25.6.25 Spiritual Direction and SD Training
Dear Friends of Sacred Ground,
I'm writing to you today to share about spiritual direction.
(We want to share about our Spiritual Direction Training Program: we are accepting applications through July 15 for our cohort starting in September 2025! And our students who are entering their second year in our program are looking for people who are interested in experiencing spiritual direction. They need people to practice with. Look for more information below!)
And it also feels awkward to share things like this when bombs are dropping, when families are being torn apart, when, every day, new headlines tell us about all of the ways our world is so grievously wounded.
Why spiritual direction now? What difference does it make in our world in a time like this?
Spiritual direction is just one way of practicing contemplative engagement with our world. It it invites us to pay attention to and listen for God's presence and invitations in the midst of our daily lives. It can help us to see in a new way. Spiritual direction can be transformative for both those who are listened to and those who are listening.
But immersing yourself in a spiritual direction training program can rearrange your spiritual DNA. The transformation experienced by those who have completed Sacred Ground's Spiritual Direction Formation & Training program is a gift not only to themselves, but to the world around them. Our program invites participants to experience their belovedness, to heal ingrained harmful images of God, to see their shadows with gentleness and curiosity, to recognize, celebrate, and live their gifts. The consistent refrain we heard during our time in Sacred Ground's program is: Where are you best able to give and receive Life and Love? Can you do more of that? This changes us in tangible ways, and it better prepares us to face whatever situation life throws at us. Sacred Ground alumni Traci Arends recently completed her doctoral dissertation on the transformative nature of the Spiritual Direction Formation & Training program, and her findings are humbling and such an encouragement. This program was and continues to be a gift. The world needs people who are grounded in love and moving toward wholeness.
In the introduction to her book Practical Mysticism, Evelyn Underhill shares that she wrote the book in the last days of peace before World War I. It was sent to print during the first weeks of the war. And she struggled with whether it was even appropriate to pursue publication. Thankfully for us, she concluded that the value of inviting others to open their hearts to being united to Reality is especially important and vital in times of crisis.
In her book Radical Amazement, Judy Cannato echoes the urgent invitation to contemplative living: "What is becoming more apparent by the day is that we must all become contemplatives, not merely in the way we reflect or pray, but in the way we live--awake, alert, engaged, ready to respond in love to the groanings of creation. Human life depends on our living this way."
My hope for you, and for myself, is that we continue to lean into and grow in our contemplative engagement with the world (whatever form that takes): that our hearts, ears, and eyes continue to open; that our experience of being loved and being love deepens; and that we continue to show up for one another in tangible ways.
In hope and with gratitude,
Jessica Sanborn (she/her)
Program Coordinator