presencepresence

Interspiritual Spiritual Direction • Interview with Rose Mary Dougherty, SSND

Jewish Spiritual Direction • Spiritual Exercises and the Environment

An internAtionAl journAl of spirituAl direction • Vol. 14, no. 1 • MArch 2008

1Volume 14 No. 1 • March 2008

presenceAn internAtionAl journAl of spirituAl direction

aRTICLESWhat to expect in interspiritual spiritual direction

Freya Secrest and Suzanne A. Fageol

Being present: An interview with rose Mary dougherty, ssnd

Bob Gardenhire III and Carol Ludwig

May Their Memory Be for a Blessing: A report on jewish spiritual direction

Groups for the Grieving Chaya Gusfield

listening the other into free speech Mary Sharon Moore

self-emptying love in a Global context: The spiritual exercises and the environment Robert T. Sears, SJ, and Joseph A. Bracken, SJ

The spiritual direction of Adult children of Alcoholics Richard Edmund Pigott, CFC

FEaTuRES

Focus

About Our Authors

Readers Respond

About Our Poets and Artists

Reviews

Poetry

nocturnal Roger Midgett

The clarity of My confusion Diane Elayne Dees

March Morning song Hannah Thomassen

Reflection

joy in the furnace Michael Rogers

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Listening lies at the heart of spiritual direction. Yet what are we really listening to, and what are we listening for? and what do directees hope to gain from all our listening? partly, it’s the freedom to be heard.

in a recent conversation, a phrase sparked my imagination: “listening the other into free speech.” listening the other into free speech is the work of spiritual direction—beyond any legal right to free speech. the distinction between freedom of speech, as popularly understood, and freedom to speak the truth of one’s being is the distinction between my right to make noise and an abiding interior freedom given to me by the other—freedom to be heard, received, freedom to hear and receive God’s calling in my life.

in spiritual direction, this work of “listening the other into free speech” includes lis-tening through all the layers of anger and hopelessness, misper-ception, and false self with patience, humility, and sur-render of the urge to be helpful.

kinds of Speechin noting “free speech,” we acknowledge other kinds

of speech that enter into the spiritual direction session. (spiritual directors may be as conversant in these forms of speech as their directees.) What are they?

Empty speech is the endless, mindless chatter that fills every pocket of silence. the ubiquitous cell phone now brings empty speech to every square inch of the planet’s inhabited space. At best, empty speech is a benign dis-traction.

False speech reveals a disconnection between one’s inner self and outer response, treasonous speech that betrays one’s inner experience. false speech scenarios can go something like this: He, lonely, middle-aged, balding, and with diminishing prospects, says, “Will you marry me?” she thinks to herself: “i’m 42. i can’t go on waiting

and wondering any longer, but is this what i am supposed to settle for?” And she says, “Yes.” or the directee, losing the battle with cancer, insists: “i’ve got to be strong for my family. i can’t show weakness. they need me to be strong.” false speech all of it, betraying the inner self.

Unfree speech speaks the prolonged, profound pain of one’s spiritual and emotional unfreedom, often revealing victimhood long trapped in blame and unabated anger or a heart hardened against divine grace. unfree speech comes out in phrases like, “i refuse…,” “i can’t…,” “i will never….”

of these three forms of speech, unfree speech is the most spiritually perilous, since it leaves little

room for God’s movement. unfree speech signals a radi-cal break in that most delicate and enduring of relationships, woven of the fine thread of sheer faith in what, or Who, is unseen. unfree speech begs for liberation from the shackles of hopelessness.

Free speech, conversely, reveals the authentic self-in-God. spiritually free speech honors the complexity and mystery of one’s self and circumstances in life. in the presence of deep listening, the spiritually free person can speak the incongruence between one’s poverties and God’s love, one’s sinfulness and divine mercy, one’s small-heartedness and God’s persistent generosity. free speech is the hallmark of the spiritually mature or maturing person who lives faithfully and fruitfully in the midst of spiritual paradox.

free speech reveals an interior centeredness in God and freedom to participate in the divine mystery as it unfolds in the course of one’s life. spiritually free speech reveals an interior joy and affirmation of life, oftentimes despite the evidence. Martin luther King jr. inspired thousands with his powerful words, “free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” Was he free? spiritually, yes, and therefore his words were compelling. Yet he and those he sought to rally with hope were unfree in the tor-tuous circumstances imposed on their lives.

Listening the Other into Free Speech Mary Sharon Moore

Listening the other into free speech

is the work of spiritual direction.

30 Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction

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Free Speech and the Maturing Selffree speech emerges in the experience of being deeply heard. one becomes

free to hold the paradoxes of life-in-God because one’s words are reverently received. deep listening helps directees to describe a reality of which they perhaps were unaware. When free speech is evoked by deep listening through layers of pain, confusion, and anger, the spiritual director becomes the bearer of the gift of freedom, enabling the other to abide in God.

the effects of being listened into freedom are fourfold, suggest francis Kelly nemeck, oMi, and Marie theresa coombs in The Way of Spiritual Direction.1 A first effect of spiritually free speech is what the authors describe as self-intimacy, the ability to listen to oneself in all the facets of one’s life, enabling mature relationship with others and creative interaction with one’s world. A second effect of spiritually free speech is the ability to lovingly embrace one’s uniqueness. listening the directee into the freedom to express one’s God-given goodness, beauty, and truth opens the directee to a fresh understanding of self-worth. A third effect of spiritually free speech is a free-dom to listen to the other. listening becomes an act of love, as one sets aside personal interest to receive the gift of the other. A fourth effect of spiritually free speech is a deeper capacity to listen to God. this is the desired fruit of spiri-tual direction: not only spiritual director listening to directee and directee lis-tening with ever-growing freedom to spiritual director, but the two, together, listening to God, waiting attentively on the small, sure stirring of the spirit. these four effects of spiritually free speech create the conditions in which the directee becomes a mature self-in-God.

this radical freedom is not merely for those who feel moved to seek it out. this maturing of self through the freedom to be heard is absolutely necessary to sustain meaningful and worthy relations between individuals, within and among cultures and societies, and between humankind and all creation. from domestic violence to ethnic intolerance, from acts of terror to fear-driven war, the world in all its peoples desperately needs to be listened into freedom to speak its original grace and purpose. unknowingly, perhaps, humankind clamors to be liberated from the sheer noise of empty speech, the false speech that betrays the inner self, and the unfree speech of acute spiritual alienation and pain. the current “culture wars” in American society and the increasing polarization within religious denominations all point to the urgent need for our liberation from unfree speech in order to find authentic expression of what is most noble, worthy, unitive, and life-affirming.

Charisms in the Spiritual Director that Evoke Free Speechin many areas of ministry, intense training is required to develop skill in

listening. still, a spiritual director may not have those charisms, or gifts of the spirit given solely for the good of others, which bring about extraordinary results through listening. charisms grow most fruitfully in the spiritual soil of prayer and faithfulness to one’s own call to holiness. charisms ideally found in a spiritual director include any of the following:

Free speech

emerges in the experience

of being deeply heard. One becomes

free to hold the paradoxes of life-in-God

because one’s words are reverently received.

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“facing faces” — Kathryn field

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❋ Encouragement: the charism by which one detects when another is not interiorly free to be oneself. When the charism of encouragement is present in spiritual directors, then through their words, listening, and presence others become interiorly free to say what needs to be said.

❋ Hospitality: the charism by which one sees how the other needs to feel at home and to experience a sense of welcome and inclusion. When the charism of hospitality is present in spiritual directors, then through their atten-tiveness to others’ needs, others feel welcomed.

❋ Mercy: the charism by which one recognizes the dignity and worth of the other, especially in the other’s state of unfreedom. When the charism of mercy is present in spiritual directors, then the other will experience dig-nity and worth through their simple acts of compassion.

❋ Wisdom: the charism by which one quickly observes the situation of another from the other’s perspec-tive and accurately diagnoses what practical things need to be done to alleviate the pain or remedy the situation. When the charism of wisdom is present in spiritual direc-tor, the other will sense a “right diagnosis” and feel free to take positive steps.

When these charisms are present, the spiritual director will not be simply encouraging, hospitable, merciful, or wise in the usual sense. something extraordinary comes about that can be explained only as a movement of the spirit through the spiritual director for the immediate relief and good of the directee. if a charism is present, the spiritual directors will observe these results on a con-sistent basis. over time, spiritual directors may discover that they are intuitively sought out by the persons most needing to benefit from their charisms.

Being a spiritual director does not mean that one has these particular charisms, nor can they be attained through study, training, or prayer. they are gifts; either they are given or not. spiritual directors may have an entirely different set of charisms and be somewhat helpful to others, but deep down they may feel drawn to some other form of ministry or mission in which those particu-lar charisms can be animated and fruitfully expressed.

practical ways to Evoke Spiritually Free Speech in the Spiritual Directee

the challenge to spiritual directors who seek to minister to others through listening is twofold: (1) to listen humbly to one’s own speech, especially speech and response pat-terns embedded in “old tapes,” and the speech, verbal or not, that emerges through those unfiltered attitudes and thoughts that do not reflect one’s better self; and (2) to lis-ten with fresh intent to the language, word choices, phras-ing, and language of “presence” that directees use to express their inner life. the goal is not to detect empty, false, or unfree speech and pounce on it but to lovingly and humbly evoke the freedom of others, to invite others into the fresh air and light of unjudged and unafraid expression of who they are in God. Here are five practical ways.

1. listening that evokes spiritually free speech does not interrupt. it refrains from judgment phrases such as, “oh, that’s good” or “How terrible”—responses that merely tell the directee what you do or do not want to hear in future sessions. even empathy must submit to the humble, noninterruptive work of listening. listening that evokes spiritually free

From domestic violence to ethnic intolerance, from acts of terror to fear-driven war, the world in all

its peoples desperately needs to be listened into freedom to speak its original grace and purpose.

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speech does not say, “i know exactly what you mean”—a phrase that robs the directee of the right and opportunity to work more deeply into the material being shared.

2. listening that evokes spiritually free speech waits on what the Spirit desires to reveal. listening to the other is only half of a spiritual director’s work. listening with the heart to the directee and to the voice of the divine is the real work: not so much listening in two different directions but listening through the words of the other, through the presence and heart of the other, and through one’s own heart.

3. listening that evokes spiritually free speech continually seeks the deeper reality of the directee’s experience. “What was that like for you?” is not merely a question in search of detail but a key that unlocks doors to directees’ perceptions and feelings around a circumstance, gently offering permission to explore, own, and integrate experiences into the complexity and the mystery of their personhood.

4. listening that evokes spiritually free speech moves the directee toward mature faith, discovering God’s movement in the circumstances of life. Many people assume that their experiences somehow do not move the heart of God or that their lives are not important in God’s plan or that God’s purpose and promise of fruitfulness has eluded them. that our lives rightfully should produce the fruit of mature faith comes as a revelation to many.

5. listening that evokes spiritually free speech invites the other into creative participation in God’s redeeming activity in the world. eventually, a fruit of spiritual direction is directees’ loving and generous response to God’s calling, according to the gifts they have been given, uniquely expressed in the circumstances of their lives, their relationships, their work.

listening that evokes spiritually free speech ultimately is vocational work. it gives human voice and shape to God’s calling and frees the other to receive that calling, to discern its contours, and to respond lovingly and gener-ously.

Notes1. collegeville, Mn: liturgical press, 1985. see espe-

cially pages 56–61.

Listening becomes an act of love, as one sets aside personal interest to receive the gift of the other.