Frequently asked questions.
In Spiritual Direction, I am with you as you listen to the still small voice calling to you directly. My role is to hold space for what is emerging in your direct experience.
Here are some ways I hold space: presence, listening, mirroring, and guiding a gentle excavation of your experience. I keep an eye on our pace, so we don’t overwhelm your nervous system. We can also sit in silence together.
I can guide you in a practice during our session, or we can explore practices for you to try in between sessions. You can share what you are noticing, reading, learning, and listening to, and explore why it resonates and what it might be calling forth. You can ask questions.
What we do in spiritual direction is very ordinary — we open to the present moment and the familiar flow of relating — yet each session is an act of embodied hope.
Am I welcome in spiritual direction if I don’t know what I believe?
The soul is a seed. Spiritual direction is a fertile atmosphere to nourish and develop that seed. It is a relational field that does not center beliefs or doctrine, spacious enough to hold you exactly as you, to accompany you as you stretch into the full expression of your nature.
This steady relational ground is a wide place for presence to obscurity, pain, longing, wonder, delight, and intuitive sensing.
When we earnestly seek, we will find, but not directly or finally. Becoming who we are is a lifelong process.
These words from the Gospel of Thomas represent the non-linearity of the spiritual journey…
“If you are searching, you must not stop until you find. When you find, however, you will become troubled. Your confusion will give way to wonder. In wonder you will reign over all things. Your sovereignty will be your rest.”
How do you view spirituality?
Here are some words I’ve written about my evolving faith and spirituality.
Something Else: A Spiritual Director on Holding Obscurity and Disorientation
Moving Through a Dark Night of the Soul: A Spiritual Director Holds Space for Obscurity
Life is Hard: A Spiritual Director on Holding Complexities + Contradictions
Please Tell Me What To Do: The Gift of *Not* Receiving What I Thought I Wanted in Spiritual Direction (This is an early post that will give you a feel for the foundations I’ve been building on.)
I am experimenting with new ways of creating and sharing: On Substack at Faint Outlines and on YouTube on Creative Sessions.
What is spiritual direction like?
Who are your teachers?
Wisdom is not ever abstract or static. Every bit of wisdom I offer and embody has flowed through other beings.
There are folks whose wisdom we recognize interiorly and are drawn to. They are like homing beacons, vessels that wisdom flows through. They become our teachers, whether in person or from afar. Our inklings and intuitions take root and mature as teachers provide shelter and nourishment.
Cynthia Bourgeault says, “There is a deep and pristinely clear ‘something’ in each one of us, regardless of the outer circumstances of our lives, that has the capacity to recognize Wisdom when we meet it, and it is the nature of Wisdom teaching to call this ‘something’ forth. But until the spark of recognition actually goes off in us, Wisdom remains invisible.”
These are the teachers who have called forth this ‘something’ in me.
Rev. Dr. Shannon Michael Pater
Cynthia Bourgeault
Heather Ruce
Are there other spiritual directors or“spacious accompany-ers” you recommend?
I’m so glad you asked! Here is a starting place for your exploration:
Chad Glazener | Contemplative Exploration | Portland, OR & Online | Through a process of deep listening and co-exploration, I paint original abstract art to help you navigate thresholds in your life: seasons of transition, change, and becoming.
Katie Morales | Spiritual Direction | Beaverton, OR & Online
Carin Huebner | Creative Coaching | Denver, CO & Online
Amy Sytsma | Soul Care and Accompaniment | Grand Rapids, MI & Online
Court VonLindern | Spiritual Accompaniment | Online | For wonderers and wanderers of the margins.
Heather Berndt | Spiritual Direction, Soul Care, and Expressive Arts | Spokane, WA & Online
Kaysie Strickland | Listening House | Spiritual Direction & Retreats | Chatanooga, TN & Online
Dr. Shannon Michael Pater | Notice The Journey | Trauma-Integrating Spiritual Direction, Supervisor, and Teacher | Online
"The people who help us grow toward true self offer unconditional love, neither judging us to be deficient nor trying to force us to change, but accepting us exactly as we are. And yet this unconditional love does not lead us to rest on our laurels. Instead, it surrounds us with a charged force field that makes us want to grow from the inside out—a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires."
-Parker A. Palmer in A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life