Spiritual Guidance Program: Testimonials
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Apprecation from our Graduates
Living With Greater Attention
by Karen Lewis Foley
The Spiritual Guidance Program, I found myself telling people when it was over, has been the single most enriching continuing education experience in all my years in ministry (at that time, sixteen). The residencies in particular, nine days each, thirteen months apart, grounded, stretched and shrank me, deepening my personal life, my spiritual practice, my pastoral ministry, and my spiritual direction practice. During those nine days we attended seminars together, prayed and meditated, journaled, talked, and observed a 36-hour silent sabbath with an ecumenical communion service. These two times away fed and grew me in ways I never imagined, and they will be with me for the rest of my life.
Now the curious part. Always a committed student who does things by the book, I thought I was going to Shalem to "learn how to do spiritual direction." I expected to learn helpful techniques, which I could apply not only to spiritual direction but to my pastoral care ministry. But I was surprised. Through the wisdom of the staff and the grace of my fellow "learners," through the practice of deeply communicative silence, and through the reading, writing and reflection processes, I was given space and even encouraged to rest fully, engage deeply, and grow in prayer.
It wasn't, I began to see, as much about "learning" content and ideas as about deepening my own spiritual life and allowing my direction practice to come from that deepened place. It wasn't really at all about technique, but about attitude. And it turned out to affect not only how I practice spiritual direction but how I approach pastoral care. I found myself listening in a new way to the people who talked to me about the stuff of their lives. It continues to affect, in fact, just about everything, as long as I don't "fall asleep" in the midst of life's sometimes swirling attachments. It was really about learning a way to live with greater attention, trust and freedom. Which, while nothing changes, changes everything.
Karen, a Unitarian Universalist minister and spiritual director, is a graduate of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Class of Winter 2004 and is currently enrolled in Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups & Retreats Programs Class of 2009.
A Dancing Path
by Tony Sayer
I'm writing, as it happens, on the second anniversary of the "silent Sabbath" of my first Spiritual Guidance Program residency. When I first went off to that residency, I naively thought I was going to learn new skills and perhaps acquire some new insights, so I was unprepared for the journey on which I soon found myself embarked: a blessed but exacting path of transformation and conversion. It has been a time of ordinary moments brimming with the presence of God. A time of long-settled resistances falling away, of precious and enduring friendships formed, of joys and griefs mingled together. It has been a time of the silence of God and waiting on God being more deeply understood and fully appropriated as themselves means of grace, and it has been a time of wild and improbable dancing.
Tony Sayer, a United Methodist pastor, is a graduate of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Class of Winter 2006.
Meditation on Group Meditation
by Peg Robarchek
Minding my own business,
position nine o'clock in the circle,
window view.
Following directions:
Back straight not rigid,
feet flat, palms up, eyes glazed,
when the energy
sweeps me up,
overturning my mindset
and I am empty, yet full
of space, of presence. Full
of the Source
of all that energy, spilled
like so much odorless, colorless
noise pooled into Silence
and redrawing our boundaries.
For more details about the program including at-home work, residency topics, peer groups and other program components, you can download a detailed program brochure (PDF) here.
If you would like to apply for this program, contact Christine Jeffrey This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it the Program Registrar at 301-897-7334 or download the application form (PDF) now.