Editor
If you knew John a few years ago, you knew a type-A personality, a driven businessman, someone who wanted to control everything in his environment. Today, John says, he is different, thanks to spiritual direction.
A lifelong Catholic who asked that his full name not be used, John is now "more accepting of life on its own terms. I have a sense of peace that comes with a surrender to something deeper. Fear subsides as the experience of God and me coming closer together occurs."
In many ways, John's up-and-down life story is typical of many Americans. Successful in a career in finance, he was married and had three children. Then came a divorce in 1980 and remarriage three years later. All along, he battled alcoholism, entering AA, leaving it convinced he was not a alcoholic and finally rediscovering that he needed its help to recover.
Missing person
Amid all of life's joys and sorrows, business successes and marital disappointments, John, who is now in his mid-50s, sensed that something was missing.
"I wanted more in my life," he explained. "I needed to experience something beyond what I was experiencing."
His first steps on what he calls "the path of my spiritual journey" were taken in 1970 when he made a Cursillo.
"That changed my experience of Christianity," he said. "I had been struggling with the concepts of what the Church meant to me. God was black-and-white when I was growing up. You get that handed to you by your parents, and I accepted it. But as I got older, I struggled with my concept of God."
Spiritual growth
His involvement in the Cursillo movement intensified and was supplemented with spiritual reading. In 1988, he was attracted to a 30-week program on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius.
"I can't tell you why I was drawn to a 30-week program," he noted, but he decided to commit himself to it. Part of the program involved one-on-one spiritual direction with a nun.
"I was frustrated because I felt I wanted spiritual direction from a man," he recalled. "I thought I would relate better with a man. After a year, however, I knew it was a profound experience. She taught me a lot from the feminine side that was beyond my expectations."
More to come
More retreat and spiritual programs followed, as did John's involvement in prison ministry. Eventually, he began spiritual direction with a brother whom he had met at the retreat. That relationship has lasted seven years, enduring even though the two men now live on opposite ends of the country.
"Spiritual direction offers a structure to find the sense of mystery about God," John explained. "It has focused me on the mystery and allowed me to have a clearer experience of God and His involvement in my life.
"It's difficult to describe. It has expanded my understanding of God. A sense of God in our lives is experiential, and it needs to be experienced with a mentor. The mentor offers a dialogue in which I can express my own self; and in that deepest sense of self, I find God present."
To anyone interested in starting spiritual direction, John offers this advice: "Beware of expectations. Make sure they are reasonable. It's a process that builds over time; it doesn't snap into place immediately. It takes time and surrender and guidance. But self-confrontation and self-acceptance breed freedom. God finds me. I can't make it happen, but I can be present when it does."