Workshops

The percent (%) figures following workshop descriptions indicate the relative percentage of presentation, discussion, and experiential activity.

Friday, April 9, Workshops: 1.25 Hours
(choose two and one alternative)

F1. Being Present to Silence
When a spiritual directee moves into the early stages of silence and contemplative prayer inevitable changes occur. Explore the invaluable gift of accompaniment a spiritual director offers. Together we will study and experience the ways people pray. A generous provision for personal silence and shared reflection is included. 50%, 25%, 25%

Canon Peter Ball, from Wiltshire, UK, is a spiritual director, retreat leader, and author of Introducing Spiritual Direction and Anglican Spiritual Direction. Following work at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, he now ministers in local Anglican parishes.

F2. Darkness and Tragedy: Occasions for Gratitude? (Workshop FULL)
Spiritual directors meet with people who suffer tragedy or great darkness. Our image of God and view of spiritual direction impacts how we tend others. Through input, case studies, and shared experience we will learn how to minister with greater effectiveness, asking “How do some become grateful for such tragedies?” 40%, 40%, 20%

William A. Barry, SJ, PhD, spiritual director, author, and director of Jesuit Tertianship at Campion Residence and Renewal Center, Massachusetts, USA. On the Editorial Review Panel of Presence journal, he is coauthor of The Practice of Spiritual Direction, and many books.

F3. Companioning the Dying: A Paradigm for Spiritual Direction (Workshop FULL)

“It is in my experiences of accompanying the dying that I have been brought most profoundly and consistently into the prayer of spiritual direction.” Explore how being present with the dying offers insights and learning for the ministry of spiritual direction. 33%, 33%, 33%

Rose Mary Dougherty, SSND, currently ministers to hospice caregivers and the dying. She serves as Senior Fellow of Shalem Institute and sensei (teacher) in the lineage of the White Plum Sangha. Author of two books and a DVD on group spiritual direction, she lives in Maryland, USA.

F4. Map Quest: Directing Those Unfamiliar with the Inner Journey (Workshop FULL)

As spiritual direction becomes widely known, seekers ranging from dedicated church-goers to those outside any faith tradition desire spiritual direction. Many are unfamiliar with the interior journey. We will develop tools for spiritual directees beginning the journey, explore potential dilemmas and pitfalls, and share our wisdom with one another. 33%, 33%, 33%

Suzanne Dunbar, MA, works in spiritual formation for the Uniting Church of Australia, and is a member of the Australian Ecumenical Council for Spiritual Direction. She is an experienced spiritual director, supervisor, teacher, and workshop presenter.

F5. Graced Limitations: Spiritual Practices for Living with Illness
Living with progressive, chronic, or terminal illness presents challenges and limitations that may also be the portals for compassion and gratitude. Participants will reflect on offering spiritual direction with everyone who lives with illness, and discover ways of supporting that journey. 33%, 33%, 33%

Mary C. Earle is an Episcopal priest, spiritual director and author of Days of Grace: Meditations and Practices for Living with Illness, and two other books on this subject. She teaches online spirituality electives at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Texas, USA.

F6. Soul Companioning: Henri Nouwen’s Integrated Approach (Workshop FULL)

Utilizing Henri Nouwen’s life example, we will take a good look at his holistic and integrated approach to companioning—whether as a spiritual friend, a guide, a mentor, or a spiritual director. We will learn what it means to be companioned and how to companion others on their journey. 55%, 30%, 15%

Wil Hernandez, PhD, resides in California, USA and authored Henri Nouwen: A Spirituality of Imperfection, and its companion sequel Henri Nouwen and Soul Care: A Ministry of Integration.

F7. Honoring the Journey: Grief and Loss in the Life of the Spiritual Director
Explore the variety of ways that we integrate our individual experiences of grief and loss. Utilizing art-journaling meditation, sharing, and contemplative listening, we hope to probe, honor, and illumine the challenges inherent in our own personal journey through grief, while illumining some consequences for our ministry of spiritual direction. 33%, 33%, 33%

Marianne Hieb, RSM, MFA, ATR, DMin, directs Lourdes’ Wellness Spirituality Program in Collingswood, New Jersey, USA. Artist, retreat director, and author of Inner Journeying through Art-Journaling, she writes articles on creativity and spiritual direction.

F8. Gratitude: Meister Eckhart’s Wisdom for the Spiritual Journey
We are called to be mystics and prophets, and Meister Eckhart offers guidance for our spiritual journey. We will look at the Four Paths or Moments of Eckhart’s model, and the implications for our ministry of spiritual companioning. 50%, 20%, 30%

Dr. Alexandra Kovats, CSJP, is adjunct professor in spirituality at Seattle University, Washington, USA, and a spiritual director and retreat facilitator in the United States, Canada, and beyond.

F9. Live Inside a Story! Do you know what story you're in? (Workshop FULL)

In Eastern Europe, Matrishka dolls nest inside one another. Our individual stories are like those tiny little ones nested in the larger ones.  We usually begin our stories from inside and then work our way up, but rarely out! What if we begin to look at our story in light of the larger, all- encompassing story: stories of the Trinity, the Universe, and the Spirit in the World? Perhaps then we will find ourselves hidden more securely and deeply in the heart of the mystery of God. 33%, 33%, 33%

Megan McKenna lives in New Mexico, USA, and is an internationally known author, theologian, storyteller, and lecturer. She holds graduate degrees from Catholic University, Washington, DC, USA, and the Graduate Theological Union, California , USA. But foremost she is a lover of words and how words both convert and transform us, bringing meaning and hope to our world.

F10. Mysticism and Social Justice: Walking on the Two Feet of Love (Workshop FULL)

Catherine of Siena’s felicitous phrase “walking on the two feet of love” describes the harmony of prayer and action in one’s life. This will be explored in the lives of Ignatius of Loyola, Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, and South African religious leaders Denis Hurley and Desmond Tutu, together with reflections on the Martha and Mary dilemma. 60%, 40%, 0%

Susan Rakoczy IHM, PhD, has worked in Africa since 1982 as a theologian and spiritual director. She is the author of Great Mystics and Social Justice: Walking on the Two Feet of Love.

F11. Jewish Approaches to Gratefulness through the Ages
Selected Jewish texts on the theme of gratitude will expand and enrich our understanding of how a spiritual practice of gratitude may be cultivated. We will study a sampling of passages from midrashim that interpret biblical stories, Jewish liturgy, law codes, medieval and modern poetry, kabbalistic and Hasidic texts, and Jewish ethical treatises. 40%, 40%, 20%

Rabbi Jacob J. Staub is Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Pennsylvania, USA where he directs the Program in Jewish Spiritual Direction.

F12. Art and Ecospirituality
Cultivating a grateful heart reconnects us to our wondrous, alive Universe and is an antidote to the fragmented, stressful lives we lead. A grateful heart can help spiritual directors overcome compassion fatigue stemming from being a witness to suffering. Learn experiential ways to ground yourself in gratitude through movement, art, poetry, connecting with nature, creative dialogue, and cocreated ritual. 20%, 40%, 40%

Pam Wood, MA, ATR, is an art therapist, spiritual director, and retreat facilitator living in Oregon, USA. She is coauthor of Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth.

Saturday, April 10, Workshops: 3 Hours
(choose one and one alternative)

S1. Gratefully at Home in the Body (Workshop FULL)
Examine a neuroscience model of spiritual practices as integration leading to embodied knowledge of ourselves as members within larger systems. Review cumulative neuroscience research to illustrate implications for discernment, spiritual practice, and spiritual direction. Using experiential exercises from Eastern, Western, and Indigenous traditions, we will explore different kinds of neuro-integration facilitated by various spiritual practices. 33%, 33%, 33%

Anne Benvenuti, PhD, Episcopal priest, is a visiting scholar at University of Chicago Divinity School and Georgetown University Medical School, USA. She has a depth of personal experience in three traditions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Shamanism.

Elizabeth Davenport, PhD, Dean of Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago, USA, oversees religious life with students, faculty, and community leaders of all world traditions.

S2. Unraveling the Mystery: Men’s Issues in Spiritual Direction (Workshop FULL)
Men have unique issues and ways of being on the spiritual journey. Presentations and opportunities for conversation will assist spiritual directors of both genders to listen to the journey of God from the male experience. Male issues and ways of offering spiritual direction with men will be specifically addressed. 33%, 33%, 33%

Don Bisson, FMS, DMin, is a Marist Brother who presents nationally and internationally on topics in spiritual direction. He has a Doctor of Ministry in spiritual direction and Jungian psychology, and lives in New York, USA.

S3. Grateful For Our Differences: Walking the Talk Takes Courage
Although gratitude is part of many faith traditions and cultures, we express it in different ways. Differences in race, religion, gender, and sexual identity influence how people express and practice gratitude. How do differences inspire a gratefulness practice, inform our social justice activism, and invite us into deeper relationship with God, ourselves, and each other? 25%, 25%, 50%

Karen L. Erlichman, MSS, LCSW, is a psychotherapist, spiritual director, and Director of Jewish Mosaic in California, USA. She is a facilitator with the Center for Courage and Renewal.

S4. Living in Liminal Space: Giving Thanks for Everything, Giving Thanks for Nothing (Workshop FULL)
Liminal space is the time between the last-known past and the not-yet future. Whether due to illness, trauma, loss, or maturing process, liminal space is a time of uncertainty and can challenge trust. Exploring Judeo-Christian mysticism and wisdom, attention is given to understanding specific ways spiritual directors can accompany people to live with thanks during liminal space experiences. 50%, 25%, 25%

Dr. Bob Gardenhire III, minister, therapist, and spiritual director is the founding Director of HeartPaths Spirituality Centre of Oklahoma City and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, USA where he has trained spiritual directors since 1982.

S5. Awakening the Creative Spirit: Expressive Arts and Spiritual Direction (Workshop FULL)
The expressive arts honor the multiple ways of knowing available to us and use different art modalities to grow in awareness of the sacred dimension of experience. Together we will engage simple, yet profound, ways of using art-making, writing, voice, and movement as practical tools that can be used in spiritual direction. 25%, 25%, 50%

Betsey Beckman, MM, and Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, live in Washington, USA, and are coauthors of Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Expressive Arts to Spiritual Direction published by Morehouse Press for the Spiritual Directors International book series.

S6. Gratitude for Our Living and Our Dying
Death can be a mirror revealing to us the very meaning of life itself. Through lecture, discussion, and gentle experiential work, we invite light into this mystery that awaits us at the end of life. There is a hidden gift in this sacred, heart centered work: as we consciously prepare for our dying, we inevitably and profoundly transform our living. 50%, 25%, 25%

John Pollard, MA, spiritual director and psychotherapist, teaches at the Transformational Arts College in Ontario, Canada. He is a social researcher at York University, and long time volunteer at Casey House Hospice in Toronto, Ontario.

S7. Love Mysticism and Spiritual Direction II: Gertrude of Helfta and Sufi Poets
What is love mysticism and how does it relate to deeper intimacy with God? How do we companion people when they experience God as their “Beloved?” We will examine women’s experience of this phenomenon as well as the Sufi approach to love mysticism through Rumi and Hafiz. 50%, 50%, 0%

Dr. Janet Ruffing, RSM, is Professor in Spirituality and Spiritual Direction at Fordham University, Bronx, New York, USA. She is the author of two books on spiritual direction and more than eighty articles.

S8. Mirroring in Movement and Melody: Exploring the Neurological Ground of Compassion and Listening
Research on mirror neurons and the neurology of compassion combine with discoveries of the common roots of music, dance, and speech in human consciousness. We will practice mirroring through call and response singing, and simple Aikido-based imitative movements. With a heightened readiness for compassionate hearing, we will listen to one another speak our experience of the Holy. 20%, 15%, 65%

Donald Schell, Episcopal priest and Aikido black belt launched All Saints Company’s national music workshops and publication, Music By Heart, in order to recover traditional singing methods to build community and liturgy.  

S9. Cancelled

S10. Interspiritual and Multifaith Spiritual Direction (Workshop FULL)
What are the implications of our assumptions when we move in the world of metaphor, ritual, prayer, and meaning-making? How do we open to God’s presence and flow as inclusive spiritual directors with whomever we share the journey? We will explore new paradigms in interspiritual and interfaith spiritual formation and spiritual direction. 33%, 33%, 33%
 
Carol A. Fournier, NCC, is cofounder of the Silver Dove Institute in Vermont, USA. Since 1996, she has offered formation for Interfaith spiritual directors, guides, counselors, educators and ministers. She is writing materials for publication in the areas of Interfaith spiritual formation.




 
Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit has offered spiritual direction at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the Aleph Spiritual Directors Training Program in Pennsylvania, USA. Author and recording artist, Shawn is a congregational consultant, Kabbalistic healer, and Codirector of the Davennen Leaders Training Institute.