Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction (Spiritual Directors International) (Paperback)

by Susan S. Phillips (Author)
Key Phrases: spiritual direction relationship, spiritual direction sessions, New York, God's Spirit, Holy Spirit (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Susan Phillips's thoughtful, listening intelligence incandesces in this account of her practice of spiritual direction. The process comes to vivid life in her personal narratives of sessions with directees in God's presence. I was moved at the way Susan's insights grew in relationship with those she met with over months and years. I felt holiness creeping into my own life." --Luci Shaw, author, Breath for the Bones: Imagination, Art, & Spirit and Writer in Residence, Regent College

Review
"Reading Candlelight is like watching spiritual direction sessions through a two-way mirror while simultaneously privy to the thoughts and feelings of the author. Invaluable for people doing spiritual direction or contemplating it. Provides discerning insights into the difference in form and focus between psychotherapy and spiritual direction. Likely to be absorbing reading for Jungian or transpersonal psychologists."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819222976
• ISBN-13: 978-0819222978
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #92,908 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A field guide to God's work in the human soul, May 18, 2008

By	Katarina Stenstedt - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Candlelight is a great read, probably even for those who don't practice spiritual direction. What's so terrific about this book?

* Great stories make great books, and this book is structured around nine readable, captivating stories. Will Charles find a mate? Is Jim's health going to hold? Will I, when the time comes, be able to die as beautifully as did ... well, I won't ruin the ending. But it is beautiful.

* Held gracefully within the context of these stories are short but excellent discussions of suffering, theodicy, Sabbath, death, decision-making, evil, Keats's "negative capability," the prayer of examen, the "middle voice" as a metaphor for the life of engaged faith, ... etc. etc. The book's one fault is its lack of an index. When I reread the book I plan to create my own rough index as I go along.

* Candlelight gives a view into what normally cannot be observed. As a spiritual director, it is extremely difficult for me to know whether my practice is like or unlike that of my colleagues. Just what ARE those spiritual directors doing behind those closed doors?? Well, read Candlelight and sit in on sessions with a master. Your style might differ, or you might disagree with Phillips's approach at points, but merely finding out exactly what she does during direction sessions is fascinating.

* Candlelight offers helpful definitions of spiritual direction, as do many other books and web sites. What is special here is that Candlelight offers definitions of spiritual direction as practiced by the erudite, mature, faithful, humorous Susan Phillips. Seen through her eyes, spiritual direction takes on a whole new glow.

* Phillips uses words beautifully and seems to know precisely what they all mean. She's not just flinging them around.

* Finally, and maybe best of all, Candlelight shows God in action. Maintaining faith in God's goodness can be challenging for those of us who hope to do so; it's delightful to have a book that says, over and over, in concrete terms, "Look over there, at that faint light! Just a bit to the left ... there! Do you see it now? THAT is the benevolent God at work." Reading Candlelight is like looking at the world through God-vision goggles. Transcendent goodness, purpose, and beauty can shine, sometimes quite subtly, through human experiences and suffering, and we need all the help we can get if we are to stop and pay attention long enough to see them.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating!, May 16, 2008

By	Deb Steinkamp (Bellingham, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Susan S. Phillips' Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction, is the book I wish I'd had when I first became interested in spiritual direction and it is a book I wish I'd had when I was learning to be a spiritual director. By following nine people from their entry into a spiritual direction relationship until the conclusion of the relationship, it is easy to see what spiritual direction looks like; the difference between spiritual direction and therapy or pastoral counseling; and the ways the person receiving direction grows in relationship with God. At every step, Susan makes explicit the assumptions and methods that are important in spiritual direction. In addition, this book also clearly shows the way the director's own internal experience in each session informs his or her responses to the person being directed. During my training and in the first days of my own direction practice, this internal listening was the most difficult and elusive part of spiritual direction for me. In all my reading, until this fine book, I had never read or heard such a helpful description of the director's decision making within a session.

Susan was my director for several years while I lived in California. Much of what I know about doing spiritual direction, I learned from Susan as she helped me orient myself toward God. Now, reading her explicit description of doing direction, I find my understanding of my own work as a director is enlarged.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Behind Closed Doors, August 16, 2008

By	Patricia L. Johnson (Oak Park, MI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a spiritual director, one always wonders how others perform their art. This book was insightful and rewarding in that regard. The reader is allowed to be behind closed doors to sit in on the sessions with the directee, experiencing both the responses of the director and nuanced interactions. One is not TOLD how direction is done but SHOWN how it is done in a variety of scenarios. The author provides a myriad of situations/needs and the issues span across human experience. My only suggestion for improvement would have been placing the directees' spiritual direction journeys sequentially instead of having to locate the next installment several chapters away. I understand her desire to give us three separate phases of direction, but it made for challenging reading.