Peter Ball looks at some of the leading figures from the past to illustrate the roots and development of Anglican spiritual direction: George Herbert, Lancelot Andrewes, John Wesley, Somerset Ward, and Evelyn Underhill. More recent influences in the revival of interest in the subject have been Kenneth Leech, Alan Jones, Gordon Jeff, and Margaret Guenther. This is an updated version of a book first published as "Journey Into Truth." New material will include developments in Australia and the US, and the increasing role played by women, as well as updated resources.
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About the Author
Peter Ball, a former canon of St Paul's Cathedral, has many years experience in parish ministry and spiritual direction. He is author of Adult Believing and Adult Way to Faith.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
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A Very Good Overview,
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This review is from: Anglican Spiritual Direction (Spiritual Directors International) (Spiritual Directors International Books) (Paperback)
Peter Ball gives us a very comprehensive overview of Spiritual Direction from an Anglican perspective. He looks primarily on the different schools and their contributions. This book is not about technique, but about the values, attitudes and pastoral perspective that Anglicans have contributed to the work of Spiritual Direction. It is a helpful tool for those who wish to know more about this important work.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
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Guidance Through a Spiritual Tradition,
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This review is from: Anglican Spiritual Direction (Spiritual Directors International) (Spiritual Directors International Books) (Paperback)
Anglican Spiritual Direction, Peter Ball, 2nd Edition, Morehouse Publishing, 2007
In the last 40 years numerous books appeared on the practice of spiritual direction, along with the rise of Spiritual Directors International and their publications. Some started with the Jesuit Jean LaPlace's 1967 book Preparing for Spiritual Direction or with Merton's book discussed below. The 1980's saw new Roman Catholic books, particularly, Carolyn Gratton's Guidelines for Spiritual Direction (1980), and William Barry's and William Connolly's book The Practice of Spiritual Direction. Well-known Anglican and Episcopalian volumes were: Kenneth' Leach's 1977 Soul Friend; Tilden Edward's Spiritual Friend (1980); Morton Kelsey's Companions on the Inner Way (1983); and Martin Thornton's Spiritual Direction (1984). I highlight six books here as a group which, collectively, might be used in this era to both deepen awareness of the Christian tradition in particular and to see spiritual direction in the context of the contemporary multiplicity of interfaith synergies. Norvene Vest's Tending the Holy: Spiritual Direction Across Traditions, 2003 (another SDI book) is an anthology which introduces the reader to spiritual direction as it is conceived and practiced in Buddhist, Sufi, Hindu, and Jewish traditions. A second section introduces Ignatian, Carmelite and Benedictine traditions, adding a piece on spiritual direction for Evangelicals. The final section includes special perspectives: spirituality of nature and the poor (Franciscan), institutional levels of spiritual direction, the Gen-X soul, and Vest's own innovative writing on feminist direction. A highly informative book Relating to a Spiritual Teacher: Building a Healthy Relationship, Alexander Berzin, (2000) provides excellent East-West perspective for Americans in particular. Berzin offers a huge, in depth ethical corrective to the influx of "Cadillac gurus" while at the same time introducing the reader to the entire context of Tibetan Buddhism. If there is a single book which frames the Merton, Main, Le Saux, Griffiths and Centering Prayer Western response from Christianity as a spiritual path, this book is it. There is no discussion of these Christian writers; the reader will see how highly developed the Tibetan tradition is, why many Western seekers have sought to transplant themselves outside their own traditions, and why the desert tradition in the West has been the primary source for all subsequent Christian streams of guidance for sanctification/union with God. The desert is Christianity's key point of interaction with the East. Here Western Christians might go directly to 5th century Neilos the Ascetic's "Ascetic Discourse" in volume I of the Philokalia. Neilos discusses spiritual direction as charism. He is unambiguously Christo-centric, as is Julian of Norwich. Here we encounter spiritual elder as spirit bearer as distinguished from method-teacher. (There remains the strategic question of Christian revelation as it relates to the perennial philosophy.) Vest's anthology is something of an update to Kevin Culligan's fine 1983 anthology (Spiritual Direction: Contemporary Readings), with the notable exception that Culligan's book contains an excellent introduction to the desert and Eastern Orthodox tradition of direction by Kallistos Ware, of which Neilos is a typical source. Ware's chapter is a bit better than either Tilden Edwards' or Kenneth Leach's briefer discussions of this stream. The newest, perhaps best, history of the implications of desert spirituality for the church at the time is George E. Demacopoulos' Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church (2007). It is excellent. Merton's book Spiritual Direction and Meditation (1960, 1987) completes the circle of books which set the stage for Ball's book on the Anglican tradition. Merton says this ministry of the spiritual person--the pneumatikos--"was purely and simply charismatic." As always, prayer is the teacher. For many readers, Peter Ball's book may be too "homely," grounded as it is in a particular Christian tradition. For this reviewer such a book may be part of our response to Thich Nhat Hanh's subtle and gentle advice to Western (and Anglican) seekers to go home and "look deeply" into their own tradition. "Many people," he says, "need to go away before they realize they do not have to go anywhere." (This is in somewhat poignant contrast to Bede Griffiths, who left Anglican Christianity, and then the West for most of his writing career.) Ball characterizes Anglican spiritual direction as pastoral, moderate, and employing a wide variety of styles and approaches. He describes it as "local, low-key, and practical," as well as less concerned with method and more reflective of "closeness to God and a generosity of spirit." We might even call most of the figures in the Anglican tradition of spiritual direction "stay-at-home mystics." Ball offers a succinct history, i.e. the Anglican medieval heritage, including The Cloud and Julian, and the English Reformation--notably The Book of Common Prayer--and the Caroline Divines. He then tracks both the Catholic revival in the Oxford movement and Evangelicalism, leading to such 20th century spiritual directors as Evelyn Underhill, Fr. Andrew SDC, Shirley Hughson, Gilbert Shaw, Mother Mary Clare, and Somerset Ward. It may be useful for Anglicans/Episcopalians to look first among these authors and practitioners of prayer. In Underhill we find an early 20th century Anglican who, well before Merton and his successive generations of teachers of contemplative prayer, was delving into Eastern Christianity and the desert tradition through her association with the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. (And, even earlier, as Kallistos Ware notes in his preface to Pseudo-Macarius' Fifty Spiritual Homilies: "I read Macarius and sang," wrote John Wesley in his diary for July 30, 1736.) Ball's book may be fruitfully read alongside of the remarkable anthology Love's Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness, Geoffrey Rowell, et al, eds. (2001). A good sample of an Anglican teacher and spiritual director is Mother Mary Clare, superior of the Sisters of the Love of God 1954-73. SLG was founded by the Cowley Fathers. Mary Clare's book of essays Encountering the Depths: Prayers, Solitude, and Contemplation (1981) is a good representative of Anglican teaching on the life of prayer. "Christian prayer is a process of constant recovery of our common roots, a pilgrimage which searches ever forward through the tradition of the past." "Interior peace is the fruit of Christ's overcoming and of the Holy Spirit's outpouring. This peace is the ground of Christian contemplation." There is a rich collection of contemporary Anglican voices from around the world. Ball discusses varying views about personal growth, psychotherapy, and the relative professionalizing of spiritual direction in the U.S. He concludes by citing Kenneth Leech that "the role of `training' is very limited, and that the ministry (of spiritual direction) is essentially the by-product of a life of prayer and growth in holiness."
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