Spiritual Direction
Spiritual direction, the ancient art of helping people identify and respond to the presence of the divine in their lives, has seen a remarkable resurgence across faith traditions during the past decade.
More people recognize that the quality of their relationship to the divine provides the foundation for all other activities and relationships of life. As this awareness grows, people seek out others experienced in prayer and spiritual disciplines to help them become more intentional about their life with God.
Through silence, prayer, and reflective listening, a spiritual director may help people become more aware of God's activity in their lives, clarify questions of vocation, and open themselves to the presence of the holy in daily experience. While pastoral counseling focuses primarily on the outer events and relationships of a person's life, spiritual direction focuses primarily on the inner experience of life with God in the midst of life's ordinary and extraordinary moments.
People chosen to serve as spiritual directors have a certain "lived holiness" that others recognize. But good directors know they cannot work with everyone. Establishing a spiritual direction relationship is a matter of mutual discernment, with a primary emphasis on listening for God's intention.
Duane understands his role in spiritual direction as listening to God for the sake of the other person, interacting in ways that help to clarify God's presence and action in an individual's life and in the spiritual direction conversation. Ultimately, this sort of listening and speaking help a person live in ways that are congruent with God's intentions.
Spiritual directors are not certified or licensed, but Duane is a member of Spiritual Directors International and practices under its ethical guidelines. He holds a licentiate in spiritual theology and spiritual direction from the Anglican School of Theology at the University of Dallas, and his practice of spiritual direction is influenced by Reformed theology, Buddhist meditation, the Oriental Orthodox tradition of sacred metaphysics, and constructionist psychology.