A Resource for Spiritual Directors & Companions
October 2023
Volume 17
Issue 4
As the father of six, ranging in age from 38 down to 18, I am well versed with the generational shift occurring worldwide away from most established religions, and towards the variously named “spiritual but not religious,” “spiritual independents,” or the the title I now tentatively proffer, “unaffiliated spiritual explorers.” Five of my six identify with this category, with only one fitting in an affiliated group.
The Pew Research Center now identifies this consort as the third largest in the world overall, and the fastest growing. Not much surprise here, given the avalanche of scandals, predatory behaviour, power imbalances, corruption and hypocrisy plaguing all of our religious institutions. I say this as a committed Zen Buddhist priest, well aware of the too many sordid abuses in my own root tradition. We could of course say that this type of bad behaviour is simply reflective of human nature, and pervasive in our various institutions throughout time, but simply far more visible now, with the rise of social media, and the ubiquitousness of “smart” phones. And, moreover, it is worth noting that these institutions, for all of their failings, also have had much success in spiritually comforting and orienting many of us.
But it is not my purpose today to launch a defense along the lines of “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” much as that is something worth pondering. Rather, I want to briefly explore the motivations that lie behind these unaffiliated spiritual explorations, as relayed to me by numerous individuals, and backed up by the Pew data I just mentioned. The larger context is that SDI is going to start offering significantly more offerings to reflect the needs and predilections of this consort of spiritual director and companion guides and explorers.
The most important refrain that I hear from the unaffiliated is that they are seeking spiritual authenticity. The essence of spirituality that is, that longing for transcendence, for understanding of what remains when these temporary vessels that we occupy dissipate and vanish, a deeper meaning and purpose, variously referred to as God/Brahman/Tao/Allah/The Universe, or “The Ground of all Being,” among others. Needless to say, it comes by so many names, and manifests in everything we do.
Embedded in this, at least for some of us, are the paradoxes and seeming contradictions of looking for the freedom to commune purely with ultimate essence, and the rigor and discipline that is required to get there for most of us. Traditional religions, whatever their flaws, provide well worn and established paths for getting there: prayer, meditation, hermitages, retreats, monasteries, synagogues, churches, mosques and temples of all kinds, socially engaged efforts, Caminos, et al. By contrast, the path of spiritual independents can be far more lonely, one in which you can end up with nothing to rely on, and no one to depend on.
Of course, among the ranks of the unaffiliated are also the “formerly affiliated,” a large and growing segment of people who previously followed a particular faith tradition, and for a wide variety of reasons have abandoned that tradition to make their own way. A lonely as well, to be sure, for different reasons.
There is also a third category that we can label “multi-faith” or “multi-spiritual,” for those individuals integrating key components from various traditions, finding the points of commonality, and deeply immersing with them, and beyond them.
Among many others, another unaffiliated grouping comprises those who literally, and liberally, follow the beat of their own drums, and commune with the Beyond, or however they might name it, through dance, music, poetry, swimming, singing, among many other possible entry points.
In all of these endeavours, and whatever the entry point, community remains paramount, as we need eachother to make our way through. And, along these lines, the modality of spiritual companionship plays a very special role.
One on one relationships create a particular kind of deep intimacy that is especially conducive to mirroring and connecting with the eternal. There is a unique symmetry and architecture in these relationships. And their beauty is that no assumptions about starting or ending points need to be made, as it’s all about the journeys each of us are undertaking. And because we recognize that each journey is unique, we can be faithful mirrors as companions, without making any assumptions about faith traditions, or spiritual orientations, or lack thereof. Unless those companioned want to! But that choice is entirely in the hands of each individual.
In this way, all of us, wherever we begin and end, can unite in our spiritual pursuits.
Our Sponsors
“Within each of us is a divine treasure, and if we hope to
discover it, we need to go deep into the heart of who we are.”
“To find that treasure requires that we work like a wood carver
who does not work by adding but by cutting away,
removing what is rough to reveal
what shimmers from within.”
-Meister Eckhart
(as translated by Mark Burrows)
Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light: Meditations on the Path of the Wayless Way
by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows / Reviewed by Greg Richardson
Note: This book review was originally published in Presence Journal, Volume 28 Issue 2, June 2022. We are sharing it here as we have launched registrations for a special 4-part webinar series with the authors on spiritual companionship and Meister Eckhart’s wisdom.
This collection of theological reflections in poetic form is drawn from the writings and sermons of fourteenth-century priest and mystic Eckhart von Hochheim, better known as Meister Eckhart. Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light: Meditations on the Path of the Wayless Way is a collaboration between Jon M. Sweeney, an independent scholar and writer, and Mark S. Burrows, a poet, translator, and professor of religion and literature. It follows up on their earlier books, Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart and Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets, which also distill the teachings of Meister Eckhart into short meditations.
In “Room Enough,” we are reminded that:
We talk and talk and talk, and all
this brings us no closer to wisdom.
If you wish to understand the deep
truth that is in God and in yourself,
keep still and listen; become poor
in yourself, desiring nothing and
knowing nothing and possessing
nothing. Only when you are empty
of all your chatter will there be
room enough in you to receive
the gift of wisdom you long for. (65)
Meister Eckhart himself did not write poetry, as far as we know. In these books, Burrows and Sweeney transform Meister Eckhart’s theological teaching into poetry, which sparks reflection in us. Many of us want to follow a spiritual path that is clearly marked and has measurable steps. We are not comfortable with the “wayless way” Meister Eckhart describes. This book is a poetic manual for spiritual life for those who are open to it. In Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light, the reader receives starting points to fuel contemplation, such as in “The Power of Practice”:
To live a life grounded in God,
you don’t need information;
you need to be informed by
the spark of divine presence
you always carry within you.
But you’ll have to practice
this, with concentration,
like you would if you were
learning a skill or an art. (102)
Though Meister Eckhart’s background was in the Christian and European traditions, the poetic meditations in Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light are accessible to people from a variety of spiritual experiences. All three books can be valuable tools for anyone who accompanies others on their spiritual journeys. They translate what can be intimidating theological treatises into more contemplative forms. The passion Burrows and Sweeney have for Meister Eckhart guides them to explore insights and questions without losing the threads of his original thinking.
This book will be a significant resource as you work with others as a spiritual director or companion, and in your own reading and reflection. It is an excellent introduction to Meister Eckhart and to contemplative mystic reflection.
Newburyport, MA: Hampton Roads Publishing, 2023
230 Pages, CAD $23.38 / GBP £13.45 / USD $16.95
Original review linked here: https://www.sdicompanions.org/media/presence/presence-29-2-june-2023/meister-eckharts-book/
We invite you to us on a transformative journey through the mystical teachings of Meister Eckhart in an accessible, experiential collaboration with the authors of Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light – Meditations on the Path of the Wayless Way.
In this upcoming four-part webinar, authors Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows will guide and facilitate our community in a spiritual adventure of poetry, dialogue, and reflection on the mystical teachings of Eckhart.
A Burning Bush Before Bed
Love runs deep in the evening when a day is done,
like two streams racing to greet each other at the end of a forest.
Two lives flowing,
forming,
as eyes closed witness the shifting shadows of
two flames flickering in between.
Two hearts wondering,
whispering,
“What incredible things have you done today?”
Two ears upright curious,
cascading to ask,
“How can I hold the struggle with you this night?”
Two souls savoring a day,
sitting across from a love lasting,
enduring,
meeting in between a doorway that has opened into
a burning bush.
Sandals removed for the night
as holy ground has been found.
Lungs breathe deep.
Candle smoke rises.
Lights go dim.
And the call to rest summons a circadian farewell to the dreams of day.
Chad Abbott is an ordained clergy in the United Church of Christ and a spiritual director. Co-author of Incline Your Ear: Cultivating Spiritual Awakening in Congregations, Chad lives in Indianapolis with his wife Shannon, two kids Solomon and Isabel, and dogs Zoe and Finn. You can reach him at [email protected]
Our Sponsors
A Lifetime of Days
O God of endless song,
you sang the world into being in six days
and took time to rest on the seventh,
survey your work,
and say,
Look at that.
That was good.
So we figure
six days should just about do it
for any large project.
We forget that to you,
a day is an eon, and an eon is a day.
We forget that big jobs—
a life’s work, generational healing—
are done step by small step,
over a very long time.
Forty years of wandering to reach a promised land.
Seventy years of exile in Babylon.
Centuries to embrace the glorious diversity
of all of us,
made in your image.
And a lifetime of days,
joyful and sad and ordinary days,
given to each person.
A lifetime of Sundays,
showing up in our places of worship
to find community,
to find each other,
and in each other,
to find you.
God of endless song,
of mornings that dawn and dawn:
Help us keep singing through Earth’s laughter and tears.
Help us keep marching when the road seems long.
Help us keep showing up.
Help us keep finding each other.
Help us mark our milestones—
the baptisms, graduations,
weddings, anniversaries, deaths.
Help us recognize
all we have done
and all those we’ve done it with.
Help us take the time to rest sometimes,
survey our work,
and say,
Look at that.
That was good.
Christa Gainor, an editor for more than thirty years, is a proofreader for Presence and copyeditor of GIA Quarterly, among many other roles. She received her bachelor’s degree in English and French from Alma College. She lives near Detroit, Michigan, USA, with her husband and son and is a ruling elder at Northminster Presbyterian Church of Troy, Michigan. You can reach her at [email protected]
Our Sponsors
“To bear and not to own;
to act and not lay claim;
to do the work and let it go:
for just letting it go is what makes it stay.”
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Our Sponsors
Publisher: Spiritual Directors International
Executive Director and Editor: Rev. Seifu Anil Singh-Molares
Production Supervisor: Matt Whitney
Web Designer: Ann Lancaster
Submissions: [email protected]
Advertising: [email protected]
Listen is published four times a year. The names Spiritual Directors International™, SDIWorld™, and SDI™ and its logo are trademarks of Spiritual Directors International, Inc., all rights reserved. Opinions and programs represented in this publication are of the authors and advertisers and may not represent the opinions of Spiritual Directors International, the Board of Directors, or the editors.
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