Focus: Books As Spiritual Directors

*published in Presence: The Journal of Spiritual Directors International, May1998*

My first spiritual director was not a flesh and blood person, but a creature of ink and paper. At the time, I was a student at a conservative Christian college. I was wrestling mightily with the spectre of what I called the "Monster God" of my childhood faith, even waking screaming at night from visions of hellfire. It was a very distressing time: I felt confused by the questions my childhood faith would not, or could not answer. And from the depths of my despair I cried out to God for help.

Into that chaos came a book titled All Hallow's Eve by Charles Williams. This book was to be my salvation. All Hallow's Eve is a supernatural thriller, taking place in the late 1930s, featuring evil magicians and imperfect, selfish, ordinary people who are unwittingly thrown into the maelstrom of a cosmic spiritual struggle. Almost in spite of themselves, the very ordinary characters respond in unexpected ways, either by retreating and becoming more selfish and isolated, or by finding within themselves the strength to act for God, even at the cost of great personal sacrifice.

Williams' vision cracked my spiritual world open with power. Here is this mystical Anglo-Catholic who paints with his poetic fiction a portrait of a world into which the spiritual dimension frequently intrudes. In fact, Williams' universe is one in which the spiritual and temporal worlds are ultimately inseparable, constantly impinging on each other, feeding each other, liberating each other.

I instantly became a sacramentalist, and counted Williams my own patron saint, even going so far as to post a sign in my study near my personal altar which read "The Charles Williams Memorial Chapel."

Williams, however, only took me halfway. He showed me the immediacy of the spiritual world, and the transcendent import of seemingly mundane events. But it was a book by Alan Watts called Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion that gave me the beginnings of a theology which would make sense of my experience and my newfound perspective.

Watts wrote this book when he served as an Episcopal priest, and it is a masterpiece of mystical theology. In this book I found a framework in which I could understand the incarnation, including the crucifixion.

These two writers did their work on me, and I became a changed person. I no longer cowered before an angry, monstrous deity; I no longer counted myself as depraved and utterly sinful. This transfiguration from one kind of creature to another finally became complete when I made my exodus from religious bondage in the faith of my youth to a church which eschewed such monstrous images.

I call this an exodus, because that is how it felt. I was leaving a life of slavery behind. Call it Egypt or extreme Calvinism, I was out of there. And just across the Red Sea of confirmation was a land of milk and honey where my soul found healing, solace, and new life.

I am grateful that I had the courage to make this exodus, but I would be kidding myself if I thought that I had done it alone. If it hadn't been for Charles Williams and Alan Watts, my spiritual mentors, I may never have left the land of leeks and onions.

Books are the most amazing creatures: silent, yet testifying to all knowledge; content to lie dormant for eternity, yet in symbiotic relationship with humans, capable of changing the course of history.

In this issue we honor the books that have meant the most to you as spiritual directors. Nearly fifty people responded to our questionnaire, and the results have been surprising indeed.

Nancy Pfaff also shares her experience of being "companioned" by the printed Word in her marvelous article on the dark night of the soul.
Lest we be accused of being too cerebral and leaving our bodies behind, we have balanced these thought-oriented articles with those of a more kinesthetic emphasis. Kent Groff warns us about putting too much stock in head knowledge and advocates several other forms of "intelligence" that too often go neglected, based upon his study of Howard Gardner's theories and research.

Miriam Cleary likewise advocates using the "experience cycle" in the training of spiritual directors, while Kathleen Hurley and Ted Dobson show how three distinct "ways of knowing" have resulted in the nine Enneagram personality types so many find helpful in their practice.

After all this, if you are still hungry for books, remember that, thanks to our Book Review Editor Susan Schenck Izard, we close this issue with some fine book reviews. Enjoy! *

- John R. Mabry