Peterson: remembering spiritual direction

I was angry over what had been said about me personally and I was concerned about the seeds of dissent in the congregation. And what was I going to do about it? I was going to confront the people who were criticizing me behind my back and force them to deal with me face-to-face. And 1 would rebuild the peace of the congregation through visitation and preaching. Actually, it was routine pastoral work. He interrupted my conventional approach. “Don’t you think there might be more to your anger than righteous indignation? Don’t you think it could be a symptom of pride that you didn’t know you had? Why don’t you explore the dimensions and ramifications of your anger? And as to the unrest; what if the Spirit is preparing something new in the congregation? What if the whitecaps on the recently smooth waters are caused by the wind of the Spirit, not the whispers of critics? Isn’t it possible that you are working for a premature and bland peace when something deeply creative is in motion?” He named the anger as sin; he discerned the unrest as Spirit. He directed me to the essential work of dealing with my sin and responding to the Spirit. The things I had set out to do still had to be done, but they were mere footnotes to the major work that he set before me. He directed me to the obvious, but in my passion to clear myself and to have a smilingly harmonious congregation I hadn’t so much as noticed the obvious. That is why the work of spiritual direction is essential — because we need to deal with the obvious, with sin and with the Spirit, and we would rather deal with almost anything else.
In these moments when we are in conversation with another and spirit touches spirit, “deep calling to deep,” there is often a confirming sense that we are doing our best work. So we don’t need to be talked into doing this, at least most of us do not. For most pastors being a spiritual director doesn’t mean introducing a new rule or adding another item to our overextended job descriptions, but simply rearranging our perspective: seeing certain acts as eternal and not ephemeral, as essential and not accidental.

Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles, p152-3