AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

Volume 26, Number 4
December 2020

 

In This Issue

"Just Like You" — Jenny Jansen

"In each new era of human history, the sacred work of being human requires that we begin again and, taking into account human history thus far, repose our spiritual questions within the light of current knowledge, beliefs, and lived experience. We then allow our spiritual questions to work through us to completion. In so doing, we discover responses that hold true within a given framework of understanding reality."

Articles

Kaye Twining

 

“The human heart is full of longing. We long to discover who we are. The voices of longing keep our lives alert and urgent. Yet if we cannot discover a shelter of belonging within our lives, we could become a victim and target of our longing.” —Christian Celtic poet and philosopher John O’Donohue

This article is offered in the knowledge that it sits within a particular framework of understanding: a spiritual but not religious Western mindset, drawing from a worldview of conscious evolution grounded in the emerging tradition of evolutionary spirituality.

Focus

John Brown did not end slavery in the United States, but his death kick-started a war that did. Some true purpose awaits each of us. We are the luckiest people in the world.

 

Our Sponsors

More Articles

Patricia Said Adams

 

Writing to parents in The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran spoke these words: “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. / The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far” (18). An arrow flies through the air in a trajectory, an arc that eventually loses steam and falls to earth. If we think of our lives as a trajectory, a bearing, an orientation, or a path, and the archer as God, then we can begin to make sense of our lives spiritually.

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Poetry

Michael Dallaire

 

Mary Camille Thomas

 

William Rush

 

Jacob J. Staub

 

Our Sponsors

Reviews

edited by Ineda P. Adesanya

 

Reviewed by Wendy Farley

 

edited by Tirzah Firestone

Reviewed by Karen Erlichman

 

by Brian Thomas Swimme

 

Reviewed by Marcia Wakeland

 

by John J. Prendergast

 

Reviewed by Amelia Stratton-Smith

 

by Robert E. Alvis

 

Reviewed by Kathryn Madden, rc

 

by Ilia Delio, OSF

 

Reviewed by Donna Erickson Couch

 

by Christine Valters Paintner

 

Reviewed by Stephanie Bussey-Spencer Patton

 

by Westina Matthews

 

Reviewed by Greg Richardson

 

by Christopher Kerr, MD, PhD, with Carine Mardorossian, PhD

 

Reviewed by Linda Douty

 

AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

Publisher: Spiritual Directors International

Executive Director: Rev. Seifu Anil Singh-Molares, MTS

Editor: Nick Wagner

Media Review Editor:  Pegge Erkeneff

Art Editor: Matt Whitney

Graphic Designer: Tobias Becker

Founding Editor: Susan S. Jorgensen, MA

Poetry Editor: Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffmann

Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction is published in March, June, September, and December. Presence offers a forum among diverse people and spiritual traditions for the exploration of present and future trends in the art and ministry of spiritual direction. Presence is grounded in the belief that our deepest calling is to be present to one another as we share the gift of ourselves. Presence strives to articulate the essential elements of contemplative practices, formation, and training; to encourage accountability; and to develop clear ethical guidelines. Presence supports a global contemplative dialog of spiritual care and compassion for others, ourselves, and the whole cosmos. ISSN 1081-7662.

Opinions expressed in this journal are the opinions of the authors and advertisers and may not represent the opinions of Spiritual Directors International, the coordinating council, or the editors. All biblical quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.

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