What is Spiritual Direction?
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What is spiritual direction?
The
answer to this age-old question has to begin with a clear perspective on
what spirituality is. As an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, I've
given the question a great deal of reflection. Here's my perspective - acknowledging
at the outset that I am seeking to put into words that which words can merely
point to, never fully convey.
Spirituality is a quality of consciousness and a quality of experience. It is that quality of consciousness and experience in which we are simultaneously aware of our individuality and our universality. At one and the same moment we know ourselves to be absolutely unique and, also, a fragment of the heart of life.
In moments of spiritual consciousness, this state of awareness - this knowing - pervades our entire being: intuition, feelings, body and mind. We know that all really is One.
Spiritual consciousness/experience is grounded in acute awareness of
the present moment and in acceptance of that moment: living it fully and
letting it go.
The state of consiousness sees truth - both within the self and without
- and holds it with love and compassion. It holds lightly the paradox
between the uses of reason/the limits of reason and does not need to resolve
it. It is characterized by a profound sense of wordless clarity that we
live in deep connection to an energy source larger than ourselves to which
we belong and of which we are a part.
This belonging is innate - utterly unearned - yet a source of gratitude, renewal and joy. It simply is. No mistake that we could make would break this connection.
We breathe in that energy with all of our being, and it breathes us out - back into life recharged, eager - longing even - to find those places where our gifts and abilities can meet the hungers, the injustices and the brokenness of our world.
In this state we show up, fully present, in our own lives.
From this interior place we offer a double healing to the world: both the work we do and the spirit in which we do it. Because from this place alone can we "love the enemy" in others - and ourselves. And, in the long run, this is the only approach that actually works.
There is no more chance that a state of true spiritual consciousness
will leave us selfishly "navel gazing" than there is that we
can keep breathing in without ever breathing out.
It just doesn't work that way.
The purpose of spiritual direction is to discern and remove the blocks to this quality of consciousness and this quality of experience.
Rev.
Cathleen Cox
Practices for a Meaning Centered Life
Spiritual Direction for Indviduals, Couples and Communities
For more information:
revcat@revcat.net
415-717-7177 Phone