Dear People of St. David’s,
From early in the Old Testament until now wise guides have walked alongside the faithful. Moses prepared Joshua for leadership by encouraging him to spend his days at the “Tent of Meeting” in the presence of God. Elijah prepared Elisha for the prophetic ministry by taking him with him in his prophetic ministry. In the New Testament Jesus prepared his disciples for the work of the Gospel. The disciples included both men and women. Paul discipled both women and men in the book of Acts. In the first three centuries after Christ, the “desert mothers and fathers” who had devoted their lives to solitary prayer, offered spiritual guidance to those who sought their wisdom. Spiritual direction has continued to be a powerful resource for the faithful throughout the centuries. The Episcopal Church has long embraced this way of faith and life.
In spiritual direction we invite a wise, faithful lover of God to take us under their wing and walk with us to deepen our ways of knowing God, God’s purposes, values, and mission. They invite us to share our lives with them in order that they may lead us to embrace God-given resources for lives set apart to God. These resources of repentance, forgiveness, and the power of the Holy Spirit, lead us to our joys, our failures, and the God who is made perfect in our weakness. Richard Rohr has observed that the second half of life may require us to process with God the failures and harm we experienced in the first half of life that we may be the ministers of reconciliation that the Trinity have called us to be. Our childhood beliefs will most likely be unable to sustain us in the complexities of the other seasons of life.
I was trying to remember when I first began to share my life with a spiritual director. My siblings and I keep a text running all the time. Lately, we have been remembering the gentleness of a faithful mother who valued her children over any material things. A brother accidentally burned up a closet of antiques and she was more concerned about him than things. All of us had similar stories. Our father also nurtured us well in the faith and love of Christ. This was a family not without significant loss and yet they modeled love, acceptance, and the faithfulness of God which has carried us forward in hope. They were our first spiritual directors.
It is clear that not all of us had this family experience. Families can cause our deepest pain and then we need help to know the steadfast love of God so that we can become “wounded healers” like Jesus for God (Henri Nouwen).
Bob Weeber, my high school baseball coach and Bible teacher, was another wise guide who accepted me as I was and learned from me as I learned from him.
My first official spiritual director was a priest in the Diocese of Arkansas. We shared our spiritual journeys with each other. This sharing became a point of context which informed our years of working together. He challenged me to read the breadth of the Christian experience. These reading stretched me to embrace ideas that were outside my ways of thinking, and they opened me to new ways of inclusivity of all God’s people. We discussed my ministry and work in community planning. He gently challenged my presuppositions.
Since then, I have had a number of spiritual directors/friends; a former chaplain to the Bishop of Jerusalem, who challenged me to consider the sweep of God’s vision for all people in the pages of Scripture. I currently work with an Orthodox Mother Superior who is so insightful; suggesting books to read, digging deeply into the activity of God throughout my life from the beginning into the future. It is clear the learning is not complete until we see Christ as he is face to face. Interestingly, all these Spiritual Directors have been older than me. This gets harder and harder as I age.
Along with spiritual directors I have two other companions on the journey to God, a faithful wife and a brother priest who have walked with me in Christ for decades. We have been through much together and always have led each other back to our Good Shepherd. These also have been wise guides. Spiritual directors can bring forward into our consciousness the things that have harmed us throughout our lives, those events in the Savior’s hands can become a means of grace for those Christ entrusts to our care as we do the Lord’s work wherever that may be.
Peace,
The Rev. Dr. Peter B. Stube
Priest Associate
Editor’s Note: If you are interested in meeting with a spiritual director, either solo or as a part of a group, please learn more on the formation page of our website here.
Published on June 12, 2025.