SDI Europe Gathering – July 2026
July 1 @ 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm UK/London
Listening Beyond – A Presentation for SDI European Gathering with Andrew Rudd
As spiritual companions in Europe, we are keenly aware of the barriers of difference, the need for healing life to flow through us into the wider community. In this session we will explore together the horizons of spiritual accompaniment, the listening beyond.
Beyond the horizons each of us have, of cognitive understanding, faith tradition, social or cultural differences, habitual practice. Beyond words, beyond ideas, beyond self-interest. We realize now that everything that matters is beyond us.
We will use some texts from Andrew’s new book, The Listening Path: living attentively. In reflective silence and small group interactions, we will seek to recognise our own edges, personal horizons, unhelpful boundaries – and then begin to listen for what calls us beyond. In this silence we might look out from our small corners and join the wider conversation.
Andrew Rudd is a poet, teacher and leader of retreats and quiet days, who loves to listen to people in spiritual accompaniment. He currently is the convener of SALT (Spiritual Accompaniment Learning Together) a small but innovative course for the formation of spiritual companions. Andrew has a PhD in spirituality and poetry, and his poetry is widely published. He was poet in residence at Manchester Cathedral from 2017-2022 and is a Lay Minister in the Church of England. He is the author of The Quiet Path (2024) and The Listening Path (2026), both from Canterbury Press.
