Southeastern Pennsylvania Spring Gathering…Age-ing to Sage-ing

Beth Abbott, Planning Committee Reporter

Our culture seems to encourage denial of aging. One has only to turn on the TV or radio for a few moments to hear ways we can continue to look and feel young. We seem to have lost the ability to value wrinkles and gray hair and the wisdom that comes with them.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller have written an engaging book entitled Age-ing to Sage-ing…A Profound New Vision of Growing Older. The book is designed to assist those over 50 to connect with their spirit in new and more integrated ways, to find a meaning and purpose for the “Fall and Winter” of life, and to honor one’s inner wisdom. This process empowers one in letting go of the pain of the past and working towards transformation of oneself and the world. The authors call this spiritual eldering.

After a brief overview by presenters Sandi Cohen and Catherine Coleman, each participant was invited to enter into exercises from the book. First, we looked at the messages we have internalized about aging from our culture. Then we were invited to create an image in our minds of what our ideal elder would be like and to imagine going through a day as that elder. We shared with a partner what that would look like and how we felt as we imagined that as our reality.

Sandi Cohen (left) and Catherine Coleman (right) lead a discussion.

Part of the work of spiritual eldering is looking back to honor who we have become and the gifts we have brought to the world, called “harvesting our life.” In order to do this, however, we must first let go of the pain of the past. The tool used for this exercise invited us to hold a testimonial dinner for our severe teachers. We opened ourselves to a person or event that we found painful and wrote what it was that was so difficult and painful. Then, we stopped to reframe the event by exploring how this event has benefitted us. We asked ourselves: What was the unexpected blessing? For what am I now grateful? One person in our group shared that she had been forced from a job she loved by her boss. By looking at these questions, she found that it had moved her to a new place of fulfillment that she might not have pursued otherwise.

Southeastern Pennsylvania spiritual directors.

We hear a lot in the media about how the aging of the population is going to tax our nation’s resources. By fostering spiritual eldering, we can create a legacy of wisdom for others that will enrich individuals, communities, our nation and our world. We can face our mortality with dignity and a sense of purpose.

A beautiful conference in Budapest organized by Spiritual Directors in Europe

Thank you for sharing photos to:

Gisela Heitz from the Czech Republic.

Gideon van Dam from the Netherlands

Mikko Peura from Finland

UK Spiritual Director January 2007 Gathering

Australia Spiritual Director July 2006 Gatherings

For a closer look at the Melbourne, Australia July 2006 Gathering, click here.

For a closer look at the Sydney, Australia July 2006 Gathering, click here. 

Gathering at Wellspring

On June 21, 2006, several spiritual directors gathered at Wellspring in Germantown, Pennsylvania, USA. The meeting was co-facilitated by Shalem Institute Director of the Spiritual Guidance Program, Martha Campbell and Ann Kline. Carol Marozzi, and Liz Ellmann co-hosted a reception following the day of spiritual director renewal.  

From the journal of Ann Kulp:

Opening the Gate

The path led among tall trees
with brown crunchy leaves beneath,
and then - an opening,
a spot of ground overflowing with green,
and an almost imperceptible tall black wire fence.
A wooden swing inside and the mystery of
keeping out - keeping in …
but then - a gate…
and a sign - no, two signs:
an explanation and a prayerful invitation.
I was drawn to lift the bar.
I entered - I sat - I read - I gazed - I savored...
and then felt an urge to reach for my camera
to take a photo of the swing,
    then the gate with its postings,
    then the bird bath and feeder,
    then the view from the swing,
    then the blooming Easter lilies!
    and then the birds who came visiting.
No, I was unable to capture the soft breezes
that arose to awaken me to life and breath,
or the very young fawn who scampered nearby.
But I had opened the gate
    to simple beauty,
    to sacred space,
    and to an appreciation of growth,
    the greening of all things, "me too."

(With thanks to Hildegard and Theophane the Monk)

(A story by Theophane had been read to us [in the] morning; it ended with “me too.”)

Sign On the Garden Gate at Wellspring

Pause friend, and read, before you enter here.
This black deer-fence encloses holy ground.
Herein a brand-new garden dreams of coming years
Steeped in serene, sweet light and muted sound.
Herein tranquility and peace abide,
For God walks here at cool of eventide.
Pause friend, and strip from out your heart
All vanity, all bitterness, all hate;
Quench for this hour the fever of your fears.
Then, treading softly, pass within the gate.
Here where the ancient trees stand hushed and still,
May you find God and listen for God’s will.

Pearl Council Hiatt

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Marin Regional Gathering

Barbara Alexander

January 21, 2006 — The Marin, California, USA, gathering was a day-long workshop presented by Rev. Marjorie Hoyer Smith who is a spiritual director with the Bread of Life Center for Spiritual Formation in Davis, California. The event was hosted by San Francisco Theological Seminary’s Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction program. The directors of the DASD graciously offered us space on campus. Since the event was held during this program’s January intensive, a number of the students took advantage of our invitation that they join us. We had only six directors from our region but were joined by three from other regions. In additional we had students from three Spiritual Direction training programs, fourteen students from San Francisco Theological Seminary, one from the Mercy Center in Burlingame, California, and three from the Bread of Life in Davis, California.

The topic for the day was bio-spiritual focusing, a method Rev. Hoyer Smith incorporated into her ministry of spiritual direction many years ago. The group was very enthusiastic to the introduction to this process of deep listening within. It was suggested that we make the Marin gathering an annual event during the January intensive at SFTS.

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Spiritual Direction in Time

by Jeanette Zamrzla

    Twelve votive candles formed a circular, clocklike arrangement around a single, slender candle poised at center. Eleven spiritual directors gathered around this table as prepared by Carol Mullikin, Regional Coordinator for Southern Kansas USA Region (28.2), on Saturday, January 21, 2006. The formation seemed to offer symbolic testi-mony to kairos and chronos time as each person in attendance added light with the placement of a candle and the sharing of their own reflections. The topic of discussion was Jane Schulte’s article from the Presence journal (December 2005) on “Witnessing the Emergence of a Split in Spiritual Direction.”

    The article from Jane Schulte afforded opportunity for “self-definition” as spiritual directors. For some, the author’s descriptors were received as gift for naming their own contemplative ministry. Several members of the group declared this to be one of the best articles in Presence for such insight.
    Schulte holds up silence. She invites us to prepare the table for the feast. Then, she assures us that we can step back; God is attending. We need not fear. As contem-platives, we can know that we are companioning God and will thus suffer with God. We can respond to the silence and allow our spiritual lives to be formed in that journey. To have “no place” in the world might be to find place in God. Will this gift be received by the church? How do we witness this? Is a contemplative stance the only requirement for spiritual direction? Might directors also benefit from an understanding of their own faith tradition and theology? Are insights in these areas also valued? How does Schulte give witness to these important dimensions?
    There was a general appreciation for Schulte’s call to take notice and be aware. Many echoed Schulte's concerns. Questions surfaced: In community, has discernment moved from charism to measurable skill-set? Is there an attempt to develop a charism, to legitimize it with a piece of paper? To what extent could formal training be a set-back? Should we be uncomfortable with the encroachment of a therapeutic model for being “fixed,” not just in spiritual direction as ‘directee,’ but also in supervision as ‘direc-tor’? Does the "verbatim model" of supervision automatically eliminate contemplative listening? Might the Holy Spirit work in both? Does she set up polarities of 'either-or' that could be 'both-and'? How does the spiritual life coaching model surface as we listen in spiritual direction? Are we perceiving the dualities cross-culturally, not just in psychology and spiritual direction, but in the great faith traditions, with gender issues as well as within a multitude of other topics? What is the significance of this for our time?

     All in attendance seemed grateful for the opportunity of dialogue afforded by Schulte’s article. How is God at work through psychological counseling, pastoral care and spiritual guidance? The article brought clarity out of confusion with the call to con-templative “peer support." Such support can minimize the possibility of “power over” situations that possibly muddy the waters with method and psychological analysis. The hope is that no one need join the list of those identified by Schulte as "recovering" from a training program that has focused on the guide.
     In the decision to come together in the Southern Kansas Region, to share the si-lence in “peer support,” to discuss potential controversy or concern, to name and clarify, we recognize this topic as worthy of discourse, and affirm indeed that spiritual direction is to be realized as an important part of that which is relevant for spiritual formation . . . and in this time.

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October 2005 Coordinating Council Gathering

David Liedl, TOR (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA), Carol Ludwig (Vero Beach, Florida, USA), Christine Head, RSCJ, (London, England), Rev. Bob Gardenhire (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA - Treasurer), Jim Keegan, SJ (Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA - Secretaray), Cathy Murtha, DW (Bloomfield, Connecticut, USA - President), Bobbi Breitman, (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA).

 

During the October 2005 Coordinating Council meeting of Spiritual Directors International three new servant leaders were welcomed: Jewish member Bobbi Breitman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Sacred Heart Sister Christine Head from London, England, and Franciscan Brother David Liedl from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Bobbi wrote a reflection about community that captured the heart of the Spiritual Directors International Coordinating Council meeting during which the organization’s mission statement was reviewed and reassessed:

 

Community

 

This vast, abundant earth

is crying out like a wounded animal…

Listen!

Can we hear the cries?

 

Life is pushing up

through every opening in human consciousness

she can find.

A great surge of Life howling to be saved.

 

I understand this morning

amidst these towering trees and fragile flowers

so magnificent they make my heart ache,

the prophetic voice cries out

 

simply in agony,

overwhelmed by beauty,

unconcerned about nuance or detail:

Wake up! Listen!

 

The strategists and statisticians,

the armies of thinkers, movers and shakers

need to fill in the blanks.

The prophet’s cry is simple:

Wake up! Precious life is dying!

 

I understand this morning why prophets are killed.

Their mission is not to craft the nuanced document

to discern if the other who they face

intends good or evil.

 

The prophet stands in the face of it all

with purity of vision, seeing how Life is meant to be,

hoping to awaken Life wherever it is,

to heed the call.

 

We are at a moment

when God speaks not through a lonely prophet

but pushing up through our bodies

through the soul of community.

 

The call is to join hands

to form a circle of diversity

to reach out and gather in

to show in word and deed and action

 

Together we are the Life of the world!