”
Today the movement in fashion is ‘spirituality,’ the deepening
of one’s relationship with God,
”
wrote Father Richard Nolan in a recent edition of
”
Episcopal Life.
”
“Today the movement in fashion is ‘spirituality,’ the deepening of one’s relationship with God,” wrote Father Richard Nolan in a recent edition of “Episcopal Life.”
Increasingly, Americans are seeking help outside of regular church services for ways to become more aware of God’s presence in their lives. More than three dozen educational institutions in the United States. provide training for those who wish to become “spiritual directors,” and there are more than 4,000 members of Spiritual Directors International, a professional organization for such practitioners.
Locally, the Rev. Ted Pecot, pastor of the Morgan Hill United Methodist Church, has been a practicing spiritual director for some 20 years and agreed to provide some insight into this field.
He finds the term “spiritual director” problematic because of the medieval image it conjures up: a wise old monk in a monastery imparting the wisdom of the ages to seekers after the truth. Rather, Pastor Pecot uses the metaphor of a companion who accompanies a person on a spiritual journey, watching how the individual grows in faith, praying for him/her constantly, and perhaps offering helpful suggestions along the way.
“The spiritual life is not divorced from the physical world: it encompasses everything, including the emotions, health, work, faith, and values. A spiritual director is like a marriage counselor; the idea is to help the relationship between God and the individual grow without the director becoming a dominant influence.”
To do this, the director must help the individual assess his/her spiritual life though listening and asking questions: Who are you? What are you looking for? How have you grown spiritually in the past? How can a companion help you on this journey?
Then the director offers some teaching tools. Pecot says there are “an infinite number of types of prayer; I know and can teach at least 80 different types which people can use in trying to discover how to communicate with God more effectively.”
“Engagement with Scripture” is another important aspect. Pecot teaches a number of different ways including the “lectio divina,” an ancient form of scriptural prayer: “I read the text, I reflect on it, I pray from it, I sit in silence with it.”
Spiritual reports are often helpful, where the people write weekly for themselves a statement of faithfulness to their goals and analyze the results.
The classic spiritual disciplines are prayer, fasting, charity, worship, silence, scripture. But the heart of these disciplines is working on the issues represented in the ancient vows of priests in community, which were poverty, chastity and obedience (or “the appropriate use of possessions, sexuality and power”).
Pastor Pecot developed an interest in spiritual direction after seminary at Washington, D.C.’s Church of the Savior and then worked in Berkeley for seven years as a retreat leader and spiritual director before going into United Methodist congregational ministry. While in Berkeley he helped develop and teach a course called “Pilgrim Companionship” that trained others for this field, but he feels pastoral ministry is not very conducive to spiritual direction because of the time commitments and the mixing of roles required.
Pecot says that one of the best known institutes in this country for training spiritual directors is here in the Bay Area at Mercy Center in Burlingame. They offer one-, two-, and three-year programs and license spiritual directors. “Their staff is wonderful and quite open. If someone wanted a spiritual director, I would refer him/her there first because they know the largest pool of directors in the area. People can also go to Mercy Center for a a few days of silence and ask for a spiritual director to guide them while they’re in residence. It is a wonderful, life-changing experience.”
For more information check the Internet at www.mercy-center.org.
Chuck Flagg teaches English at Mt. Madonna High School. Write him c/o The Dispatch, P.O. Box 22365, Gilroy, CA 95021.
