Read between the lines ! ! !

- Spiritual Direction -

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Spiritual Direction?
The term has a long history in the Christian Church, and it has meant different things.
Here are a few links to help you explore this history. A History of Spirituality
Bookmark this page before you explore, so you can return.

How should I understand Spiritual Direction here?
I define the spiritual direction relationship as:
     Your search for authentic inner life.              Direction coming from and through you
     I am your companion           I reflect you back to yourself
     It requires mutual trust:
        You trust me to honor your issues with the same holiness I do my own,
             and with the same pledge of confidentiality as the confessional
           I trust you to use my precious time to make a serious difference in your life,
             to change the world for the better.

It is a pilgrimage to answer the deepest questions of existence:	Who am I?
From where did I come?	What have I done with my life?
Where am I going?	What do I do now?
What do I desire most?	What do I dream of doing?
Is there God? Who is He or She, or are They?	What life does God call me to?

What Spiritual Direction is NOT:
a way of "directing" soul traffic toward the director's idea of God, or to the director's religious institution
a quick path to "instant answers" about life's problems

Why seek Spiritual Direction?

Who does Spiritual Direction?

A "questor" for spiritual direction is one who has taken life's deepest issues seriously and wants a companion with whom to share them. Spouse, parents, children, other relatives, personal friends, often cannot fill this role. Therapists deal with other issues. Sometimes the pastor, rabbi, or imam of one's religious community is not the right choice either, even if that person is an excellent leader to the questor in his or her religious community. A spiritual director allows a questor to make such a soul search without having to change religious community affiliation.

Anyone, of any faith or none, who has come to a place in life where a quest for life’s meaning is of paramount importance. Typically, people hit “midlife crisis,” but the need can arise in a person of any age. God, or a Force one hesitates to name, calls one to become more than he or she has been, to live more fully.

How do I do Spiritual Direction?

Where, When, and How often?

You find someone trustworthy who is trained to do the work of listening to you and your concerns and longings, who will encourage you to pursue your own best path, and admonish you when you clearly stray from the path that you yourself have expressed a desire and resolve to follow.

I can do flexible arrangements. I see some as often as twice a week, others once a year with e-mail and phone contact in between.
The usual situation calls for one to several visits a quarter, depending on the questor's circumstances.
People can visit me at my home, or I visit them at theirs, or we find a mutually comfortable place private enough for meaningful dialog.

How do you understand God?
The ancient Hebrews, as they came to realize that there was One divine being, wisely chose to refrain from using a name. Instead, they used descriptors of they way they experienced the divine: the Lord, the Almighty, the Shield, the Tender Mercies, the still small Voice, etc. For the divine name, they used four letters that expressed Being, but they did not pronounce them: [

] YHWH is the way English usually tranliterates those letters.
I speak of God in a similar way, in the roles I experience, but I use a pronoun, neither masculine nor feminine, and neuter is inappropriate for One so beyond yet deeply personal. Y is God, beyond our understanding and knowledge, yet loving us, drawing us to love Ym, to give Yr our lives, and to love all Ys children. I invite you to use this pronoun, too, to be inclusive in an unobtrusive way that invites us to recover a sense of the holiness of the divine One while remembering how close Y is to all of us.
(Y: nominative, appositive, Ys: possessive, Yr, Ym: interchangeable objective forms that suggest feminine or masculine sides to our experience of the divine One.)

What does God have to do with me?
   Your experience of inner life is deeply linked to ways the holy One relates to you.
   God offers you a deep awareness of yourself, and Y wants your free response.

What is your fee?
     I ask you to commit enough financial resources to this quest, so that you will treat it as vitally important.
     Typically, I ask you for two hours wages for each hour I spend with you; (I spend more time preparing for your visit.)
        if this is beyond your means, I reduce it.

Links will continue to be added to these; if you have suggestions, please contact me.

Spirituality and Religion
Great Spiritual Guides
A History of Spirituality
Hildegard of Bingen
Meister Eckhart
Soren Kierkegaard
Spirituality and Carl G. Jung
Links to Jungian Studies
A History of Music in Spirituality
The Nature Quest

Who Is David Christian Nelson?

David Christian Nelson, M.Div., is a graduate of the Spiritual Formation Program in spiritual direction of the Dominican Center of Grand Rapids, MI, in their Toledo, OH, extension school, and he has been named a Spiritual Director.

He is a man of wide-ranging interests who grew up in the Episcopal Church and received his seminary training at Bexley Hall in Rochester, NY (1976-80). He has served as a Scripture teacher, as Education for Ministry mentor, as Provost of the Toledo Deanery (Episcopal Diocese of Ohio), and he served six years on the board of Toledo Campus Ministry (at University of Toledo).

He joined the Toledo Center for Jungian Studies in 1987 and served as its President from 1999 - 2002. He has led workshops on Music and Psychology, and on Gnosticism. Through deep study of the Scriptures, the work of C. G. Jung and other spiritual writers, by intense work on his own life, and by companioning other persons he has come to a deep respect for diverse faith paths. He is the author of
A New World for Jon, a fiction novel for teens and young adults.

David has studied historical music extensively with faculty in several countries, both in voice and in plucked string instruments. He has performed with Musica Antigua de Toledo since 1981 and Jubilatores since 1997. He sings many vocal styles and plays guitars, lutes, oud, medieval harp, psaltery, viol, & other instruments.

He was not ordained to church pastoral care and administration, but stayed home to raise three children, now adults. He has been married since 1970 to Lois Anne Nelson, an allergist-immunologist in the Toledo area.