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SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

imagine how I felt. I wanted to take it, and that is a whole now. One of the first things I encountered in spiritual
wonderful story. I wrote about that in my book My Life direction outside of Judaism was a nun who told me, “The
in Jewish Renewal: A Memoir. So, all these people are whole work of spiritual direction is to diminish or reduce
very important to me. Then while I was working on my our resistance to God.” That is such a wonderful thing.
doctorate at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati [Ohio, So, yes, the theological life force: we are being pulled by
USA], it wasn’t very far to Bardstown (Kentucky, USA), God, but we are afraid that God is going to tell us that
to Gethsemani Abbey. I’d go and see Thomas Merton, and therefore we can’t have sex, we can’t enjoy music. You
what would we talk about? We didn’t talk about football. know what I’m saying? Go to all the fundamentalists.
We talked about how to get deeper into prayer life and Look what’s happening with the Taliban right now who
things of spiritual direction. don’t understand that Islam had such beautiful music and
When Howard Thurman came once to visit in Winnipeg beautiful mosques and so on, and they just want to make
[Manitoba, Canada], I asked him, “What would you like to it all very plain and drab. The people who are trying to
see?” He wasn’t interested in any landmarks, so I asked him, [turn] us into holy robots don’t understand that this is not
“Would you like to talk with a Trappist?” He said, “Yes.” So what God wants. What God wants is the soul of a person
I said, “I’ll call the abbot.” He said, “No, I don’t want to see responding to the kiss that the soul gets from God.
the abbot. I want to talk to the master of novices.” What a
wonderful conversation I was able to overhear there when So a spiritual director would be an agent of
they were talking about how to go about bringing people helping lower that resistance to God, which we
into the reality of the divine experience. all seem to have?
That’s right. But there’s a big difference. A person has to
In your memoir, you say, “Don’t forget where already have managed a lot of the complex things that are
you came from, and pay attention to the future in them. I once heard someone say, “Be careful with spiri-
that pulls you. We are all being pulled by God tuality if you haven’t taken care of some of the basic stuff
to get closer to the intent for which the whole underneath. Otherwise it’s like putting whipped cream
universe was created. There is a divine teleo- on garbage.” So a good spiritual director will be able to
logical force at work” say, “You know, about this thing that is holding you back,
Yes! Have you read Teilhard de Chardin? you will need to do some therapeutic work. I can help
you once you are done with that. If you always fall into
You’ve read him a lot, have you? the same trap because you don’t know how to avoid it, no
Yes. And, the important part is how he says that even matter what I’m going to share with you about prayer and
the planet is undergoing an evolution. And what is the about being in the presence of the living God, that’s not
planet moving toward? Divinization of the planet. The going to help.”
earth’s evolution goes through the stone age, and the litho-
sphere becomes the biosphere with life; life becomes noo- On the individual level, do you believe what
sphere with consciousness and information. That’s where psychoanalyst Carl Jung said about the indi-
we are now, and the noosphere is moving toward becom- viduation process? Does that mirror what we
ing the Christosphere. That’s what he calls it, the diviniza- are talking about right now?
tion of the planet. That’s why I keep saying that we are just Yes and no, because Jung is only one. Abraham Maslow
the same ... as a sunflower, as a heliotropic plant. We are is another one, but he talks about self-actualization.
theotropic beings. In other words, God attracts us. Everybody catches a thread of the great global process.
So, of course, Jung was right. And Sigmund Freud was
Accepting that we are theotropic beings, as you right about some things. But on other things, Jung was
said, how would spiritual direction influence right. It’s true that we have to individuate, but we also
that movement of theotropism? have to overcome our desire to protect our presentation
I wish you could see the broad smile on my face right of ourselves, which is the Ego. You know how we present

8 Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction