Margaret Guenther - Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction - Book Review

Margaret Guenther (M.Div., Ph.D.), born in 1929 is an Episcopal priest, wife, mother of three children, grandmother, spiritual director, mentor of spiritual directors, retreat leader, “administrator, lay medical practitioner, scrubber of floors, washer of clothes,” and recently retired [i] professor of Ascetical Theology and Director of the Center for Christian Spirituality at the General Theological Seminary in New York.

Holy Listening, at 146 pages, is an extended and evocative meditation on the experience of spiritual direction written around the metaphors of spiritual director as host, teacher, and midwife. She concludes with a chapter concerning women and spiritual direction

Guenther opens her chapter on the spiritual director as a "midwife" with the text of Jn. 3:1-4 and an evocative quote from Meister Eckhart:

Tend only to the birth in you and you will find all goodness and all consolation, all delight, all being, and all truth. Reject it and you reject goodness and blessing. What comes to you in this birth brings with it pure being and blessing. But what you seek or love outside of this birth will come to nothing, no matter what you will or where you will it.

Eckhart’s “birth in you;” the birth being attended too and accompanied by the spiritual director / midwife is, it seems to me, that process over time whereby we are becoming more fully human, more fully alive in relation to God, self, and those who neighbour us. Christ Jesus, the final adam is being uniquely formed or born in us. This formation of our “true selves”, Jesus, the perfect imago Dei being woven into the fabric of our lives, is a work of the Holy Spirit who hovers over the “stuff” of our re-creation bringing order out of our inner chaos, wholeness out of fragmentation, and freedom out of bondage.[ii] To accompany this growing, this re-birth, as a spiritual director, is in the words of Guenther to catch “a glimpse into the mystery of Creation and Incarnation.” To accompany and attend to this birth is a tremendously humbling privilege. It is a profoundly spiritual and theological experience for both director and directee.

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[i] Jesus’ Kingdom announcement in Luke 4:18 to 19 seems relevant here.

[ii] She still serves as an Emeritus Professor.

Comments

[andii]

I agree that the book is goldmine of useful insights and the like. There is a certain irony about it though. Rightly it seeks to recover feminine imagery and insights for spiritual direction. The irony is that, if my observations particularly at SpiDir training courses is representative, we are actually beginning to experience a crisis in finding male spiritual directors. The feminisationof spirituality is a cultural 'problem' for males in the Anglo world.We need also to address the issue of appropriate ways to address masculine spirituality.I agree that there has been a problem needing the redressing of linguistic issues relating to masculine/feminine imagery and metaphor etc. However, we need to beware of thinking that if we are doing that, then we are doing all that we need to do. We will also then need to take stock of the reflex of that action back into our culture and be aware of what dynamics it sets up or alters.
Just a thought.
I've blogged about this post -pretty much along the lines above
http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2005/04/holy-listening.html

[*Christopher]

This looks like an excellent resource. I love all of the spiritual direction resources you've posted. Glad I found your blog.