My Path to Spiritual Direction
I came out of the church office one day, and I saw my friend, the deacon, painting the big door of one of the church’s storage garages. “I can get into some trouble there,” I thought, and I went to see what mischief I could make. I’m very fond of the fence-painting scene in Tom Sawyer where Tom is forced by his Aunt Polly to spend a boring afternoon whitewashing the fence around their yard. Tom makes it look so interesting that his friends all pay him for the privilege of painting a section. The fence got finished with very little effort on Tom’s part, and he had pockets full of treasure from his friends when the job was done.
I headed across the parking lot to the garage with mischief in mind. Although I was definitely up to something, God was up to something bigger. I convinced my friend to let me paint, and he, like Tom, was happy to turn over the brush. I painted. The next thing that happened was the treasure.
A woman my friend and I knew well, our Youth Minister, came out of her office on her way to her next stop. I figured I could scoop her into the mischief as she talked with us for a while on her way. She said she had been accepted into a three-year spiritual direction formation program, The Art of Spiritual Direction. We could carpool; the class was an hour and a half from our parish and town. I’d never heard of spiritual direction, but it sounded like the Holy Spirit to me, and I wanted in. I had a two-week window to get my application in, and I went through that window.
I loved my three years in the program. I graduated in June 2015, and in September 2015, I became the assistant mentor for the first year students in the Art of Spiritual Direction program at Emmaus Spiritual Ministries in Orange, California. In 2016, I became the full mentor for the first year students, and I have been that ever since.
I am grateful every day to God for putting my mischief to good use. I love my treasure.
