Page 1 - 2020 January Listen - 14-1 FINAL

A SEEKER’S
RESOURCE
FOR Listen
SPIRITUAL
DIRECTION

JANUARY 2020 VOLUME 14 ISSUE 1

THE MIDDLE WAY OF SPIRITUAL COMPANIONSHIP

In our spiritual journeys, we all experience moments And as they do, we will shift to the mountaintop, filled
of unforgiving darkness, times when we are lost to with joy, as we align more closely with the Universe,
ourselves, and where we may feel hopeless and forsak- and everything flows with ease, leaving us giddy with
en. On these occasions, many of us withdraw deep hope. We will then celebrate, and savor the happy
within, in an attempt to envelop and buffer our pain by occasion. And our spiritual companions will celebrate
separating from the world. And as we cut our links to with us.
the outside, we may become increasingly isolated and
unmoored, spiraling further and further into blackness. These moments of transcendence, ephemeral as they
We become lonely souls, rowing across a forlorn Uni- may be, will also motivate and inspire us to either initi-
verse, empty of purpose and redemptive meaning. ate or reinvigorate our efforts as spiritual companions
to others.
Of course, this is a perfect time to reach out to a spiritu-
al companion/director. During these dark periods, they And yet, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that we
can be wonderfully nurturing sounding boards, rebal- might be swinging between extremes.
ancing us with trust, acceptance free of judgement,
great understanding, compassion, and deep listening. The ancient Greek philosophers spoke often of the
And by being able to exteriorize some of our sorrows “Golden Mean,” by which they meant positioning
and longings, we will begin to realize that our dreadful ourselves away from the utmost ends of a dichotomy,
moments are actually the springboards for great awak- so as to avoid falling off the edges into recklessness, or
ening and insight. The darkness then turns from bleak intransigence. “Beauty,” as they conceived it, was all
to warm, from lonely to all-encompassing, from fear to about symmetry, proportion and harmony.
courage, and from despair to Pure Love. And instead of
torments, we will experience God’s gentle caresses, and Christian Scholastics, in particular the Aristotelian
our hearts will lift. steeped St Thomas Aquinas, went further, arguing that
“moral virtue observes the mean.”
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