Once a month I spend an hour with my spiritual director. I’m usually running late. She expects this and gives me time to settle in with a drink of water or a cup of tea. We begin with a prayer. My feet firmly on the ground, I know that this is a space for me to drink and eat.
I share what’s been going on for me. Work, personal life, the whole lot. Frustrations, joys, things that confuse me or bring me hope. Then together we consider a bible passage to dive into. Often my spiritual director will suggest one or two texts that have come to mind and I can choose which one I feel pulled into. Sometimes it’s something familiar, sometimes a place I don’t know so well.
We read the passage together from two different translations of the Bible. I listen to her reading the passage. She listens to me. I usually take my Canvas Bible, which uses the Message translation and has drawings to colour. It takes my head out of the version I usually use for work and encourages playfulness. Often I will go home and spend a bit of time colouring the image whilst meditating on what has emerged with my spiritual director.
After we have both read the passage, we share what we have each noticed resonating with what I have shared of my life already. Sometimes it is confirmation. Sometimes a door opens to something I haven’t been aware of. Sometimes it is firm in instruction. Often it is gentle in care.
Before I leave I am prayed for once again. Blessed on my way. I drink it in. I know she prays for me every day.
Journeying with someone else gives some accountability for my spiritual growth. My spiritual director reflects back patterns that emerge. She can spot pendulum swings. She can see movement and change that I might not notice. She brings and uncovers joy.
I meet with someone from a different denomination. A religious sister. She is not my age or my nationality. She has no desire other than to know that I am meeting with God and to support me to do that in whatever way she can.
I’ve had a spiritual accompaniment since I was 22. First a religious sister who lived in a high rise flat in Glasgow. I was not enjoying the youth ministry I was engaged in, and I remember experiencing the transformation of the insights gained. It was noticeable to others that this change had happened in me.
Since then I have had three other spiritual directors. Each sent for a particular time and season in my life to journey with me. One throughout my training and probation to become a full-time minister of word and sacrament, and one who journeyed through my first parish with me and now one in my current parish.
Each director has provided me with a safe space to seek God honestly. They have supported me through challenges with prayer and bible passages. They seek out abundant life with me and see that ministry does not overcome me. I truly value their questions and wisdom and companionship in exploration of challenges and wonderings that I encounter.
My spiritual director is an invisible part of my support system to many, but a hugely important one. Our monthly meetings keep me grounded in God and able to voice difficulties and puzzles that are not easy to share with many in my role as a parish minister. It is one of the few places I can turn up entirely as myself, I don’t need to prepare for getting there and I don’t need to lead or take responsibility for anyone but myself in this space. A true oasis.
Rev Sarah Brown
StMachar’s Cathederal, Aberdeen
