Summary: Good overview of the how and why of Spiritual direction.
I am a bit unsure how to proceed with my blogging about books about spiritual direction. I have been going to a Spiritual Director for the past four years and I have mentioned it a couple times in other book reviews.
Over the past couple months I have been considering the possibility of formal training to become a spiritual director. I have not made a decision one way or another. But I have committed to reading more about spiritual direction (because that is how I process), praying about it, and seeking out advice from people around me that I trust.
As part of the reading more about Spiritual Direction I am going to be reading a number of books about spiritual direction over the next 6-8 months until it is time for me to actually apply to a program. I am not sure if I am going to blog through these books or not.
The Practice of Spiritual Direction is a classic book on spiritual direction originally written in 1982. The authors are both Catholic, but it is very ecumenical in tone (at least the 2009 edition that I read.) The first couple chapters are rough descriptions of what spiritual direct is and is not. There are some definitions that are stricter and some that are looser, but roughly the spiritual direction here is understood as, “˜helping a person directly with his or her relationship with God.’
After the brief introduction, the rest is a more technical look at how spiritual direction works, how one is trained in spiritual direction, about supervision and its importance, etc. This was a very helpful introduction. And while I have read several others books on spiritual direction, this was the best introduction to the practice of giving spiritual direction I have read so far.
The Practice of Spiritual Direction by William Barry Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition
