Seeking God in All Things: Theology and Spiritual Direction (review)

This volume addresses a key issue in the contemporary practice of spiritual direction. Reflection on spiritual direction has often concentrated on the dynamic of spiritual accompaniment, how to begin direction, what to notice and talk about, the importance of concentrating on experience, and the reality of resistance as direction progresses. Recent works have also concentrated on the practice of spiritual direction as it is emerging in various traditions, the challenges of interfaith direction, the shape of issues that arise as people advance beyond initial stages in attentive listening to their encounters with Mystery and desire to shape their lives in response.

As the contemporary experience of this ministry matures, an emerging question concerns the place theological content should have in spiritual direction. Early contemporary writings on spiritual direction were particularly concerned with the need many felt to retrieve the experiential dimensions of Christian faith. The adage has been that Gospel writers and those who formulated creeds had to struggle to find language for their experience. What this means for today is that contemporary believers, who have been immersed in centuries of language and formularies, have had to learn to recognize and be attentive to experience.

William Reiser begins with the experiences that surround him as he steps out of his front door and prompt him to ask how God reaches into human lives where God does not seem to be all that present. He notes the essential interplay between the location of our feet and our heads, where we are located socially, and what we think about. From this perspective, then, Reiser is particularly concerned with the theology behind the practice of spiritual direction. What are the foundations that the practice rests upon? He highlights four. First, all spiritual direction rests upon a theology of revelation. How does God communicate the divine presence and life to persons who are constantly being formed or created in ways not significantly different than the classic accounts found in Scripture (2)? Second, spiritual direction rests upon a theology of Church. This can be seen in various ways. Christian direction assumes the practice and interpersonal dynamics of believers coming together (4). Those who live within the Christian tradition and are immersed in Scripture have been given an agenda for growth, and the director stands within this tradition of belief and practice as well. Understanding communion only comes by participating in it. Thus, one sign of fruitfulness is that Christian disciples are drawn together in a communion of life, practice and worship. Growth in Christian living requires attention to these foundations in spiritual direction on a regular basis. Thinking of some approaches to direction that simply allow one who comes for direction to set the agenda, Reiser stresses that there is a responsibility to let a broad ecclesial perspective set the agenda.

Reiser's third foundation specifically concerns the Christian director. The one who accompanies needs to have grasped the sacred narrative of Christian faith that comes in the Gospel. The strength of the Christian tradition comes from the Gospel narrative. The greatest vulnerability of those who direct and those who wish to be disciples happens when the Gospel story does not grow in us (5). Fourth, and lastly, the practice of spiritual direction presupposes an understanding of what it means to be human (a theological anthropology). Directors must live in a horizon of knowing that we come from God, and that we live and move and have our being in God, who is our final destiny. The implications of these truths shape the journey (6).

Reiser's own teaching experience shapes his stress that directors cannot presuppose spiritual or doctrinal literacy. Attending simply to the relationship between an individual and God can run the risk of contributing to the contemporary preoccupation with a private, individualized self and self-actualization, rather than focusing on becoming a genuine ecclesial self (6). Christian maturity and effective Christian witness depend on a person acquiring both doctrinal and spiritual...