The unexamined spiritual life
Noël Staples, in the first of two articles, reflects on the spiritual life
Two of the most frustrating aspects of mystical spiritual experience are: first, one desires strongly to help others find a way into their own spiritual relationship (with the Divine, God, the Light, Allah); and second, the endeavour is frustrated by the difficulty of articulating anything about one’s own mystical spiritual experience.
Some years ago the Jesuit scholar Philip Endean came to the Peterborough Theological Society to give a talk and lead a discussion on ‘The Spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola’. He began his talk, and I paraphrase his words, with what remains a vivid memory: ‘I feel a bit of a fraud coming to talk about the spirituality of Ignatius. I can’t do that. But what I’m going to do is to talk about some aspects of his life in the hopes that something of his spirituality will creep out.’ It did.
In conversation with Philip Endean, after his excellent talk, I was lamenting that I’d always had difficulty trying to explain to others about my spiritual life. What was almost as frustrating, I said, was that I seemed to end up doing more to deepen my own spiritual life than theirs. ‘Aha,’ he said, ‘you know what your spiritual director would have said? Who were you trying to explain it to?’
I had never heard of a spiritual director, but the point went home and affects me still, to the extent that (Quakers having no such training) I spent two years with the Diocese of Ely training as a spiritual director – the only Quaker among some twenty trainees.
It must be frustrating for any of us trying to share our spiritual experience. If there is any message at all in this short piece it is: we should all seek to develop our listening skills to help others examine their spiritual lives. What Philip Endean did was listen to me. There was a clear sense that his whole attention was focussed on me.
There’s skill in being a good listener. Developing that skill requires being genuinely interested in and caring about what the other person is trying to say. It shows! You can’t fake it. Naturally, techniques exist for improving the skill of listening. Trying to share something of our spiritual life, unless we are already supremely confident in it, makes most people vulnerable. Good listeners appreciate that and an assurance like ‘what’s said in this room stays in this room’ helps. It’s important to use the speaker’s own words when responding and, sparingly, to ask ‘open’, not direct questions. ‘How do you feel about…’ is preferable to ‘do you feel angry/happy/sad about?’ A good listener also tries accurately to reflect the feelings he or she hears: ‘You seem to feel a bit sad/a bit uncomfortable/puzzled about…’ Leave space while the other person feels and thinks what to say next. Resist filling the space with your own comment. Make this their time, not yours!
Only rarely should one contribute one’s own views or feelings – perhaps only when sharing similar views or feelings of one’s own by way of reassurance. It is good if you can gently encourage the other person to remember a time, or place, when they felt, perhaps, deeply moved spiritually, or had a sense of oneness with everything. Reviewing such memories often deepens spiritual life or enables further spiritual experience. Mystical experience can start with a sense of amazement, wonder or awe at nature, or at the sheer stupendousness of the universe.
Spiritual directors don’t direct, God directs. Spiritual directors enable by creating a listening space for others in the presence of the Spirit. Practising can make us better listeners. Seeking good listeners and trying to explain our spiritual life to them, and ourselves, may help it grow. Socrates is thought to have said: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’
It may be true of the unexamined spiritual life.
