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TRADITION AND LEGACIES

longest twenty minutes of my life, I felt first my stomach pens in the simple act of stopping. If that stopping can be
and then every other muscle in my body respond to the experienced in the midst of motion we get to remember
energy by tensing up. As I breathed through the energy, it ourselves and God. (Personal interview)
helped me to stay present but I did not like it. I did not
like it one bit. People often look to meditation, prayer, dreams, and
As I bolted from the chapel after the meditation was shamanic journeys to provide answers to some of our
finally, mercifully over, I worried about what had just deepest questions. Although these spiritual practices can
happened. Had this been some sort of divine experience, provide answers, I have found them more often to pro-
or was I just losing my mind? Had I touched into some- vide questions. In the words of Dom Laurence Freeman,
thing within me that was intent on my destruction or OSB, spiritual director of the World Community for
intent on my healing? I didn’t know anything except that Christian Meditation, from his book Jesus, the Teacher
I was now afraid to sit in meditation. Within, “Important questions create silence” (24).
Mabry describes this type of experience in this way: An important question takes time to answer; it requires
“Such an experience can utterly undo a person. It can stopping and contemplating. I would venture to say that
be disorienting, frightening, inspiring and dangerous. In it takes silence to create important questions as well.
spiritual direction, we call it a Spiritual Emergence, or When we focus on silence in meditation, these ques-
even a Spiritual Emergency and indeed people often flee tions sometimes arise, and if we take them to spiritual
to the emergency room, fearing that they are going crazy direction, we can reflect them back and unpack them.
or are physically ill” (15). Freeman calls these redemptive questions, writing:
If I had not already had a spiritual director of my own,
I might have done the same. But how can a spiritual They initiate a process of redemption. This means a
director help to translate questions and insight from the conscious process of healing and of liberation from all
cushion back into our lives so that we can grow and learn that blocks joy, compassion and creativity.... A redemp-
from them? We have to unpack these experiences, and tive question is not like other mundane questions. It does
sometimes that takes the eye or ear of a bystander. How not expect an ordinary, rational, correct answer. Instead it
often is it that we can’t see the forest for the trees in our opens up a deeper level for experiencing the truth.… The
own lives but can see the entire landscape in someone right questions constantly refresh our awareness that life is
else’s? A well-trained spiritual director can help meditators not fundamentally a secular problem but a sacred mystery.
to see the forest and the trees in their own spiritual lives. Mysteries are not solved. They are entered upon and they
Lauren Van Ham, dean of the Chaplaincy Institute in embrace us. (26, 27)
Berkeley and a spiritual director, has this to say about dif-
ficult or insightful moments during meditation and the I love this idea of mysteries embracing us. Perhaps this
help that a spiritual director can provide: is why I love Blake. What can be more mysterious than a
world in a grain of sand, or eternity in an hour? We can-
1
When a client wonders if something is significant, a not understand these with our logical minds, but we can
spark of God, we can be curious together about it. We enter into them and embrace them with our hearts.
can confirm if the insight is a divine spark, and then we In Zen Buddhism, koans, or questions that pose
are encouraged to find ways to grow and tend it within paradoxes upon which to meditate, have been used
us. What we learn in moments of stillness and how that for centuries. They are meant to train Zen Buddhist
can inform moments of activity can be reflected back to us monks to move from dependence on logical thinking
in ways that allow us to grow. Something profound hap- toward a precipice of completely new understanding that
forces them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment.
1 In the context of spiritual direction, “client” refers to someone Whether they are koans or other questions that arise
seeking spiritual support and guidance, such as a spiritual directee, naturally, these thoughts can feed and nurture us with the
retreatant, parishioner, congregant, or seeker. beauty and experience of living in the unknowable.

14 Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction