11 Questions to Ask A Prospective Spiritual Director

You’ve heard about spiritual direction, and learned as much as you can about it. You’re ready to begin the process of finding a spiritual director to accompany you as you walk with God. As I tell those with whom I’m exploring a spiritual direction relationship, it’s important to ask all the questions that you want in order to get to know your prospective director. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to know where to start, so here’s a list of 11 questions that might be helpful to ask during your first session with a prospective spiritual director.

1. What kind of training did you undertake to become a spiritual director?

This question helps you understand the background and training of your director. You may be more comfortable with a director who has gone through an accredited program, or a supervised practicum in spiritual direction. On the other hand, someone who has been giving direction for a long time but may not have gone through a formal program. What is most importnat to you?

2. How long have you been giving spiritual direction?

You can ask this question in terms of years, or in terms of hours. Some directors may have been giving direction for years, but have only had one or two directees during that time. Others may not have been giving direction for as long, but have a number of directees, meaning that they have a greater total hours of experience. While the numbers themselves may not be important to you, understanding the level of direct experience your director has in the practice of direction is helpful to know.

3. Do you have a spiritual director?

Someone who practices spiritual direction definitely understands the value of having a spiritual director as they journey with God. I believe that spiritual directors should, where possible, be in direction themselves as they care for their own spiritual lives.

4. Do you have a supervisor or a peer group?

This is an extremely important question to ask. One of the ways that a spiritual director cares for you and tends your soul is to actively seek accountability and supervision of peers or those in spiritual authority. This process helps your director grow and allows them to seek consultation and wisdom.

5. Are you part of any professional spiritual direction associations? Do you hold to a formal code of ethics from any of these?

There are numerous spiritual direction associations that have a formal code of ethics for spiritual direction. Whether your director is part of these associations is something that can help you decide on the right director for you. More often, directors who have a private practice or are only loosely associated with a church will be part of these associations. Sometimes directors who are part of a monastery have enough accountability within their order that they feel other associations are unneccesary.  

6. What’s your guiding image of spiritual direction?

Each director holds one or more images of what the spiritual direction relationship is to him or her. Whether this is as a companion, mentor, guide, friend or any other image, knowing what guides them in their practice of direction will help you know if this director fits well with your desires for the spiritual direction relationship.

7. What has your journey with God been like?

Some people might feel that this is too personal a question to ask a spiritual director; however, this is someone with whom you’ll be sharing one of the most intimate areas of your life—your spiritual journey. Feel free to ask them about their journey wtih God. Not only will this help establish relationship, you’ll learn a lot about your director’s background, assumptions about God, and spiritual history.

8. What is your experience tending your own life of prayer, contemplation and meditation?

Again, this seems like a deeply personal question, but it’s one that your director will be asking you on a regular basis. Learning more about your director’s practices will help you understand if this person is a good match for you.

9. What kind of on-going education or enrichment in spiritual direction are you undertaking?

The spiritual journey is never static—neither is the practice of spiritual direction. It’s important to know what your director is doing to continue learning and growing, placing him or herself under a teacher to grow in the practice of spiritual direction.

10. What kind of covenant or agreement will we establish between us in the on-going spiritual direction relationship?

While some directors prefer an informal, spoken covenant (including, necessarily, confidentiality), I personally prefer a written agreement that both the director and directee sign in order to establish roles, responsiblities and appropriate boundaries. This can sometimes seem like “just paperwork” but a formal agreement help you to feel safe and protected within the direction relationship. This agreement also helps you to understand the spiritual perspective that your director will be operating from. As a Christian spiritual director, I welcome people from other faiths or those who are seeking God in my spiritual direction practice; that said, my agreement document states that I practice from a Christian perspective and will be talking about Jesus. It also clarifies that I’m comfortable with Christians from all denominations, and I make space for differing theological viewpoints and understandings without needing to change them. Ask yourself how important it is for you to have a Catholic director if you are Catholic, or a Protestant director if you are Protestant. Would an Orthodox director be okay for you, even if you’re Jewish? Coming to the initial session with these questions answered will help you make the right decision for you.

11. Do you charge for spiritual direction? If so, how much?

This last question sometimes gets taken for granted. Some spiritual directors wouldn’t think of charging for direction, and others have established a private practice in which they charge a specific amount per session or per hour. Other directors charge on a sliding scale of donation. If payment is a hardship, speak candidly with a potential spiritual director about that. In some cases, even paying a minimal amount toward direction helps you to understand the investment in your spiritual growth that meeting with a spiritual director is, and creates value in dedicating the time to that endeavor.

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Was this list helpful to you?

Are there other questions that you think should be asked in the initial spiritual direction appointment? What might they be?

What Is It We Do Here?

Pilgrim: What is it that you do here? Monk: We fall, and we get up again. –Scott Cairns

Bigger Than God

Boo from Monsters, Inc. tries to show her parents about the evil Randall
I don't know what age the monsters-in-the-closet fear hits most kids, but for me, it was age 8. I'd been to see, of all things, Gremlins—my first movie theater experience. It terrified me. After that time I needed at least a night light in every room, and the door needed to stay open.

It's reassuring, I think, that this phase is a common enough phenomenon among children that Pixar created an animated film about it—the delightful Monsters, Inc.—reminding us all that the things we imagine are out to get us may be our best allies, after all.

At left, the main child character, a mostly preverbal Boo, holds up a picture of the monster that she's seen, Randall, in an effort to convince her parents that there actually is a monster in her closet and it really is out to get her, justifying her nightly descent into ear drum fracturing screams. And, in this story, Boo is right. There is a monster. He is after her.

But there are other monsters that aren't out to get her, and, along with a blue, hairy monster named Sulley, Boo's journey brings her face to face with her fears so that she can be set free from them.

Boo, like us, has to trust someone bigger than her to guide her into a place she'd really rather not go. Pretty good metaphor for the spiritual life, wouldn't you say?

Five years ago, that place for me was a looming descent into depression. I could feel it coming. The signature malaise and lack of energy. The tears. Five years before that, with the help of great counselors and much prayer, I'd stepped away from a major depression that had crippled my life. With these new signs on the horizon, I was terrified of going there one more time. 

Then, a friend of mine asked me a question that I thought was sacreligious (but later came to recognize as the very voice of God): If God asked you to step into depression, would you go?

He'd never ask me that, I said. God isn't cruel. He wouldn't do that.

That's beside the point, my friend said. Would you go?

No, I thought. No, no, no, NO.

And in that answer, I knew that I had a fear that was, to me, bigger than God. It controlled me more than God did. It dictated how I acted, and how much I would trust Him.

I won't say that I went willingly to that closet door of mine. But, after some kicking and screaming, I took God's hand and walked up to the very place that frightened me the most.

And you know what? Unlike Boo's story, there was no monster in my closet. No depression waiting to consume me from the inside out. There was release, and freedom, and a realization that perfect love really does cast out all fear.

 

 

A Dedication to Your Own Journey

There are many things that bring a person to spiritual direction. Sometimes it's a crisis of circumstance, unexpected suffering, a crisis of faith or a feeling of dryness in prayer. Occasionally, what causes someone to search for a director is a deep longing for more, a dedication to the person's own journey with God. 

I recently came across a blog entry by someone on the search for a new spiritual director in his area. I love how seriously he's taking this process, discerning carefully through each step of the search. 

I recommend that anyone searching for a spiritual director—whatever your faith tradition or life position—employ this kind of care and patience. The director-directee relationship really is a holy friendship, and it should be entered into only after a time of prayer and consideration.

Later this week, I'll be posting a series of questions that I recommend you ask anyone you're considering entering into a spiritual direction or spiritual friendship relationship with.

Friday Favorite: Paraclesis

Today's Friday Favorite is a long quote from Eugene Peterson, who does an incredible job of talking about the role of spiritual direction and the language of spiritual direction in the Church. I'm working toward committing this to memory.

… Paraclesis is language used with men and women who already have received the word of preached salvation and have been instructed in the teaching of the law, but who are in need of comfort or encouragement or discernment in the muddled details of dailiness. This is a way of language commonly identified in the church’s life as “cure of souls” and “spiritual direction.”

And this is the style of language that is absolutely required in the church in the process of becoming mature, of growing up in Christ. All three ways of language—kerygmatic, didactic, and paracletic—work together in this, but the one most often slighted, at least in the American church with its fondness for the indicative (telling it like it is) and imperative (ordering people to do something about it) is the paracletic. This is the kind of language that pays attention to the way the preceding languages of preaching and teaching enter into the personal particulars of each person while in the company of brothers and sisters, strangers and neighbors. Individuality is given dignity, but always in the context of congregation. Listening, which requires silence, is a substantial element in the language of paraclesis.

Paracletic language is the language of the Holy Spirit, a language of relationship and intimacy, a way of speaking and listening that gets the words of Jesus inside us so that they become us. It is not new information. It is not explanation. It is God’s word on our side, within us, working out the details in the circumstances of our lives.

Practice Resurrection by Eugene Peterson, p. 171-176

 

Understanding Spiritual Direction

When I meet someone new who is interested in learning what I do vocationally, I think carefully before offering an explanation for what I do. If the person hasn’t explicitly declared themselves as someone of faith or someone interested in spirituality (by context, association or overt statement), I often say something like, “I’m a spiritual director—sort of like a counselor for the spiritual life.” It’s an inadequate summary on many levels, but for those who are primarily engaged in social niceties, it works.

If the person I’m talking to has identified themselves as someone of faith, I usually go into a more detailed explanation of spiritual direction as the care of souls. I use the guiding image of my practice (“a midwife to the soul”), and usually field a few clarifying questions. Often enough, my conversational partner says something along the lines of “Oh, like discipleship” or “So you’re a mentor, then.”

“Not really,” I say, “but sort of.”

I wish I had a laminated handout of this chart to carry in my back pocket for these conversations. It’s one of the clearest and most useful breakdowns of the various helping disciplines in Christianity that I’ve yet found. I may laminate it, yet.

Sdchart copy

 

Silence

At a recent retreat I led, I shared the following quote from Mama Maggie Gobran:

 

To be in silence is to be full inside of yourself.  It’s not easy. 

Silence your body to listen to your words. 

Silence your tongue to listen to your thoughts. 

Silence your thoughts to listen to your heart. 

Silence your heart to listen to your spirit. 

Silence your spirit to listen to His presence.

In silence, you leave the many to be with the One.

 

So true. So worth sitting with and meditating on.

 

Where has silence been part of your life recently?

 

Feast of St. Francis

To tell you the truth, Francis is one of my favorite saints. He was iconoclastic, deeply in love with God, and more than a little bit weird. He talked to rocks and wolves and worked for peace. He broke the mold.

Today, Shane Claiborne shared a wonderful primer on St. Francis that is well worth reading.

And if you haven't read about Francis's encounter with the Wolf Of Gubbio, I would recommend you spend some time reading and meditating on what God was doing through Francis, through the wolf, and, perhaps, through the wolves in your own life.

Time for Taize

“Since my youth, I think that I have never lost the intuition that community life could be a sign that God is love, and love alone. Gradually the conviction took shape in me that it was essential to create a community with men determined to give their whole life and who would always try to understand one another and be reconciled, a community where kindness of heart and simplicity would be at the centre of everything.”

Brother Roger: “God is love alone”

In a small town on the border of France sits a once sleepy town called Taizé. The home of an ecumencial Christian community dedicated to simple prayer and song, the word Taizé has also come to represent a way of being with God in community that has attracted hundreds of thousands of pilgrims (most of them under the age of 30) over more than 70 years.

Taizé is a way of prayer that finds its foundation in meditative prayer and song. Taizé music is simple; usually no more than four phrases long, with sparse, easily memorized melodies. The point of Taizé is not to get to the end of the song or prayer, but for the song or prayer to get to the end of you. It is a method of moving the truths of the prayers from the head down to the heart.

Every few weeks or so, I find myself craving some Taizé music. So, I find a quiet place, center myself on God and let the musical prayers wash over me. Sometimes I sing, sometimes I sit and let the songs sing me.

If you've never experienced Taizé, I encourage you to find some of their music (also on iTunes), and explore their website. If there's a Taizé service somewhere in your town (and there may well be*), I encourage  you to make an effort to experience what it is like to practice silence, Scripture and song in community. I know that it will refresh your soul.

 

*If you live in Colorado Springs, Colorado College runs a Taizé service once a block at Shove Chapel. The next Taizé service with be on Monday, October 10 at 9 pm at Shove.

A New Year

Sunset tonight, September 28, begins a new year in Jewish tradition. It is the start of Rosh Hashanah, a celebration of things being created by God, and the names of His people being written in the book of life. Whatever your faith tradition, tonight can seen as a thin place, a threshold between old and new. I love the mystery of the sunset and the sunrise, and the promises of the sweetness that is to come.

Sunset
The sunset over Mt. Princeton, Colorado, on September 28, 2011 taken by nearby resident, Brad Rohrich.