What is spiritual direction?
In his book The Practice of Spiritual Direction, William Barry describes spiritual direction as “help given by one believer to another that enables the latter to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with God and to live the consequences of the relationship.” In spiritual direction, the goal is not so much to understand God better but to engage in relationship and enter into dialogue with God. Of course, the real spiritual director is God; the human director helps a person respond to God’s invitation to a deeper relationship. In a nutshell, a spiritual director helps a person pray–in and out of formal times of prayer.
Who is a candidate for spiritual direction?
Anyone who desires to grow in their relationship with God would do well in spiritual direction. However, there is often some sort of catalyst. For instance, a person may have an important decision to make and want to discern that decision with God. A person may be having difficulty generally in praying and connecting with God or may be in a particularly challenging life circumstance and want to see where God is in it. The important thread is that the person seeking spiritual direction is experiencing the desire to engage more with God, whether that is around a particular purpose or not, whether prayer is consoling, a struggle, or even painful.
Spiritual Directors :
Allison de Laveaga: allison@delaveaga.com
Meeting Location: Berkeley Covenant Church, 1632 Hopkins Street in Berkeley
Sharon Henthorn-Iwane: sharon@prayericons.com
Meeting Location: Zoom Meetings.
Sharon is also offering Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life
Sr. Mary Pat White: mwhite@rscj.org
Meeting Location: 2542 Hilgard Avenue in Berkeley
The suggested payment/donation is $50-$75 per session. However, a sliding scale is available and no one is ever turned away for lack of funds. Payment/Donations are arranged with the individual directors.
