SOULFRIENDING / SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE

In every religious tradition, there is the practice, in some form, of spiritual guidance being offered by those who have been on the spiritual path for some time to those starting out at a later time. Another way to put this is to say that a spiritual guide, or soulfriend (to use the beautiful Celtic term), accompanies the spiritual seeker or pilgrim on her or his path, a path with which the soulfriend is already to some extent familiar.

And where is the path going or leading? Very simply, the following of the path takes journeyers home: home to themselves, home to the body, home to their place in the world, home to God. Home and exile are recurrent themes in the spiritual journey, which is often better understood as the following of a spiral or labyrinthine path rather than a linear one. God, of course, is always present with us, whether we are in some form of exile or “at home.” But the longterm following of the path, in the experience of countless seekers through the ages, leads in a more conscious sense to God, “who is our home,” as William Wordsworth says in “Intimations of Immortality.” A beautiful recent book by Fiona Gardner, Journeying Home (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2004), explores the spiritual journey using this metaphor of home as its lead image.

Spiritual guidance, often also called spiritual direction, is neither counselling (which is crisis-oriented: crisis resolved, counselling ends), nor psychotherapy (most often oriented to pathology, at least in the first instance). Rather, it is a form of spiritual practice in which guide and guided together seek the unity of past, future and present in the life of the one guided. The term “direction” doesn’t mean that the director issues directives or gives directions on how to live; it means that together, director and directee seek the ongoing direction of the directee’s life before God.

I’ve been doing soulfriending now for twenty-five years, and have more time for it now that I am no longer teaching full time. Typically, I will see someone once a month (more often at the beginning) for about an hour. Once we decide mutually that there is a “fit” between us, we begin to travel together in the realms of the spiritual, which the way I use the word is equivalent to the human, and includes every dimension of life, not simply what is sometimes call the “inner” life.

I don't charge a fee as such, but I ask my directees to make an hour-for-hour donation after each session (an hour of their income for an hour of my time). Currently, I ask that this donation be made to the Building Bridges Project (see the Building Bridges page on my website for further information), via the InterSpiritual Centre, which has accepted Building Bridges as an affiliated program.

Once directees have agreed that our soulfriending relationship will be an ongoing one, they make a cheque out to the InterSpiritual Centre, c/o Mike Wellwood, Treasurer, Unit 100, 20626 Mufford Crescent, Langley, BC, V2Y 1N8. They then receive an income-tax receipt from the society in response to their donation.

If you wish to explore this with me, please phone me or send me an email. At the moment, I am not taking on any new directees. However, I am always ready to hear from you and to refer you to another spiritual director/soulfriend whom I respect.

“You speak in my heart and say, ‘Seek my face.’ Your face, [God], will I seek” (Psalm 27.11).