One of my favourite words at present is ‘attend’. The root meaning is ‘to stretch toward.’ That idea of stretching towards resonates with how I’ve experienced my evolving faith over the years. Stretching towards a new understanding, or a different perspective can sometimes feel full of tension. Spiritual direction has allowed me to attend to that stretch with tenderness and ease in myself and now as I accompany others.

I love that well-known line from a poem by Mary Oliver: ‘Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.’ And often it is in the spiritual direction space we first ‘tell about it’. Together we explore what might have made ‘it’ astonishing or caught our attention in the first instance.

In my approach to spiritual direction, I pay attention to how you bring ‘it’. What words you use, how you respond to what you yourself share. How it releases, resonates or jars. I pay attention to the questions your sharing evokes in me. And together we wonder and notice the presence of what else may be at work in and through us.

And this happens in a space that is entirely without judgement. Doubt, anger, questions, uncertainty are all welcome in this space, as well as joy, wonder, delight and desire. And everything beyond and in-between. A spiritual direction session is your time, your space to explore the terrain of your soul. As your spiritual director I get to bear witness and accompany you in your own pilgrimage of discovery.

My own journey into spiritual direction came from a longing for the deep and meaningful conversations that I missed from when I lived in an intentional Christian Community in my thirties in Glasgow. Or from my previous small group experiences when I was part of a close church community in my twenties in Belfast.

No longer surrounded with such sacred scaffolding, I sought out a spiritual director to ask me the deeper questions, to help facilitate my own pondering. To help me notice if, how and where God, however God is understood, was on the move, in and through my life.

I found it so helpful and meaningful that a few years ago I undertook spiritual director training at Sarum College, Salisbury. And now I am particularly interested in the connection with spiritual direction and the outdoors. With flora and fauna. Most recently, having completed training in Equine Facilitated Learning, I’ve been facilitating spiritual direction sessions with ponies, here on the croft where we live, on the Isle of Mull.