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April 20, 2007
Get access to Grand Google
Spiritual directors help guide insight into one's innermost being.
BAILA LAZARUS
There are life coaches, career coaches, business coaches and sports
coaches, so why not spiritual coaches? If you feel something missing
in your life in the area of spirituality, the Divine, an inner truth
or a deeper meaning as to why you're here, where do you turn? Enter
the world of spiritual directors.
Though not a new field (it could be said that various biblical figures
held the role of spiritual guide or mentor), it's been garnering
attention in recent years; and that attention focused on Vancouver
this month when Spiritual Directors International held their annual
event, entitled Coming Home to the Cosmos, April 11-15.
Among the attendees were several members of the local Jewish community,
as well as Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit, a guest invited and sponsored
by Ahavat Olam Synagogue, Jewish Family Service Agency and Or Shalom
Synagogue.
Zevit is a spiritual director at several seminaries and training
programs and is a senior consultant and the director of outreach
for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. He lists his quarter-century
of experience as comprised of spiritual leadership, organizational
consulting and training, educational arts, writing, recording, teaching
and performing. He is the author of Offerings of the Heart -
Money, Values and Faith, and has recorded three original music
CDs.
Zevit spoke to a group of about 40 spiritual directors and lay people
at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture Saturday night about
Hashpa'ah, or Jewish spiritual direction. "Spiritual
direction is a process for exploring our connection with what we
experience as God, spirit, truth, ultimate values, however we express
and understand the sacred in our lives," he told the group,
explaining that Hashpa'ah comes from shefah, which means
divine flow. "We want to explore where the flow is blocked,"
he said.
Zevit, who mixed discussion and songs throughout the two-hour event,
pointed out that people feel it's OK to let their spirituality remain
blocked, or not explored, using the reason they're not "a spiritual
person."
"Cardiovascularly, we don't say, 'I'm not a biological person,'
" he noted. "If you're lucky, you only have a minor spiritual
stroke."
But many people don't have the means to explore these blockages,
and that's where spiritual direction comes in. Done as one-to-one
coaching, or in group settings, spiritual direction helps people
find access to their spirituality. "Getting the door to the
cell unlocked doesn't mean you're free," Zevit said. "You
could have the door open but be running around."
He cautioned, however, that spiritual directors or leaders are not
there to "give" or "fix" something.
"We are here as a witness for God's manifestation in a client,"
he said, adding that directors are more like spiritual guides who
are there during both smooth and rough patches.
"Unlike psychotherapy," he said, "which may focus
on a problem needing a solution, spiritual direction attends to
the experiences of connection to, or distance from, God, holiness,
truth and core values, during times we feel whole, as well as times
we feel shattered."
In considering what you might derive from a spiritual mentor, Zevit
suggests asking yourself some of the following questions:
• How do I understand and/or experience God's presence?
• What are my questions/struggles/resistances to the possibility
of feeling like I have a "personal relationship" with
God?
• In what ways do I feel that I am living the life I am meant
to live?
• How do I discern how to make choices that are in alignment
with my highest self/my soul's journey?
• What am I being "called" to do and be in my life?
• How has my understanding or vision of the sacred/my higher
purpose/my potential changed over time? What is it now?
Though Zevit speaks from a world that is spiritually based, he's
well grounded in modern and pop culture and regularly invokes one-liners
from the likes of Crocodile Dundee and Jerry McGuire,
or couches his teaching in techno-terminology.
"We have to find the portal to connect to the Grand Google,"
he said, taking a strum on his guitar. "Sometimes we have to
shut down the browser and start again."
For more information on spiritual direction, visit www.rabbizevit.com.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and
illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.
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