Plenary Leaders

Conference Keynote Presenter

ROSE MARY DOUGHERTY, SSND, is the Shalem Institute’s Senior Fellow for Spiritual Guidance, currently working as a volunteer at Joseph’s House, a hospice for formerly homeless men who have AIDS. She also offers retreats and group spiritual direction for hospice caregivers. Rose Mary is the author of Group Spiritual Direction and the editor of The Lived Experience of Group Spiritual Direction. She is a sensei (teacher) in the lineage of the White Plum Sangha.

Conference Spiritual Director

JACOB STAUB is a Reconstructionist rabbi. He serves as professor of Jewish philosophy and spirituality at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, USA, where he was instrumental in establishing and now directing the Program in Jewish Spiritual Direction.  He is the author of The Creation of the World According to Gersonides and Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach.

Evening Performance

For Tomorrow (Ich Hoff’ Auf Morgen): Poetry, Music, and the Story of Hilda Stern Cohen

SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 7:30 P.M.

For Tomorrow, a unique presentation about a Holocaust survivor and poet, is part theater, part storytelling, part music, part prayers and chant. Vignettes of Hilda Stern Cohen’s life are told in her own words, as recounted by her to storyteller Gail Rosen. The vignettes are framed by chanted Hebrew prayers—the prayers that Hilda prayed daily. Hilda’s poems—some spoken, some set to music by William Gilcher and sung in German by Elizabeth Bolton, a rabbi and trained opera singer—poignantly evoke her experience. Rabbi Bolton is accompanied by Tom Moore on piano and Anna Gilcher on flute. More than a biography of a Holocaust survivor, For Tomorrow is the recounting of a unique spiritual and physical journey in which faith supports survival and creativity inspires—and is expressed in—faith.

Friday Conference Workshops

Note: The percent (%) figures following workshop descriptions indicate the relative percentage of presentation, discussion, and experiential activity.

FRIDAY, MARCH 28, WORKSHOPS
1.5 HOURS (CHOOSE TWO AND ONE ALTERNATIVE)

F1. Being Present to Silence

Explore the spiritual director’s role as a directee moves into the early stages of silence and contemplative prayer. Study and experience the ways people pray and the role of a spiritual director in accompanying the inevitable changes that occur. A generous provision for personal silence and shared reflection will be included. 33%, 33%, 33%.

Peter Ball, from Ramsbury, England, is a spiritual director, retreat leader, and author of Introducing Spiritual Direction and Anglican Spiritual Direction. Following work at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, he now ministers in local Anglican parishes.

F2. Spiritual Rx: How to Find Your Spiritual Practice

Good spiritual practices address what is happening in our lives. Learn how to select practices based on the qualities you want to enhance and the tendencies you want to counter or balance. Put together a set of practices—simple activities you make up as you go along—gleaned from the world’s religions and the Indiana Jones School of Spirituality. 40%, 40%, 20%.

Mary Ann Brussat is an interfaith minister, co-director of SpiritualityandPractice.com and the Spiritual Literacy Project for multi-faith practice groups. She is co-author of Spiritual Literacy and Spiritual Rx and a reviewer of books, audios, and films. She lives in New York, USA.

F3. Discernment: Key to the Art of Supervision

Does the art of supervision emerge from a contemplative stance? Discover how supervision fosters ongoing co-discernment within the spiritual director, honors God’s movement within the spiritual director and directee, and supports the development of the spiritual director’s unique gifts and skills. Bring spiritual direction or supervision experiences to use in our reflective group process and discussion. 50%, 25%, 25%.

Carolynne Ervin, MA, coordinates the spiritual direction practicum in the holistic spirituality master’s program at Chestnut Hill College in Pennsylvania, USA. She has ministered for 25 years in spiritual direction, training, and supervision of spiritual directors.

F4. Presence in our Body: The Felt Sense and Sacredness of Body Wisdom

Is bringing a sense of the sacred fully into our body a valuable practice? Yes! Learn to ground spiritual experience by accessing your body’s wisdom. Practice applications you can use personally and with your directees as we embody the presence of the sacred through tools from focusing, neurobiology, and somatic psychology. 25%, 25%, 50%.

Suzanne Fageol, MDiv, spiritual director, teaches in the Lorian Center for Incarnational Spirituality spiritual direction program, Washington, USA, and serves on the adjunct faculty for the Claritas Institute for Interspiritual Mentoring. She also is a craniosacral bodywork therapist and Episcopal priest.

Elizabeth Fowler, MD, is a teacher and spiritual director in the Lorian Center for Incarnational Spirituality spiritual direction program, Washington, USA. She also is a physician, life coach, and workshop leader.

F5. Hospitality: The Heart of Spiritual Direction

“The Lord appeared to Abraham, and he looked up and saw three men” (Genesis 18:1-2). Abraham and Sarah extended hospitality to God’s emissaries. How do we welcome God into our lives and into our spiritual direction relationships? We will explore ways to invite God, directees, and the material they bring into the home of our hearts. 40%, 30%, 30%.

Leslie A. Hay, DMin, is a spiritual director, teacher, writer, and active supporter of ongoing education and nourishment of other spiritual directors. She is the author of Hospitality: The Heart of Spiritual Direction and lives in Texas, USA.

F6. Receptivity and Presence: Creative Movement between Contemplative and Clinical Attentiveness

Presence is deepened by our own ease in shifting attention from the clinical to contemplative dimensions during a spiritual direction session. Hear personal accounts of the transition from clinician to spiritual director and case scenarios that demonstrate the convergence—and divergence—of clinical and contemplative dimensions. Everyone will be invited to share experiences of this creative interplay. 70%, 30%, 0%.

Vivienne Joyce, SC, NCPsyA, is a psychoanalyst and a spiritual director, clinical consultant, supervisor, and instructor in the spiritual direction program at Fordham University Graduate School of Religion, New York, USA.

Robert J. Giugliano, PhD, is a psychologist, spiritual director, and adjunct faculty member at Fordham University Graduate School of Religion, New York, USA.

F7. Being Present to the Cosmos

Want to deepen your presence to the cosmos? Discover the three cosmic principles of differentiation, autopoesis (self-organization), and communion within and around you. Engage in exploring how these principles are meant to be embodied in each of us as human earthlings and cosmic beings. Learn how they enhance the spiritual companionship dynamic. 40%, 30%, 30%.

Dr. Alexandra Kovats, CSJP, is an adjunct professor in spirituality at The School of Theology and Ministry, Seattle University, USA, spiritual director, and “prayershop” and retreat facilitator in the United States, Canada, and beyond.

F8. Being Present with Generation X

Everyone holds the potential for a spiritually driven life, and Generation X is no exception. Many in this age demographic are attracted to spiritual direction, seeking spiritual experience, meaning, nonhierarchical relationships, and sacred space. Are you prepared to be present with Generation X? 40%, 40%, 20%.

Karen Kuchan, PhD, lives in California, USA, teaches at Pecos Benedictine School for Spiritual Direction, and authored Visio Divina: A New Prayer Practice for Encounters with God.

F9. Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First!

How are you doing? Self-care for the spiritual director or companion is crucial. Together we will encourage honest self-reflection, explore the symptoms and path leading to burnout, and make useful suggestions for the repair and recovery of a good, healthy life. 40%, 35%, 25%.

Sallie Latkovich, CSJ, is professor at the Blessed Edmund Rice School for Pastoral Ministry and codirector of its training for spiritual directors program in Florida, USA.

F10. Discovering Daily the Life in Our Life

For what today am I grateful? For what today am I not so grateful? Ask yourself these two questions, and experience how this daily examen can help you fully receive the life from each day. With practice, it can heal hurts, aid in discerning the pattern of God’s will, help support others (especially family and children), and focus key movements in the spiritual direction relationship. 50%, 20%, 30%.

Matthew Linn, SJ, MDiv, MA, is the author (with Dennis and Sheila Linn) of 21 books and a teacher in Sacred Ground spiritual direction program, Minnesota, USA.

F11. Presence to Experiences of Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse is a deep spiritual wound. Being present to this experience in another is painful, difficult, and often avoided. In order to be contemplatively and effectively present to directees, we need to learn strategies, support, and self-care. Learn how you can be present with this painful wound in those you companion. 40%, 30%, 30%.

Carol Mitchell, PhD, is a spiritual director with a background in clinical psychology. She works at the Franciscan Center in Florida, USA, and has extensive experience with sexual abuse survivors.

F12. Retreats in Daily Life: A Proven Path to Presence

Presence starts with being grounded in being. A directed retreat in daily life is a practical way for a spiritual director to seed a lifelong, life-giving encounter with the Sacred. Learn why this type of retreat has appealed to more than 1000 people in the Washington, DC, area, and experience how you can adapt it to your particular setting, congregation, institution, or faith community. 50%, 10%, 40%.

Natalie Ganley and Marilyn Merikangas are spiritual directors at the Jesuit Center for Spirituality at Holy Trinity Church in Washington, DC, USA. Each has given directed retreats in daily life for eighteen years.

F13. Spiritual Awareness and Wisdom in Zen: Exploring the Nexus of Paradox and Harmony

Can the simplicity and spirituality of the “Arts of Zen” help us be more present in the multi-faith and multi-cultural contexts of the West and the East? Yes. Together we will explore and experience the paradox and harmony in Zen and learn ways to grow beyond old cultural barriers into new areas of understanding. 33%, 30%, 37%.

Rev. Dr. Masaaki F. Shibano, MTh, DMin, DASD, is pastor of the United Church of Christ in Japan, teacher of spirituality in the West and East, and spiritual director of the Institute of Spiritual Direction, Japan.

F14. The Transforming Presence on the Margins

How can our relationships with people on the margins help form us? How does our time with them foster contemplative awareness and interior freedom? We will explore what happens when we truly listen to their stories and receive their gift of transformation. 33%, 33%, 33%.

Sharon Browning, JD, spiritual director, works with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA-based Just Listening Project, which concentrates on simply being present to people on the social margins. She is an attorney and former executive director of Philadelphia VIP Pro Bono Legal Services.

Vie Thorgren, DMin, is the executive director of the Center for Spirituality at Work and its formation program for spiritual directors focusing on the spiritual-care needs of marginalized people. A spiritual director for 29 years, she lives in Colorado, USA.

F15. Welcoming the Stranger Within

As spiritual directors, we need to be welcoming and present to the stranger within as well as the stranger who knocks on our door. We all have parts of ourselves that we have rejected, neglected, or ignored. Through poetry, storytelling, and guided imagery, we will delve into our neglected parts and discover ways of honoring and welcoming them into our lives. 40%, 20%, 40%.

Rev. Jane E. Vennard (United Church of Christ) is a spiritual director, retreat leader, and author of six books on prayer, most recently, The Way of Prayer. She lives and teaches in Colorado, USA.

F16. The Simple Presence of Forgiveness

Why not look at forgiveness as a possibility for new life available through simple, nonattached presence to what is, rather than primarily as a moral or psychological concern? We’ll listen to stories, engage in simple forgiveness-related practices from various traditions, and reflect from interpersonal, social, and ecological perspectives. 33%, 33%, 33%.

Dorothy Whiston, DMin, a spiritual director for more than 20 years, currently works with Soul Friends in Iowa, USA, volunteers in several prisons, and is writing a spiritual memoir largely about forgiveness. 

Friday Evening Workshops

Note: The percent (%) figures following workshop descriptions indicate the relative percentage of presentation, discussion, and experiential activity.

FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 28, OPPORTUNITIES
(CHOOSE ONE AND ONE ALTERNATIVE)

FE1. Creating a Native American Medicine Wheel: A Way to Be Present

Using simple art materials, create a personal medicine wheel exploring four aspects of our inner landscape: spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional. We’ll then process through group spiritual direction. No previous art experience is required.

Richard Bough, MFA, incorporates artistic expression into the spiritual direction process. He teaches “Art and Spiritual Direction” at Loyola University’s Institute of Pastoral Studies, Illinois, USA.

FE2. Sacred Touch: Using Our Hands as Instruments for Spiritual Direction

Learn and practice simple techniques adapted from the healing modalities of massage therapy and Reiki as well as simple rituals using gentle, non-threatening forms of touch. Discuss ways to safely and respectfully incorporate sacred touch into your spiritual direction practice.

Susan Butler-Jones coordinates the Prairie Jubilee Program for Spiritual Direction through the University of Winnipeg, Canada. She is a minister in the United Church of Canada, spiritual director, registered massage therapist, and Reiki practitioner.

FE3. Prayer for Busy People

We often hear the guilt-ridden lament, “I don’t have time for a deeper prayer life!” But God is more interested in our growth than our guilt. This workshop invites participants to explore a number of integrative prayer practices: the rolling sanctuary, preparation prayer, breath prayer, and creative prayer practices such as gardening, art, music, pottery, knitting, and cooking, among others. Find practical ways to expand your own and your directees’ communication with God.

Linda Douty is a spiritual director, retreat leader, book reviewer, and author of How Can I Let Go If I Don’t Know I’m Holding On? and How Can I See the Light When It’s So Dark? She lives in Tennessee, USA.

FE4. Vibrations of Creation: Tibetan Singing Bowls

Experience the open and accepting vibrations of creation through the lingering, penetrating sounds of Tibetan singing bowls. Listen to the circle of sounds emanating from a collection of bowls as they are struck or rubbed. Learn their history, and experience their use on the body. (Limited to twenty participants.)

Ann Kulp, DMin, is a spiritual director who leads workshops and retreats. She is a staff member at Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation and the author of Spirit Windows: A Handbook of Spiritual Growth Resources for Leaders. She lives in Virginia, USA.

Elise Wiarda, who lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands, has 30 years of private practice in body-centered therapy. She teaches workshops in healing and works with cancer patients at the Smith Farm Center when she is in the United States.

FE5. Sacred Poetry: A Pathway to Being Present

Listen to the cries of the spirit as expressed in the Hebrew psalms and by Rumi, St. Francis of Assisi, Mary Oliver, and others. Then, through step-by-step practical guidance, we’ll develop a deeper presence with our own spiritual unfolding by writing from our sacred centers. Everyone will have time to compose and share sacred poems as an expression and model for being present.

Canadian author Ray McGinnis has taught more than 7000 people how to use creative writing as a path to being present. Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-Inspired Path is his first book.

FE6. Awakening Awareness: An Evolutionary Shift

We are in the midst of an evolutionary shift as more and more people leave behind the smaller ego-self and awaken to a consciousness of oneness. Together we will explore this emerging reality, learn how to open ourselves to its energy, and discuss its implications within the context of spiritual direction.

Jan Novotka, MA, who lives in Pennsylvania, USA, is an eco-spiritual songwriter, retreat director, and wilderness fast and retreat guide. She is committed to the evolutionary shift taking place in consciousness.

FE7. Music in Exile: How Can I Sing God’s Song in a Strange Land?

The experience of exile has inspired beautiful music throughout history. Come listen to the music of homelessness through history and across cultures and reflect on the divine heart of our own exile experience. Together we will share and discover ways we can be present to those who come to us with the ache of exile.

David Christian Nelson, MDiv, is a spiritual director, musician, author, and homemaker in Ohio, USA. He sings and plays historical instruments with Musica Antigua de Toledo and Jubilatores, specialists in Iberian medieval music.

FE8. Spiritual Challenges and Opportunities Health Care Providers Face

Join us for a lively conversation about spiritual issues often encountered by health care providers, and learn about innovative programs encouraging spiritual direction for health care providers. Participants will have ample time to share experiences and stories. Let’s learn from one another!

Julie Harper, nurse, counselor, and spiritual director, has been a major participant in the spiritual direction programs at Orlando Regional Health Care Systems, Florida, USA.

Andrea Henson, RN, is a certified healing touch practitioner, ordained minister, and spiritual director from Florida, USA. Carol Ludwig teaches in the Audire spiritual direction formation program, Florida, USA.

Patrick O’Connor has practiced family medicine for 25 years and is committed to the spiritual well-being of physicians, nurses, and others who provide hands-on medical care. He is a spiritual director in training from Minnesota, USA.

FE9. We Are the Dance of God the Dancer

Kabir, an Eastern mystic, describes music and dance as the food and clothes of the soul. Experience how the ineffable finds expression through movement and music. No dance experience required. Come and delight! Be surprised!

Barbara Perry, CHF, BMus, Dip, a dance meditation teacher and Holy Faith Sister from Dublin, Ireland, leads dancing circles and has given dance workshops in Ireland and England.

FE10. Latinos: Stories of Immigration and Triumph

Explore the effect of country, class, and legal status on our spiritual lives through three stories of diversity and immigrant resilience. Reflect on Latino principles of respect, hospitality, and kindness, and increase your understanding of the impact of Latino diversity in our spiritual direction work. We’ll then write and share brief autobiographies of immigration or transition.

Rev. Maria Pierre is an interfaith minister, spiritual counselor, and human resources consultant. She is the director of Esperanza Interfaith Center, Florida, USA. Born in San Sebastian, Puerto Rico, she has lived in Canada and England.

FE11. Being Present with Youth Through Service Projects

Take a closer look inside the world of spiritually committed youth. Young people, ages 13 to 22, experience contemplative processes on summer mission trips and year-long volunteer projects that help them develop reflective living and presence to self, others, and God. Learn how the examen, reflective questions, communal prayer methods, and journaling are tailored to young people who feel called to serve their communities, the poor, and the wider world.

Richard Schlitt is a spiritual director, youth minister, and the director of Youth on a Mission (YOAM). He resides in Vero Beach, Florida, USA.

Maureen Schlitt, MPS, is a spiritual director, youth minister, cantor, co-director of Center for Spiritual Care, and serves on the teaching staff of the Audire training program in Florida, USA.

Saturday Workshops

Note: The percent (%) figures following workshop descriptions indicate the relative percentage of presentation, discussion, and experiential activity.

SATURDAY, MARCH 29, WORKSHOPS
3 HOURS (CHOOSE ONE AND ONE ALTERNATIVE)

S1. Discover the Queen and King, Lover, Magician, and Warrior Within

Experience practical ways to recognize four major archetypal energies—King and Queen, Lover, Magician, and Warrior—in you and in your directees. Explore spiritual practices that help you understand and regulate archetypes. Using the Neo-Jungian approach of Dr. Robert Moore, learn how in a mature spirituality the Warrior balances the Lover and how the wise Magus balances the Royal. 33%, 33%, 33%.

Rev. Dr. Lorolie Brown Andrews of Michigan, USA, is a spiritual director, presenter, and editor of Dr. Robert Moore’s books on Neo-Jungian psychology and spirituality.

S2. Lost and Found: The Practice of Wild Writing

Explore the meanings of wildness and how our capacities to know and inhabit wildness bring us to the Ground of Being. Discover the connection between the extinction of external wilderness and our loss of internal wilderness. Through the practice of wild writing, experience renewal of your inner wilderness and discover some practical tools for spiritual direction. 25%, 25%, 50%.

Marcia Black, PhD, is a spiritual director, psychologist, and writer who leads spiritual writing workshops in synagogues, health centers, and prisons. She has been published in Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction and lives in Massachusetts, USA.

S3. Your Soul’s Compass: What Is Spiritual Guidance?

Discover an essential spirituality distilled from two years of interviews with 27 sages. Beyond concept or dogma, simple, practical teachings emerged from these interviews with Quakers and Jews, Catholics and Episcopalians, Shamans and poets, philosophers and Sufis, Buddhists and Hindus. What are the attitudes and practices that align us with guidance? What blocks us? How does one discern guidance from ego, instinct, or social conditioning? What is the role of community? Are we evolving, and if so, toward what? 50%, 25%, 25%.

Joan Borysenko, PhD, and Gordon Dveirin, EdD, are co-founders of the Claritas Institute for Interspiritual Inquiry, Boulder, Colorado, USA, and authors of Saying Yes to Change: Essential Wisdom for Your Journey and Your Soul’s Compass: What Is Spiritual Guidance?

S4. Deepening Your Commitment to Interfaith Work

What are some of the strengths and struggles of interfaith issues in spiritual guidance? Led by a Jewish-Catholic team, we will explore helpful ideas for offering guidance to people from other religious traditions. We will deepen our commitment to engage in interfaith dialogue with the organizations and individuals we companion. 10%, 30%, 60%.

Cherie R. Brown, founder and executive director of the National Coalition Building Institute in Washington, DC, USA, an international leadership training organization, has worked on interfaith and inter-group issues for more than 30 years.

George J. Mazza is a civil rights attorney with the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC, USA. He has worked with interreligious organizations for more than 20 years.

S5. Age-ing to Sage-ing

As spiritual directors, are we doing our own sage-ing work? Are we prepared to sit with elders, assisting them in their spiritual growth? This interactive presentation based on the work of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi will address the vision of spiritual eldering, the tools for harvesting life, and the process of mentoring (seeding the future with wisdom). We will also explore the roles of elders as healers of family, community, and the earth. 33%, 34%, 33%.

Dr. Sandi Cohen is a psychotherapist, spiritual director, and adjunct faculty member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Pennsylvania, USA, who trains rabbis and rabbinical pastors in spiritual direction.

Catherine Coleman, RSM, is a spiritual director, Reiki practitioner, and mentor in a church ministry program in Pennsylvania, USA. She has served for many years as a pastoral minister to the elderly.

S6. Direct Intimate Presence: Collapsing Our Mind-Created Distances

What does it mean to be inside the reality we touch, to be directly present from the inside of our relationship with God, a spiritual companion, a group of people, or nature? Take part in experiential exercises designed to help us grow beyond the limiting subject-object dualism that so powerfully conditions us, and become more immediately present. We will look at spiritual direction and retreat leadership in natural settings as special contexts for the cultivation of direct presence. 33%, 33%, 33%. 

The Rev. Tilden Edwards, PhD, is the founder and senior fellow of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, Maryland, USA. Author of seven books on the spiritual life, including two on spiritual direction, he is an international presenter on contemplative spiritual life and leadership.

Ann Dean, director of the Shalem Institute’s extension program “Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats,” is a spiritual director and leader in the ecumenical Church of the Savior, including the Dayspring Retreat Mission Group, Maryland, USA.

S7. Working with the Body in Spiritual Direction

Take part in an introduction to body-oriented practices for use in spiritual direction. Explore the hara, or belly center, and practice centering while maintaining center under pressure. We will work with ki, or vital energy, a universal spiritual principle, and practice Aikido’s geometry of relationship using triangle (focus), circle (blending), and square (stable boundaries). 25%, 15%, 60%.

Robert Frager, PhD, a seventh-degree black belt in Aikido and a Sufi sheikh (spiritual guide), is founding president and director of the Spiritual Guidance program at Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, California, USA.

S8. Spirituality at Work

Few would disagree that work is more than money and ambition. But where does spirituality come into the workplace? How do we deal with setbacks at work? Is the spirit active in large corporations as well as in church-based organizations? Should we encourage those who come for spiritual direction to explore work-related issues? Come along to share insights and seek answers together. 50%, 25%, 25%.

Greg Heylin earned a living in the Irish civil service and works as a spiritual director. He wrote a book on work and spirituality and believes the spirit is in the workplace.

Margaret Benefiel, PhD, offers spiritual direction for workplaces. Author of Soul at Work, she teaches at Andover-Newton Theological School in Massachusetts, USA, and the Milltown Institute in Ireland.

S9. Art Journaling and Contemplative Presence

Use a combination of art journaling, meditation, and gentle stretching movement to probe life-points and lines—the visual and verbal doorways into the grace of the present moment. Discover a prayerful tool for shifting into the spirit of a spiritual direction session or any contemplative situation. 30%, 30%, 40%.

Marianne Hieb, RSM, MFA, ATR, DMin, directs Lourdes Wellness Spirituality Program in New Jersey, USA. She is a retreat and spiritual director, author of Inner Journeying through Art-Journaling, studio artist, art therapist, and art-journaler.

Helen Owens, OSF, RN, MSN, DMin, is vice president of Mission and Community Health Improvement, Lourdes Health System, New Jersey, USA. She is a holistic nurse and contributor to Nurses Handbook of Alternative and Complementary Therapies.

S10. Being Present for Inner Healing

In the interior world, we may encounter traumatic memories, intimations of the future, and surprising moments of divine inspiration. We will explore the potential for inner healing using a model of consciousness from transpersonal psychology and illumined by the prayer process described by Teresa of Avila in The Interior Castle. 33%, 33%, 33%.

Dwight H. Judy, PhD, associate professor of spiritual formation at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Illinois, USA, offers courses in spiritual direction for certification in spiritual formation in the United Methodist Church.

S11. Becoming a Compassionate Presence

Compassion for self and others is an integral aspect of spiritual guidance. We’ll learn theories and concepts of compassion from various disciplines including psychology, science, spirituality, theology, and sociology. Then we’ll incorporate these processes in two presentations to inspire and develop compassionate presence as well as creative ways to pray compassionately for self and others. 50%, 30%, 20%.

Joyce Rupp, OSM, writer, conference speaker, and spiritual director for 25 years, describes herself as a spiritual midwife and resides in Iowa, USA.

S12. The Male Spiritual Journey: Transforming Wounds to Wisdom

Wounding and grief often present obstacles in the male spiritual quest. Together we will examine the nature of men’s spiritual journeys and ways men typically deal with hurt and loss. Drawing from Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and traditional rites of initiation, we will explore strategies to help guide men through loss into greater wisdom. 33%, 33%, 33%.

Karl Ruttan, PhD, an Episcopal priest from West Virginia, USA, and dean of the Anglican Academy in Ohio, USA, is a spiritual director who teaches spiritual formation and leads men’s retreats.

Jim Neppl, corporate spiritual director and consultant from Minnesota, USA, leads workshops and retreats on fulfillment and healthy work cultures.