Spiritual Direction - Orientation, Disorientation and Re-Orientation.

Paul writes – A useful way of considering a persons journey toward God is to prayerfully considering their life and living through a construct offered by Walter Brueggemann who in reading Israel’s psalms broadly groups them into three contexts out of which the Psalms emerge: Orientation, disorientation, and reorientation.

When this framework overlays something like Jesuit Patrick Purnell's Spiritual Direction as a Process, the usefulness of Brueggemann’s construct becomes evident.

Stage 1 (‘Orientation’)

God initiates stirs and draws. The directee comes to the director, ‘I feel a need to come and talk,’ or  ‘I’ve got this or that problem, can I come and talk?” They describe their orientation; what’s actually happening where they are, with who they are at this stage in their journey. Purnell notes, “The director…says as little or as much as is needful for the directee to say what she/he wants to say, [verbally and non-verbally].”

Stage 2 (‘Orientation’)

Deals with questions such as “how did the present evolve?” “How did I come to be the person I am?” Theirs is an act of remembering, assembling, and convergence. It deals with the “uncovering of assumptions upon which ones life is built and governed, “. It is an exposing of the script out of which a person lives.

Stage 3 (‘Disorientation’)   

This stage is concerned with seeking God, with seeking God’s will. “Stage 3 is understood as ‘input’; new material, new ideas, activities to enable the individual to feel his/her way forward toward God and God’s will.” The output of stage 3 is an emerging vision. It is also typically a time of disorientation as the familiar is modified, changed, or discarded.

Stage 4 (‘Reorientation’)

Broadly speaking, this stage is about the continuing interaction between the present and his/her emerging vision / script. It is concerned with ones continuing reorientation toward God, self, and others. It’s about a new or different orientation, and also a new awareness of who one could be, and how one could be with the help of God.

Stage 5 (‘Reorientation’ continued)

Is concerned with how ones reorientation works itself out in practice. It is “provisional” – the result of a willingness to experiment, assess, and evaluate.

Stage 6 (‘Orientation’)

One becomes, for a time, settled and orientated.

Comments

[DAN PHILLIPS]

Excellent post Paul. Am saving it to use.