation.

Relating this to the Desert Fathers and Mothers:

This may all sound far removed from the lives of the Desert Fathers and Mothers and the spirituality of hermits, for instance, but I don't believe it is. I have always been intrigued by the accounts of battles with demons in these stories and believe me, when we deal with the parts of ourselves left unhealed, distorted, or broken in childhood and throughout life, the process of healing can be as fierce, demanding, and messy as stories of Desert ancestors battling all day and night long with demons then coming out of their caves torn and bloodied but exultant in the morning! The same is true of the story of Jacob wrestling with God (God's angel) and, painfully wounded though he was, refusing to let go until God blessed him. We enter the desert both to seek God and to do battle with demons; it is a naïve person indeed who does not anticipate meeting herself face to face there in all of her weakness, brokenness, and giftedness as well! We may well know that God is profoundly involved in what may eventuate into the fight/struggle of and for our lives but it can take time, faith, and perseverance before we walk away both limping and blessed beyond measure.

Sometimes the healing or inner work required by faith and grace is significant; we cannot honor or truly glorify (manifest/reveal) God with only half our hearts, half our lives, half ourselves; as we go through life however, for any number of reasons we leave (and often must leave!) parts of ourselves behind --- neglected and for all intents and purposes abandoned; reclaiming these, reuniting and reconciling with them can take incredible energy and be painful beyond believing. Similarly, healing the distortions within us which have arisen precisely because we left parts of ourselves behind -- whether in defense against trauma, or in a number of other circumstances --- requires work as well as grace, and often, the assistance of competent persons. (In such instances the impulse and power to undertake the work IS an act of grace!) Only then can a long struggle end with God truly blessing us as we have deeply desired and needed and God has profoundly willed to do --- sometimes for many, many years. This "work" is a fundamental part of growth in wholeness and holiness in the desert. It is a necessary part of forming the heart of a hermit and an essential dimension of coming to true quies as a hesychast resting in the heart of God.

Inner Work as Penance in Service to Prayer and Obedience:

I personally count this work as part of the "assiduous penance" I am committed to under canon 603. Because I understand penance as any activity which complements prayer (including the prayer I am called to be) and which helps to prepare for it, regularize it, or extend the fruits of it into my everyday life, inner work has always functioned that way for me --- or at least has done so since the mid 1980's.

When canon 603 calls for a life of assiduous prayer and penance I think it calls first of all for a LIFE, and moreover, a life which is lived as both gift and task. In prayer I am loved by God and empowered to allow God to love his whole creation through me; in penance I deal with those things which prevent that from happening with my whole heart, and soul, and body (because sometimes the stuff we need to work through deprives us of energy, the capacity for appropriate bodily expression, and even the ability to care adequately for ourselves physically). For me penance has nothing to do with arbitrarily creating abnormal corporal practices, punishments, arcane disciplines, etc. Instead it involves doing all that is necessary to allow for prayer -- and for my becoming God's own prayer in the world; it therefore involves the freeing of the spirit so the body too might be as whole and free as possible in and with the grace of God.

Romuald receives the gift of tears

Similarly, this kind of work seems to me to be called for by my vow of obedience. In professing (or dedicating ourselves to) obedience we commit ourselves to listen attentively and to respond appropriately to the voice or will of God with our whole selves. Obedience is the vow of the one committed to attending to God and therefore to Life and Love, Truth and Beauty, Meaning and Wholeness wherever these imperatives occur. It means being fully engaged both with and on behalf of these realities. Thus, the tools I use (or am still learning to use) are a necessary part of being truly obedient to God --- especially to the God who, though beyond me, dwells within me and summons me to himself. To be reconciled fully with that God, to be entirely obedient to that God, means being reconciled fully with myself as well --- something that also means healing in the ways I have already described. Inner work is an act of obedience, not because someone says "you must do this" as some arbitrary act of discipline or submission to an external norm or Rule, but because my own vocation to holiness (wholeness in and with God) summons me to hearken to the call to abundant life in this precise way.

I am aware this may have raised more questions for you, so if that's the case please get back to me. Meanwhile I hope I have given you some sense of how rich are the sources and means of an inner work that serves one's journey with and within God.

Questions about Spiritual Direction

[[Dear Sister, you do spiritual direction, don't you? When someone speaks of spiritual accompaniment does this mean the relationship is mutual? What I am asking is if I seek a director to accompany me, does she expect me to accompany her on her spiritual journey? If a person advertises through the parish that they offer spiritual direction as a form of "spiritual friendship" does this mean the relationship is one of peers or is it one of superior to inferior? That's not stated very well I guess but I think you understand what I mean. I would like to be friends with my director. I would like us to accompany one another. I would like to meet for lunch somewhere and talk about spiritual matters like equals. Why shouldn't I want this? Two other questions. My experiences in the spiritual life are kind of unusual. How do I find a director who has also had such experiences? Also, if a director charges for her accompaniment what do I do if I think that is inappropriate?]]

Yes, I do spiritual direction and the word accompaniment is one I use a lot to describe something of the relationship. What it means is that the director accompanies the directee in aspects of her spiritual journey with God. A person comes seeking direction of someone experienced in and a regular practitioner of prayer so that she (the director) may assist the directee in discerning and responding to the movement of the Holy Spirit in her life. The SD relationship is ordinarily a long-term one, is not oriented to problem-solving --- though it will also do this from time to time --- and does not work according to the transference/counter-transference dynamic which drives therapy or counselling relationships. In fact, it eschews letting such a dynamic drive the relationship or the growth which occurs there. For this reason among others it is a relationship which is often misunderstood in a culture so familiar with therapeutic relationships and the dynamics which dominate there.

On Friendships and Soul Friends:

While a Spiritual director may indeed develop a friendship with a directee, especially over a period of years, the term "friend" as in "soul friend" or Anam cara, for instance, does not refer to friendship in the ordinary sense. The director is a friend whose focus is the relationship between the directee and God, a friend whose focus is the directee's heart where this relationship is centered and which is the truest core of the directee. She serves to guide the person's journey into this realm of the heart, that sacred place where God bears witness to Godself, and stands in silence and prayer, watching and listening as the journey takes place. Ordinarily, therefore, the director tries to convey a reverence for the person's self and intimate journey; this implies she maintain some conscious distance, especially in the early stages of the relationship. Friendship in the common sense is not the aim of spiritual direction and it can actually throw off the focus of the work (namely, the much more central  and personally constitutive relationship which exists between the directee and God) if it becomes the aim or even an aim of the relationship.

Personally, I have dealt with a number of persons who expect (or hope) to become close friends, and especially in the beginning of the relationship, wonder why I am not sharing my own story, my own prayer experiences, my own concerns, etc. At this point they really have no sense how profound the sharing of SD actually is, nor how deeply they will be asked to go into their own hearts so that the focus can truly be their relationship with God. This initial expectation or hope is pretty normal, especially in someone who has not participated in a formal SD relationship before. In time they usually come to understand that my refusal to change the dynamics of meetings in this specific way serves to facilitate their own focus on this relationship, and more exclusively on their own growth in prayer and human wholeness and holiness. When the person refuses or is unable to accept that the SD relationship is not one of friendship in the common sense it usually means we will not be able to continue working together. (Whether or not a more usual form of friendship subsequently develops via another avenue is another question.) Similarly, when a person who has come for spiritual direction expects to accompany the director and persists in this expectation, the relationship is destined for failure. People come to a SD for many reasons, some thinking it's a good place to discuss books and ideas or to talk "about God" in a general sense, some in search of a friend and others in place of a needed therapist; none of these, however, is what spiritual direction is really about and a good director will not allow the relationship to be redrawn in these ways.

The Intimacy of Direction:

There is a profound intimacy involved in spiritual direction, and a degree and form of love which is very special, but it may well preclude friendship in the ordinary sense except in certain circumstances. For instance, I have a couple of directees I have worked with for a number of years. They no longer live near here and we meet by skype these days except at regular points when they come to the Bay Area so we can meet face to face. This usually means that we will go to lunch first and talk about what's happening in our lives in a general way. Then we return to the hermitage and meet for spiritual direction per se. Yet, the period of meeting for direction is, by definition, not a period of equal sharing. I am there to listen in a specifically discerning way to both the directee and the Holy Spirit at work in the situation (and in myself), to suggest ways of moving forward, or to offer some resources for prayer based on what I hear. Sometimes I will share part of my own story if I think it can be helpful, but only if it seems it will be illustrative, etc.

Regarding mutual accompaniment: when two people are both mature in the spiritual life and have worked for some time with directors on their own, as well as done some direction themselves, mutual accompaniment can be something which is helpful and wonderfully enriching. The skills required are those one learns in accompanying and being accompanied over a period of years. Otherwise, however, the directee must remember (as I would remind you to remember) that the director is already working with a SD and often (at least occasionally) a supervisor as well. She already has someone accompanying her as Anam cara and is not looking for a directee to come in and take his/her place! If you, for instance, are looking for friends with whom you can discuss spirituality or theology, then there are other ways of seeking such persons out. It is more than a little presumptuous to contact a spiritual director for SD while expecting her to entrust her heart to you in the very same way --- even if you are an experienced and skilled director yourself. Neither, then will a director expect or encourage a directee to function as an accompanist to herself.

While I understand your difficulty with terms here (it is indeed hard to characterize the inequality along with the equality of the relationship without thinking in terms of superior and inferior polarities); but I think we must find ways to do this. The direction relationship is one between persons relating to one another in two different roles. The director and directee are equals in Christ and the director serves Christ and the directee with her time, her commitment, her prayer and her expertise. At the same time, she necessarily sets her own story, desires, and needs aside (including the desire or need for friendship in the usual sense if it exists) for the benefit of the directee and her relationship with Christ. Everything that occurs in SD must serve Christ and his desire to love and be loved by the directee and it must do so in a focused  and self-deferential way.

While some directees may want the relationship to be more like two violins playing the Bach double together, the work of direction makes the relationship more like that of a solo violin accompanied in her attempt to play Bach's A minor concerto with passion and integrity. In this situation the accompanist serves both the soloist and composer and/or the composition by stepping back. Her work requires a strong sense of what Bach wrote and what the soloist desires the music to be to reveal that fully. As accompanist she also needs technical virtuosity (and a psychological capacity) of a different kind than required in solo work; she may be a soloist in her own right, but in this situation she is there to facilitate the expression of a kind of union between artist and composer and/or composition. Her role is indispensable but unless she is able to work skillfully as an accompanist rather than someone playing a principal part of a duet, the entire theological dramaturgy will be damaged and the revelation that was meant to occur will be prevented or at least significantly impeded. Most directees come to understand such limitations on the director's part are part and parcel of a significant form of reverence and love.

On Unusual Experiences and Spiritual Direction:


The idea that a director needs to have had the very same experiences you have had, especially when these are unusual, in order to direct you is a common misconception. It is true that the director must be experienced in prayer, she must pray regularly, be under spiritual direction herself, and be open to meeting with a supervisor should something in her work with directees trouble her or trigger something in her. She should be experienced in a wide variety of forms of prayer including contemplative prayer, lectio divina, Divine Office, knowledgeable re Scripture, etc. She should be skilled in human psychology, knowledgeable regarding mystical prayer, and be able to gauge or discern whether something is of God or not, as well as skilled in finding ways to help facilitate the movement of the Holy Spirit in those situations which are, for the most part, not of God. She will also work to help and encourage the directee to draw wisdom from extraordinary experiences which are of God. In  every case she must be patient and grounded in the sense that God as Love-in Act is profoundly and, to some extent, inalienably present within the directee; she must be aware that this presence takes time to grow and reveal itself ---  just as a tiny mustard seed 1) is present despite its near invisibility (or similarity to other seeds) and 2) takes time to grow.


She must trust in the God who is profoundly present in the ordinary events of daily life, and be able to hear and respond to that presence; only then will she be able to assist a directee to do the same. Above all, she must be a person of hope who trusts in the grace of God whose power/love is made perfect in human weakness. She does NOT need to have had visions or other extraordinary experiences, nor does she need to have experienced serious or chronic illness (for instance) to listen with both compassion and empathy to the way these condition a person's spiritual life, but she does need to understand both the potential and the drawbacks of these realities in a spiritual life. While she should be open to the surprising ways God manifests Godself, she will be sensitive to the fruits of God's presence and activity and she will discern the nature of a directee's experiences on the basis of the fruit associated with them. Always she will seek to enhance the good fruit of prayer and find ways to allow the inauthentic to drop away or be rendered less compelling. Ordinarily the latter will happen as the former is facilitated.

On Payment for Direction:

If you have a problem with a director being paid on a fee-for-service basis I would suggest you speak to her and see why it is she accepts fees. You and others need to understand that SD in the Western Church, especially, is a ministry which requires training, education, supervision and regular work with a director; this means that even when it is carried on by religious it is often the primary way the individual helps support her extended religious family with many retired Sisters. Some religious communities will subsidize Sisters who do SD but this is less prevalent today than it once was. It is wonderful when a person can accept clients and work with them gratis --- I suspect most directors would love to be in this position --- but it is simply not possible for many spiritual directors today. Even so, most work on a sliding scale and accept at least some clients who cannot pay. Some of us even accept some form of barter, for instance. So long as the fees are reasonable, the scales can be worked out between director and directee and revised when the need arises, and the directee is assured of the director's care, competence, and experience, then the Scripture that should be kept in mind is probably, "The laborer is worthy of (her) hire."