Holy Listening : The Art of Spiritual Direction

Margaret Guenther uses the images of the spiritual director as host, teacher, and midwife to describe the ministry of spiritual direction today. Guenther uses the images of the spiritual director as host, teacher, and midwife to describe the ministry of spiritual direction today. She pays particular attention to spiritual direction for women, and addresses such down-to-earth questions as setting, time, and privacy. The stories of real people bring the practice of spiritual direction alive. In the pages that follow, I will attempt to describe the shape that spiritual direction might take for people of our time, aware that the subject is an elusive one. I am speaking to the beginner, those persons lay or ordained, with or without formal theological training, who find themselves drawn to this ministry. Perhaps they feel the stirring of their own unacknowledged gifts. Or perhaps they wonder about receiving direction, whether it is a ministry available to ordinary people' or reserved for the especially holy. I hope some dark corners will be illuminated and some questions answered. Describes The Role And Practice Of A Spiritual Director As Distinct From Pastoral Care And From Psychotherapy. Compares The Spiritual Director To A Midwife For The Soul, Describing Actions Of Teaching Prayer And Offering Exercise Suggestions. Holy Listening -- Welcoming The Stranger -- Good Teachers -- Midwife To The Soul -- Women And Spiritual Direction. Margaret Guenther ; [preface By Alan Jones]. Includes Bibliographical References.