EHE Process/Spiritual Path Record Type: Review   ID: 484
Inviting the Mystic, Supporting the Prophet: An Introduction to Spiritual Direction Dyckman, Katherine Marie, & Carroll, L. Patrick
A Catholic nun and a priest offer practical spiritual advice on living a life of faith in the world. Aware that there is an insufficient number of religious to respond to the great need for spiritual direction at the individual level, they decided to train religious personnel themselves in the art and technique of spiritual direction in living a life of faith intrapersonally, interpersonally, and publicly. They classify the spiritual life journey as falling into 5 stages or calls to conversion, internalization, integrity/integration, reality/realization, and radicality. They observe that people undergo many conversion experiences in a lifetime. (I would point out that it is likely that each one is a form of exceptional human experience, which serves to introduce people to whatever new stage of growth confronts them.) Chapters are devoted to the nature of spiritual direction and the director’s presuppositions, prayer and its problems and presuppositions, the relation between prayer and decision making, and the role of ordinary Christian as mystics and prophets (I would not limit this role to Christians.) They state that the Christian call (which I would characterize as the human call), "is to rejoice in the constant, mystical presence of God in people, in events, in myself, in the whole of the world; yet . . . in some fashion, [to speak] a prophetic word to that world where it is not yet fully redeemed" (p. 79). There is much wisdom here for people who recognize the need to become channels of peace, love, and joy in the manner in which they live their lives, and I believe the time has come to incorporate such a life in the purely secular world, not in order to drive out the sacred but to let it into every corner of the world. This is the call of existential human experience—to spiritualize reality, or to realize that spirit is reality, everywhere. This slim volume offers sage advice to Christians—but also to others—as to how to become aware of this possibility and make it real in their own lives and those of others.
Publisher Information:	New York: Paulist Press, 1981. 92p. Bibl: 90-92; Chap. bibl

Previous review in this category

List All Titles in This Category (22) Book Reviews Menu

Next review in this category

All website graphics, materials and content copyright © 1997-2003
by EHE Network. All rights reserved. For permissions
please contact EHEN's Executive Director, Rhea A. White.

Web Media Management by Palyne Gaenir of ScienceHorizon.

Exceptional Human Experience Network

www.ehe.org