Susan S. Phillips - Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction

"Susan Phillips's thoughtful, listening intelligence incandesces in this account of her practice of spiritual direction. The process comes to vivid life in her personal narratives of sessions with directees in God's presence. I was moved by the way Susan's insights grew in relationship with those she met with over months and years. I felt holiness creeping into my own life."Luci Shaw, author, Breath for the Bones: Imagination, Art, & Spirit and Writer in Residence, Regent College

" Reading Candlelight is like watching spiritual direction sessions through a two-way mirror while simultaneously privy to the thoughts and feelings of the author. Invaluable for people doing spiritual direction or contemplating it. Provides discerning insights into the difference in form and focus between psychotherapy and spiritual direction. Likely to be absorbing reading for Jungian or transpersonal psychologists."Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., author of Close to the Bone and Crossing to Avalon

"Some form of spiritual direction is to be found in all the world religions and in many tribal religions as well, but it is only recently that this function has come to be widely recognized in modern societies. As we grope toward understanding what spiritual direction might mean to us we badly need to know how it actually works today. Here Susan Phillips's book offers a signal contribution. She gives us not a 'how to' book but illustrations of spiritual direction in practice as no other book I know of does. By following the experiences of those she has directed over time and through deepening insight we get an understanding that no set of generalizations can provide. This moving book deserves close attention by all those concerned with retrieving the rich possibilities of spiritual direction today."Robert N. Bellah, Professor of Sociology, emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of Habits of the Heart

"Susan Phillips doesn't just talk about spiritual direction, she allows us to see her engaged in this ministry, providing a much needed glimpse inside the spiritual direction room, inside the lives of real directees, inside the mind and heart of a gifted spiritual director."Elizabeth Liebert, author of The Spiritual Exercises Reclaimed: Uncovering Liberating Possibilities for Women, and Professor of Spiritual Life, San Francisco Theological Seminary

"While some books on spiritual direction emphasize theology and theory and others are more practical and applied, Susan Phillips offers us something quite unique. We are invited to peek into sacred spaces, absorb poignant stories and watch the candle shed light and sketch shadows. Instead of the harshness of pragmatic, prescriptive and programmatic approaches to spirituality, one is left with a deep and gentle sense that God is here with us."Rod Wilson, President and Professor of Counselling and Psychology, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada

"More than mere flickers of insight, in this fine book Susan Phillips sheds the light of much wisdom that will encourage and inspire both the givers and the receivers of spiritual direction."Richard Mouw, President and Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary

"I have waited for just this book for a long time. Susan Phillips's Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction is a balanced and biblically faithful portrait of the journey into the place where thoughtful spiritual direction can happen. She avoids the entrapments of personal and interpersonal influences in which powerful leaders dominate others around them. Phillips understands that dangerous terrain and draws the reader toward the healthy place where our human stories can be shared and told in safety toward the goal of edification. I recommend this book for pastors, counselors and for all who want to understand ways to explore their spiritual natures."Earl Palmer, senior pastor, University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, and author of Love Has Its Reasons and Trusting God

"Illuminating is the precisely accurate word for this brilliant evocation of spiritual direction in action. If I were permitted only one book on spiritual direction, this would be it."Eugene H. Peterson, author of The Message and Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

Candlelight

Candlelight

ILLUMINATING

THE ART OF

SPIRITUAL

DIRECTION

S USAN S . P HILLIPS

Copyright 2008 by Susan S. Phillips

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

"The Avowal" by Denise Levertov, from OBLIQUE PRAYERS, copyright 1984 by Denise Levertov. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen. Copyright 1992 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Morehouse Publishing, 4775 Linglestown Road, Harrisburg, PA 17105

Morehouse Publishing, 445 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Morehouse Publishing is an imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated.

Cover art: Detail of an eighteenth-century icon of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child in the private chapel of the Archbishop of Sinai, Saint Catherine's Monastery; photo by Hieromonk Justin Sinaites.

Cover design by Brenda Klinger

Back cover photo by Claudia Marseille

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phillips, Susan (Susan S.).

Candlelight : illuminating spiritual direction / by Susan S. Phillips.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8192-2297-8 (pbk.); ISBN 978-0-8192-2391-3(ebook)

1. Spiritual directionChristianity. 2. Spiritual directionChristianityCase studies.

I. Title.

BV5053.P49 2008

253.5'3dc22

2007048925

With gratitude to the women and men who

have made God's grace visible to me, as we

met together in the candle's light

B enedictine monk David Steindl-Rast declared that "the very act of lighting the candle is prayer." He described lighting the candle in solitude as he prayed, and also the experience of lighting the candle in a church procession. When someone comes to me for spiritual direction, I light a candle and say, "We light the candle as a reminder that God is here with us." It is a prayer akin to the spontaneous candle-lighting of compassionate humanity and the liturgical lighting of candles for worship. The flame represents human yearning toward that which transcends and ignites our hearts.

We are a candle-lighting people. There are candlelight vigils whenever people gather in solidarity with others' suffering. When New York City and Washington, D.C., were attacked in 2001, people around the world gathered in public squares, lit candles, and prayed. When the tsunami hit Southeast Asia in the late winter of 2004, people around the world lit candles expressing compassion. When students die in attacks on schools, people gather at other schools, and light candles. Amnesty International's symbol is a lighted candle encircled with barbed wire, indicating the light of hope and others' care smuggled into the darkness of a person's imprisonment.