Many people are searching for answers

FAITH TODAY - Published Saturday January 10th, 2009

Perhaps you have heard someone say that they are "Spiritual" and not "Religious."

When questioned on this, most people will claim that they still believe in God, but no longer find an easy connection to God through church. An astounding number of people answer census questions claiming to believe in God; while most of those same people feel alienated from their religious tradition.

Their experience of church is often mired in the past, and specific to one or two congregations. They do not realize that there are people and places within organized religion that are searching for the same answers.

The Tatamagouche Centre in Nova Scotia is home to a multi-faith program which works to help people recognize a connection to a power greater than themselves. It is called the Atlantic Jubilee Program in Spiritual Guidance and Deepening.

"It seems that we human beings are hard wired to make sense of our lives, in other words, to live with a sense of meaning and purpose. At certain life stages, or after a personal crisis, we can become more aware of or sensitive to this drive. It may arise because of an unexpected turn of events in our life or manifest as an inner restlessness or a sense that something is missing from our lives," says Pam Breau, one of the leaders or the Jubilee program.

Sometimes it is better to work backwards into a definition. So here is what Spiritual Direction is not; it is not counselling, it is not therapy, and it is not financial advice.

Spiritual Direction is accompaniment along the journey. Most of us live our lives knowing that there just has to be more. By being intentional and working on our spiritual understanding, we can explore a deeper relationship with what it means to be human. Simply put, spiritual direction is helping people tell their sacred stories.

This is not limited to one denomination of Christianity, it is not limited to one path of faith, but rather is open to Buddhists, Jews, Islamic and Hindus alike. It is not even limited to those who already have it figured out, but are still questioning everything.

Spiritual direction helps us learn how to live in peace, with compassion, promoting justice, as humble servants of that which lies beyond all names.

"Many of us find a deeper experience of life through relationship with God (the Holy, Higher Power, Love, however we name the bigger reality). We live in a context that often separates how we live from our sense of the Holy, as if they are two separate realities. In Spiritual Direction, people find a safe place to share their story and rediscover (or discover for the first time) that God communicates with them in a very personal way. It can be a place of being deeply listened to as one searches for the words to express how the Holy One invites them to deeper and deeper life, relationship with self and others, and ultimately into Love and a desire to live God's dream for the world," continues Pam.

One thing that we do not have enough of is the sense that God is with us throughout this sometimes painful experience of living. Whether we are religious or spiritual, that sense can be deepened.

The Jubilee program takes in new students almost every June. There is also great benefit in finding your own Spiritual Director to assist you on the journey. The truth is that we need to acknowledge the spiritual nature of life more deeply. And a companion along the way is never a bad thing.

In the enquirer's pack for the program you find this prayer, which I think sums it all up:

I honour in you
that place in you
where the Lord resides
And when you
are in that place
in you
And I am
in that place
in me
Then there is
only one of us.

- Ancient Indian prayer: "Namaste"