"For as to the spiritual direction of my soul, I think that God himself has taken it in hand from the start and still looks after it."
--Simone Weil, from Waiting for GodMy Faith and My Spiritual Mentoring Ministry
A fundamental fact of my spirituality is my Conservative Quaker faith(1). I do not require that people I mentor be Quakers, and I have no desire or intention to convert anyone to Quakerism. However, I cannot escape my religious convictions and experiences. They have led me to accept the following truths.- God has a will for each of us.
- God wishes for each of us to be healed. He(2) will show us what we are to work on, as the need arises, through our dreams, life experiences and relationships.
- We can discern God's will with the aid of the Holy Spirit, Inward Teacher, Inner Guide, Christ Within, Light Within.
- We should seek to do God's will.
- The primary goal of spiritual mentoring is to help people learn to discern God's will and, ultimately, to do so independently.
Quakerism is an experiential religion. I know God in the ways I experience God. You know God in the ways you experience God. God casts the widest possible net. When we seek the Truth, what we find is God.
While I believe the goal of the spiritual mentoring relationship is to release the person from that relationship, I also believe that once we have forged a spiritual mentoring relationship, that this relationship lasts forever, even after we stop meeting on a regular basis. It is always possible to return to regularly meeting, if new issues arise and we both feel clear to proceed.
I do not believe that I am necessarily called to be a spiritual nurturer to every person who requests it. I provide spiritual mentoring as the Spirit guides, and cannot mentor those I feel I am not supposed to.
I do not accept payment for my spiritual mentoring. It is a ministry given freely by God and so I must, in due humility, return it as a free gift to my community.
As those who at sea are held by an anchor, pull at the anchor yet do not drag it to them, but rather drag themselves to the anchor; so those who according to the life of spiritual knowledge try to draw God toward them imperceptibly bring themselves to God.
--Clement of Alexandria
(1) "Conservative Quaker" does not necessarily mean a person is a political conservative, only that they seek to "conserve" traditional Quaker ways. I cannot be considered a political conservative.
(2) I use the pronoun "he" for God. I don't actually feel God has a gender and am completely comfortable with people who refer to God as female or in non-gender-specific ways, but they must in turn be comfortable with my use of the male pronoun.
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