gathering the ingredients
Getting ready for Spiritual Accompaniment is like looking on the shelves of the pantry for ingredients. Do I have enough? What am I missing? Is everything in date? Taking each issue going on professionally and personally and bringing them into the light of ‘is that the focus for today?’ What does the Lord require me to pay attention to? Spiritual Accompaniment “involves a process of self-revelation to another person[1],” there is always a choice of what to reveal much like deciding poppy seeds or sesame seeds, but the main dough remains the same. The authenticity of self requires a level of integrity that means I am myself wherever I am, including Spiritual Accompaniment.
Getting the ingredients ready
Once all the ingredients are gathered, there is weighing, sieving, portioning and that is what happens in the first stage of the meeting. Coffee is made, the weather is discussed and the focus is introduced in a thick description. It begins to be scrutinised from different angles by everyone in the room.
Mixing and Initial kneading
There is then a lull, a contemplative silence comes over the room. It is a comfortable quiet when the drone of traffic can be heard from outside, there is no hurry in the space. The odd creak on a stair as a Jesuit priest or staff member puts their foot on the tread that needs attention itself.
First Proving
The third part of the meeting is when the focus is looked at again. With the help of the silence, and with the advocacy of the Holy Spirit there is insight. It might be something small, a tiny shift in perspective or it can be a thunderbolt of “eureka” proportions.
Knocking Back
Spiritual Accompaniment is an hour, but it takes preparation beforehand and it takes processing afterwards. In bread making knocking back is vital. If this stage is not completed properly the texture can be uneven, with large holes. This part of the process takes hard work, pushing out all the rising bubbles and bringing it back to the size it was before proving. The heel of the hand is the part of the body that incurs most of the pressure when pushing something with force.
When I leave a session of Spiritual Accompaniment there is time for reflection which takes me back to the original focus and where the session grew out of that topic. I am conscious that I represent ecclesiastical postmodernism to my Spiritual Accompanier and so I reflect first through my perception of his lens. What did this white, elder priest in the Jesuit tradition bring to my story? What were the phrases that piqued my interest and reflected in the room – “Was that of God?” As the process continues, I think about the Spiritual Accompanier more. This step is not about the fruit of the meeting. Later when I am journalling, I will come back to the focus of the meeting. I think about the questions asked of me and the stance of the Spiritual Accompanier. He does not move much, but I pay attention to when he shifts in the chair, when a question almost bursts out of him. Did he ask open questions?
After one of the sessions, I was left flat, as if the ‘proving’ had not taken place at all. That session the Spiritual Accompanier asked me lots of questions about my theology, my place in the Wesleyan tradition and as part of the Methodist Church. What should have been the ‘knocking back’ step it was more a getting my breath back. I had been noticing I felt I, as a person, was dismissed and the conversation was about our church traditions, the books we read and more of an information gathering exercise than Spiritual Accompaniment. As I thought about it, I felt I had been in a quiz or an examination rather than a Spiritual Accompaniment session. In my journal I wrote “maybe it is an academic exercise after all.” Susanna Wesley (20 January 1669 – 23 July 1742) wrote in her journal, “to pursue after knowledge only for its sake, is a vain and unprofitable curiosity[2].” And goes on, “Such knowledge puffeth up and is directly opposite to divine charity which alone edifieth[3]”
There was no ‘meat’ to cogitate on from this session, so I journaled about the Spiritual Accompanier and difference. I thought what he might be thinking when he met me, “a woman, over two congregations. Responsible for; declaring the Good News, Celebrating the sacraments, serving the needy, ministering to the sick, welcoming the stranger and seeking the lost – what is a man to do?[4]” I reflected on the cultural shift in Roman Catholicism locally, and journalled “When in their lifetime no woman has ever celebrated the sacrament of Holy Communion, and although discussions take place locally about the need to include women -it is superficial and abstract.[5]” I brought my session of Spiritual Accompaniment to the triad of Awareness, Attentiveness, Presence Skills, such was the response within me[6]. The Spiritual Accompanier admitted the next time that he was at fault, he was fascinated by my ecclesiastical story and he questioned me about it. The exercise of reflection was useful because it fed into my anxiety over failing and not feeling up to the tasks before me[7].
The other sessions were different and after the other sessions I imagine myself back in the room. Did I present the focus well? I own the sin of procrastination, I discussed this with the Spiritual Accompanier and the third chair in the room offered some insight. I lived for many years scared; scared to speak, write, express, move, have an opinion, make friends, live. All I knew was how to be wrong. Through engagement with journalling for the master’s I have noticed the peaks of procrastination which hang around the beginning of the process of writing an assignment. How to start, where to start, why start and at each juncture the wanting to flee before failure sets in. In all the meetings some form of this thought pattern is what I bring. I yearn to change my thinking and each time I think I have it sorted it appears in another form. The Spiritual Accompanier has the discernment to see this pattern and we unpeel another layer of my story.
During the post-mortem; thinking through the meeting I journal the responses I had, the perceived responses of the Spiritual Accompanier and anything that I feel was a “God moment.” The movement from one way of thinking to another can be analogised quite well, “But if I allow the good spirit of Peace and Quiet to drive the bus, it isn’t so distressing that Anger is a fellow passenger[8].” The Ignatian principle of eliminating disquietude or reducing it, or acknowledging disquietude is coming from the True Spirit but the being unable to let go of disquietude is from the False Spirit. Does that make it easier to work through when in the middle of something? The dough needs salt, the salt stops the yeast production at a certain point. Is there a need to have the False and True Spirits held not in balance but in sway; allowing the True Spirit feed my life more than the False and using the False Spirit to increase discernment and awareness of self?
Second Proving and Baking
For most people embarking on Spiritual Direction there is the process alone. However, this process is held within an academic module for the master’s programme of Applied Spirituality. There is therefore a need to step back and watch the interaction from another perspective in the room. When I imagine this I am perched on the huge gothic fireplace like a crow sits in a bare tree in winter. I observe the interaction, and I imagine. West states, “undergirding this capacity (deep listening) is a capacity to do one’s own personal work of introspection and identity awareness, growth, and integration that fosters the ability to draw good boundaries.[9]” As I reflect on my growing as a result of Spiritual Accompaniment and I look once more into the room I pray that the Spiritual Accompanier is also experiencing something of the love of God. Au states, “Dialoguing with others with whom we share faith and values provides a healthy check on our internal process, gives us a chance for feedback, and helps insure we do not slide down the slippery slope of self-deception.[10]” There is little in the frame of the Spiritual Accompanier that does not cry out “I am tired, I know well desolation.” I want to accompany them to the freedom I know in Christ. I wonder as I engage eagerly does he think that I am not earnest? West suggests helpfully, “We must always be mindful that the journey of spiritual direction is designed to be of mutual blessing for both director and directee[11],” and ends her essay with these awesome words, “it is an honor and a holy privilege to be invited into the circle of conversation with God and the one who shares the story, asks the questions, and yearns to notice the Spirit moving in their lives[12].” It is indeed an honour and such a privilege to look back even these scant months and see the change wrought in my heart.
What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought
Since Jesus came into my heart!
I have light in my soul for which long I had sought,
Since Jesus came into my heart!
Since Jesus came into my heart!
Since Jesus came into my heart!
Floods of joy o’er my soul like the sea billows roll,
Since Jesus came into my heart![13]
Word Count 1641
Bibliography
Lescher, Bruce H. “Spiritual Direction: Stalking The Boundaries” in Handbook Of Spirituality For Ministers, Volume 2: Perspectives For The 21st Century, Ed. Robert J. Wicks, New York: Paulist Press, 2000.
Thibodeaux, Mark E. God’s Voice Within: The Ignatian Way To Discover God’s Will, Chicago: Loyola Press, 2010.
Wesley, Susanna. Susanna Wesley, The Complete Writings. Ed. Charles Wallace, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
West, Ruth Takiko. “Who Do You Say I Am? Reflections On The Presence Of The Spirit.” In Kaleidoscope: Broadening The Palette In The Art Of Spiritual Direction. New York: Church Publishing, 2019.
Au, Wilkie. “Holistic Discernment” in Presence: International Journal Of Spiritual Direction Volume 11 No. 1 February 2005.
[1] Bruce H. Lescher, “Spiritual Direction: Stalking The Boundaries”in Handbook Of Spirituality For Ministers, Volume 2: Perspectives For The 21st Century, Ed. Robert J. Wicks, (New York: Paulist Press, 2000), 315-326
[2]Susanna Wesley, Susanna Wesley, The Complete Writings. Ed. Charles Wallace. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 234.
[3] Ibid 234
[4] Journal entry.
[5] Journal entry.
[6] Journal entry – Was it me? Was it my fault?
[7] Journal entry What can I change? Was it put in as an academic ruse? I am going to fail.
[8] Mark E. Thibodeaux, God’s Voice Within: The Ignatian Way To Discover God’s Will (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2010) 23.
[9] Ruth Takiko West, “Who Do You Say I Am? Reflections On The Presence Of The Spirit.” in Kaleidoscope: Broadening The Palette In The Art Of Spiritual Direction, ed. Ineda Pearl Adesanya, (New York: Church Publishing, 2019) 20-38
[10] Wilkie Au, “Holistic Discernment” in Presence: International Journal Of Spiritual Direction 11, no.1 (February 2005)
[11] Ruth Takiko West, “Who Do You Say I Am? Reflections On The Presence Of The Spirit.” in Kaleidoscope: Broadening The Palette In The Art Of Spiritual Direction, ed. Ineda Pearl Adesanya, (New York: Church Publishing, 2019) 20-38
[12] Ibid 36
[13] Hymn: What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought (hymnal.net)
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