(First published in Baptist Times - Outside Edge - 4 February 2011)
Many Christians claim not to need human direction in their spiritual journey, relying on their own hearing of God’s guidance and their own understanding of scripture. Others rely on a professional mentor or spiritual director and rule out all other sources of counsel. Often, the mentor requires their protégé not to seek any other counsel. While this may avoid receiving conflicting advice, it blocks the more unexpected channels of spiritual direction that God may be unprofessional enough to employ.
I was on a Greek island with a group of friends. The holiday was well-timed: a few of us had been subjects of malicious gossip at our home church and were looking forward to sunbathing and relaxing. But when we arrived the skies were all scudding clouds and the waves, alarmingly high, were spitting up shingle and scummy grey foam. The more adventurous went swimming, regardless. I ventured in cautiously, was hit in the face by a shower of grit, knocked off my feet and dragged into the undertow. I was heading for the beach when a friend came back from the deeper water and advised, ‘Don’t wait for the wave to break. Dive into it.’
So I swam towards a wave that towered over my head, blocking out the horizon and all hope of survival, took a breath and dived into it - and out the other side. The triumph was matched by the sudden realisation that this was what I should do at home: not retreat, blinded by the sting of criticism or unspoken hostility, but confront the gossip-spreaders face to face. When I did so, it was painful but only the rumours drowned.
Spiritual direction also came from the cleaning lady we had when I was just out of hospital. She had learning difficulties and had to be intercepted between cleaning the loo and doing the washing up so she didn’t use the same cloth for both, so I felt obliged to stay up and awake while she was there.
I was in pain and grumpy, trying to do the ironing, when a phone call came from my literary agent: she had volunteered me for magazine interviews about a difficult time in my personal life. I had spoken on the subject before, but right now I couldn’t face it. I said so but she argued: she was just doing her job, it was all arranged and I couldn’t let her down now. I put the phone down, defeated.
‘What was that all about?’ Helen asked, wiping down the draining board. I explained briefly. ‘Bloomin’ cheek!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ve wrote the book for them, haven’t you? Doesn’t mean they bloody own you!’ Light dawned. She was right. I was not owned by anybody except my Creator.
I phoned the agent back and said I appreciated her efforts to sell the book, but my personal story was not for sale unless I was first consulted. ‘Good!’ Helen applauded. ‘Now shift off that ironing; I’ll do it for you.’ Soul friends come in all guises.
For a while I’ve failed as a soul-friend to someone stuck in a confidence-draining relationship which keeps her distant from God. ‘You can come back to God in any state,’ I urge, but she says, ‘I have to sort this out first, and I can’t turn the clock back, can I?’
I prayed for inspiration and, last time we met, asked if she had a satnav.
‘Yes, why?’
‘What does it say when you keep going the wrong way?’
She looked blank, then her eyes lit up and she laughed. ‘Turn around when possible!’
If spiritual direction can come from satnavs and waves and childlike thinkers - and donkeys, in Balaam’s case - it seems a shame to limit God to 'appropriate' ways of directing us.