Spiritual Direction is a conversation between three parties: the director, the directee, and the Holy Spirit. The environment should encourage all three participants to flow within the directive conversation. This essay will first reflect on one of David G. Benner’s key elements for this environment: hospitality. Then, it will cover Janet K. Ruffing’s essential element of mutuality.
Benner first reflects on how spiritual direction is a form of spiritual hospitality. He reflects on Margaret Gunther’s discussion on the subject when she states that spiritual direction is a ministry of hospitality.[1] She states that the directee must trust the director by leaving their “safe place and seek hospitality with another” and be guided.[2] Benner expands Gunther’s remarks by reflecting that the “essence of hospitality is taking another person into my space, into my life,” which also applies to the “soul friend,” his term for spiritual direction.[3]
The spiritual direction conversation happens in an atmosphere of hospitality, where the director, directee, and the Holy Spirit are all welcomed into an intimate spiritual space. Benner further reflects that not only God hosts this intimate environment, but the director and the directee as well. God “longs for me to host him,” and the Holy Spirit “becomes the source of my Synthesissoul hospitality.”[4] This hospitality is a safe place with no fear, judgment, or pretension, where the deepest thoughts and emotions can be shared.[5] Spiritual hospitality is essentially a gift of love.[6]
This discussion of spiritual hospitality reminded me of Genesis 18, when God, in the form of three visitors, came into Abraham’s camp and received hospitality. The visitors were invited into the inner circle of Abraham’s space and were offered sustenance and comfort. In my own spiritual life, in my devotional time, am I bringing God into my inner place, and do I feel safe with him knowing all of my thoughts? Am I creating an environment that invites the Holy Spirit to invade my thoughts and prayers? I hope so.
My spiritual direction environment should also reflect Abraham’s hospitality. My directee should feel safe and loved. The Holy Spirit should be welcomed and encouraged to come and partake of the fellowship that binds the three of us together. Spiritual hospitality is the intentional act of creating an environment that allows God to draw us closer to him. However, hospitality is only effective if there is mutuality. Janet K. Ruffing defines mutuality as “intimate self-disclosure” that is mutual, and all partners “reveal themselves and receive (each) other without fusion or flight.”[7] Mutuality makes loving connections possible.[8]
[1] Margaret Guenther, Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction, Kindle (Cowley, 1992), 10.
[2] Guenther, Holy Listening, 11.
[3] David G. Benner, Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship & Direction, Kindle (InterVarsity Press, 2009), 44.
[4] Benner, Sacred Companions, 45.
[5] Benner, Sacred Companions, 46.
[6] Benner, Sacred Companions, 46–47.
[7] R. S. M. Janet K. Ruffing, Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings, Kindle (Paulist Press, 2000), 126.
[8] Janet K. Ruffing, Spiritual Direction, 126.
