SOUL-SPEAKING : SPIRITUAL FRIENDSHIP AS A POSSIBLE MODEL FOR SPIRITUAL DIRECTION WITHIN THE PARISH

BY FATHER BENEDICT AUER, O.S.B.

If my own religious experience has followed in the footsteps of many other Catholics, I have found it extremely difficult to find a spiritual director. Even in the seminary, I found good spiritual directors few and far between, and therefore went without one frequently. And since that time, I have had the ongoing struggle of finding someone to help guide me through mid-life crisis. I think part of the problem lies with what we are looking for in a spiritual director and often what we are expecting from that same person. I realize there are no "absolute" answers, yet with pastors, sisters, and parish personnel so busy, I would like to posit an alternative to spiritual direction, or maybe better a solution to this problem at least for some of us. This article is an attempt to look in a somewhat different direction for a spiritual "mother" or "father" - looking instead to "spiritual friendship " as the source of our guidance and growth in the Lord. I call this approach "soul-speaking."


"Soul-speaking'' might best capture what a spiritual director and his or her directee may be doing in what is traditionally called "spiritual direction." This intimate union of two souls has been touched upon by many spiritual writers throughout the centuries, including Aelred of Rievaulx, Catherine of Siena, and Thomas Merton in more recent years. They have all fingered the topic and left their prints, but when all is said and done I do not believe that any have touched upon the hermeneutics of spiritual direction with the exception of Aelred. And this failure by most authors has left a gap in the literature written for the direction of souls. Most writers talk about a spirituality of direction, or about psychological aspects of directing a person, or may even touch upon the role of the Holy Spirit. BUT few writers have delt with spiritual direction as a relationship based on and in friendship. I would like to explore such relationships or the pursuit of God within a relationship which includes spiritual direction. I could find no word which really expressed this concept of spiritual friendship/direction so I coined the phrase: "Soul-Speaking." I believe that only when two souls are in total and complete communion does a spiritual intercourse take place in which the two individuals openly bear their souls to each other in such a way that they are one with the One. Now this may sound very Romantic but I do not believe so. Instead I will even take it a step farther that only two souls in love with God and with each other, in the purest of sense, can in reality grow in the Lord, and stretch each other in true spiritual direction.

The language of spiritual direction has for years been grounded in "theological jargon," or different stages of development which aim through a series of steps toward arriving at God. From Origen through Gregory of Nyssa, and on through the medieval writers, William St. Thierry and even Bernard of Clairvaux, they all had steps or ladders which have been used to symbolize the ascent to God, for the spiritual quest was usually seen as an ascent. Such a process was imposed on the directee with rigor, and the end result was a rigid structure which sometimes was thought to earn salvation. Then in the post-Vatican II renewal, psychology became the "god" for the spiritual quest. Often the spiritual director was more psychologist than spiritual advisor. And terms were bantered about as if it were a session rather than direction. Now I think that we have reached a period when we need a new approach. "Soul-speaking" moves us into the realm of friend as spiritual director or spiritual director as friend. For either one can occur first. I think this whole idea is rooted in the Scriptures, and an application was given to us by Aelred of Rievaulx in his classic work, Spiritual Friendship .

Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167) starts his work with a statement which is essential to any true spiritual direction: "Here we are, you and I, and I hope a third, Christ, is in our midst." (p. 51). All spiritual direction must take place in the presence of God, but not just in the presence but in the acknowledged presence of God. For years, authors have talked about the spiritual direction as a science, but it isn't. Spiritual direction is not a science or even an art, it is more love spilling out from one person into another. Two people sharing their stories of God. Or as Aelred puts it: "For what more sublime can be said of friendship, what more true, what more profitable, than that it ought to, and is proved to, begin in Christ, continue in Christ, and be perfected in Christ?" (p. 53). Scripture backs this up when it says in Proverbs: "He that is a friend loves at all times." (Proverbs 17:17). And since God is love, and love abides in God, true spiritual direction must take place within the loving presence of God. Aelred emphasizes that a spiritual friendship "...is cemented by similarity of life, morals, and pursuits among the just." (p. 59). I cannot share myself with someone unless I truly trust that person, and since spiritual direction requires total risk of self that person must be a friend. Such a friendship "...is a mutual conformity in matters human and divine untied with benevolence and charity." We must love the one to whom we are committing ourselves. For only when I love can I totally commit myself to the risk involved in sharing myself. Friendship and love are mutually exchangeable according to Aelred, and I believe so when talking of real friendship. So therefore if we utilize the words of Aelred on spiritual friendship as interchangeable with spiritual director, I believe we have an important inroad into an area which I will call "Soul-speaking." This is exceptionally available in parish life because friendship can lead to deeper insights into the way God walks within our lives, yet there are some dangers inherent in this form of spiritual direction.

St. Teresa of Avila warned us about choosing a spiritual director, and told us of the difficulty one will have in trying to find one. But recently during a class I taught in Christian Spirituality, a young man raised his hand, and asked "In this day and age, with so much material available in spirituality, is it necessary to have a spiritual director?" It took me back for a second. And without thinking I answered, "Yes!" And then I filled-out my answer, "Yes. We need someone to help us through the rough spots, point out our errors, and even chide us to do better.'
And then I blurted out, "A spiritual friend." And all of a sudden it dawned on me that what we truly need is someone to "soul-speak" with, a person to share our depth with, an individual who accepts us for who we are and then draws us to who we can become. "A spiritual friend" is just that. Now all of us trained in psychology know that true friendship is rare, maybe once or twice in a lifetime do we truly have a symbiotic relationship in which we touch souls with someone. It would be nice if it happened more often but it does not. Then what are our chances of finding a "spiritual friend" who can also act as a soul-mate or spiritual director. I think we can, but we have to look, and more importantly risk ourselves to find that special person. I wish to set down some criteria for that search, and possibly a few ideas which might be helpful to a prospective directee.

In Morning Light: The Spiritual Journal of Jean Sulivan , the author set down one important criteria for a spiritual director, he writes that "...many are still discussing a dead man even when they think they're talking about resurrection." (p. 23). The first criteria for a spiritual director and/or spiritual friend should be that the person believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Now I know many people will laugh at this, but I mean truly believe that Jesus is alive. Not only that Jesus lives, but He walks among us. And the belief must radiate in that person's life. Not that the director must be a saint, just the opposite, she or he must be a fellow-traveler, but someone who believes that Jesus is real. Such a belief is radiated in the action, concern, and care that this person shows to those around her or him. Sulivan was right, most Christians do not believe that Jesus ever left the tomb on Easter Morn, for most He is still there.

A second criteria I would put forward is that the spiritual director be imbued with Scripture, but not exegesis or fundamentalist trivia. The two extremes are self-serving, and not self-giving. For a spiritual director, the gospels must be alive. Scripture is not something to be read with the mind, but the heart. Sulivan writes that the gospels are poems:

...breath, rhythm, gesture, parable, and paradox - poems - are once simple and secret, and only gradually be unveiled. A poem accomplishes what it speaks of, but through a process that is never complete. The persons who receive it must return into darkness where they will never finish exploring it. (p. 22).


Now I know it seems to ridiculous to maintain that a spiritual director be a poet, but it would help. Someone who speaks in metaphor. A person who is able to zap us like a parable. A storyteller who evokes from us a response on an eschatalogical level. Impossible? Not necessarily. Where can this sort of person be found. I believe within friendship that may possibly already exist. I know that within friendship, close personal relationships, there also exists the possibility to expand this closeness into a spiritual friendship. As I tell people if the person you are considering as your director comes in and has all the answers to all your questions, and even answers for questions you haven't asked. RUN! The spiritual quest is a mutual journey, and it is filled with doubt. And no one, even if they have walked the same road, can answer all the questions. It is a journey for those who doubt, yet remain faithful. But It is journey. And both director and directee have to be one it. It is a quest not for black and white, but rather a walk through the gray areas which most of us live our lives in.

What criteria should we use in the specific choice of a spiritual director who is a friend. I think the first criteria is that the person be someone who we can share exactly who we are with, and not be ashamed or fearful. Secondly, the person must be truthful with us. Able to confront us when we are wrong. Yet free enough to say whatever he or she thinks, and know we will not be offended. Thirdly, the person should love us deeply enough to remain a friend forever. As St. Jerome wrote:" A friendship that can cease to exist, never was a true friendship."
I agree. True friendship accepts the other without hesitation, but continues to help the other grow. Therefore real spiritual direction is mutual growth, both expanding the other.

I have found that each of us have such people in our lives. People with whom we have such an intimate relationship. For religious, it may be a fellow-member of a community, or a member of one's family. For a married person, it may be a spouse, or a life-long friend. The person we share everything with. Or it may even be with two different people. It is with this person that we share soul, become vulnerable. The day of the Jansenistic priest who tried to impose an alien spirituality on a person is hopefully gone. Today we have to explore life, and hopefully with someone who has the same goals and aims. It is not so much a necessity to be objective but rather compassionate. And age makes no difference. In this day and age, we have to see that often someone younger or much older might be the ideal person for this type of spiritual friendship.

I believe that at least one of the two people involved in this spiritual friendship should be imbued with Scripture and hopefully well read in modern spiritual writers, but not necessarily as scholar. A person who knows where to look is much more important than someone with all the answers. The key to this relationship of mutuality is to share one's self and the commonality of the human experience. Poetry works for me. I write to the one with whom I am mutually growing. The first one was written for a person with whom I had developed a friendship first, and then became a person with whom we were mutually growing in God so I wrote "A True Sharing." It has a epigram from Galatians 6:2 - "Help one another carry these loads...."

How often in my life I've yearned to have a friend
and often planned and plotted to just such an end.
Yet such friends never really were,
for, forced, they fled,
and planned they rebelled
evaporating when over possessed.
So loneliness forced me in desperation to construct
walls and ramparts around my inner being,
but never were these fortress barriers strong enough
to keep out the pain of solitude.
The need to share myself and allow someone to hear
about the me no one knew paramounted all I did.
Then one day it happened: a person entered into me
with who I could share myself, and never be ashamed.
He knew what it was to suffer, and how it was to hide.
He never judged my statements, nor asked me why.
This friend shared himself right back, and gave me room to be.
He always cared about me, and yet never tried to possess me.
How do you thank a person for loving without strings,
or listening when you need someone to hear,
or most of all freeing me to be.

For this person, this poem was a breakthrough, and for myself it was as well for I told someone how I felt which I was afraid to do orally, but could do in writing. Since that time I've learned to do it both ways. I believe poetry affords a way of speaking which often oral communication does not. I have found that my poems or even someone else's can break through barriers that allow us to talk of God or soul-speak with each other.

Another time I found a spiritual directee who needed to be reassured that he would be supported no matter what, yet was so shy of speaking openly about himself or his relationship with God. I wrote "People Shy" with an epigram from St. Jerome "Friendship which can end was never true friendship."

Someday I'd like to strip away the layers of your hurt
and touch the very hidden depths walled up within your being.
Words will never reach within your secret cell,
for words only echo back the hollowness within themselves.
If I could only open up the beauty I have glimpsed in you
and free the gentle prisoner caught within your self-made walls.
Then you could freely fly wherever you would want
but never be enclosed again by yearning for what is not.
My desire to touch your shyness,
and wipe away your fears,
is probably doomed to failure,
because it asks too much, too soon.
Yet if I love you so completedly as I do
then this love should touch every crumbled stone
of your now-partially broken cell,
and may even reach your pulsating heart
with freedom to start anew.
Maybe only two really shy people can free each other,
for only when a person knows the loneliness within
can he reach out and touch the other's isolation.
So we too have each other - maybe that is all we need -
at least we know someone knows and cares and loves
and is.
Now if we share this people-shyness walking hand in hand
then we will have a friendship that can never really end.

Such a poem or one selected from an anthology or a favorite collection, or a short story or a novel is a great breaking ground. I find that a commonality of experience is often helped by something like this. I have a number people who I have a spiritual friendship with whom I share poetry and short stories. The other night one such person stopped in the midst of a conversation and said "Do you know we never talk of God?" And my response was "Do we have to?" He looked at me and said "No!" And then I thought of Aelred of Rievaulx's comment: "Here we are, you and I, and I hope a third, Christ, is in our midst." No need to talk of God because God is in on our conversation. I guess when it is all said and done the key to any good spiritual direction is compassion. Teleios in Greek. "You must therefore be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48). That is the horrible translation of teleios . It is not perfect, but compassionate. A spiritual friend should be wholehearted, unreservedly committed, loving like God. J.D. Salinger in Catcher in the Rye captured what teleios meant . Holden Caulfield had been expelled from his prep school and was all mixed up. He was trying to find meaning in his life. And he recalled a line from Robert Burns, "If a body meet a body, coming through the rye," but he remembers it wrongly, "If a body catch a body," and then he mused:

Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. I know it is crazy, but that's the only thing I'd like to do...I'd just like to be the catcher in the rye.


That is what Jesus means by a love devoid of self, or compassionate. We, you and I, live in a field of rye, and our vocation as Christians is to catch people before they fall. When we soul-speak in spiritual friendship, following in the footsteps of Jesus and the spirituality of Aelred of Rievaulx, we actually spiritual direct in mutuality each other. Since spiritual directors anywhere much less in the parish maybe this is the route to go for some of us, and if it is then the model of Aelred might be the one to follow.


Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship Translated by Mary Eugenia Lake SSND, (Washington, D.C.: Cistercian Publications, 1974).


Accepted 12/2/95
Spiritual Life