Discussion: A Conversation Among Spiritual Directors of Color
by Nancy SmallThis story originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of JESUITS magazine, published by the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.
The Office of Ignatian Spirituality (OIS) is committed to supporting the priorities of the Jesuit USA East Apostolic Plan 2024-2034 through multiple and creative means. OIS’s Ignatian Spiritual Direction Initiative (ISDI), which offers continuing Ignatian formation for spiritual directors, hopes to encourage growth in the number of trained spiritual directors while enhancing diversity in its programs. In May 2024, the ISDI offered A Conversation Among Spiritual Directors of Color, a unique program that brought together over 40 Spiritual Directors of Color from a variety of faith backgrounds and spiritual paths.
Planned by a Leadership Team of four Ignatian Spiritual Directors of Color, this conversation created space for participants to engage in honest conversation about their experience as Spiritual Directors of Color and fostered cultural bonds of community. “It was a joy to recognize how the divine is embodied in a certain flavor in us,” shared one participant, “to have a mirroring in the context of cultural community.”
Leadership Team member Fr. Gregory Chisholm, SJ, Superior of the Jesuit Community at Loyola University Maryland, concurred, adding, “Last year, I participated in a JARS (Jesuit Antiracism Sodality) retreat where most participants were Black. Going back and forth in a manner filled with humor and anecdotes was one of the most uplifting and educational experiences I’ve had.”
As participants shared their stories, the theme of pioneering quickly emerged and became prominent. Some spoke of innovative ways in which they are introducing spiritual direction to Black congregations.
“Our congregation is suspicious of spiritual direction, so we are teaching what spiritual direction is,” shared one participant. “My pastor is now a spiritual director and we are sending others to be trained as well.”
Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns, a pioneer with a D.Min. in Spiritual Direction and one of four U.S. laypeople appointed by Pope Francis as the first lay voting delegates at the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, spoke of opportunities that opened up for her because of her spiritual direction background. “My areas of focus,” she explained, “require the foundational spiritual companionship skills of empathy, sacred healing presence, silence, deep listening, evocative questions, discernment, compassion, curiosity, and self-awareness.” Dr. Manns authored a chapter in the book Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color and was integral in founding the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, which has grown from 10 members in 2008 to approximately 125 members today.
During the conversation, many participants spoke of cultivating diversity in predominantly white spiritual direction settings. Most attended formation programs with no instructors or speakers of color. “Our formators don’t know how to support us, so we have to advocate for ourselves,” said one participant, noting the weight of responsibility of educating about cultural and racial differences. Some shared experiences of exclusion and racism that are part of their spiritual direction stories.
Two Leadership Team members spoke about racial challenges and opportunities experienced as they accompanied white directees.
“I accompanied a white directee on a 19th Annotation retreat in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder,” shared Sr. Boreta Singleton, a spiritual director with a strong background in Ignatian spiritual ministries and a novice with the Sisters of Mercy. “Our parish posted a Black Lives Matter sign that was defaced. My retreatant saw the defaced sign being replaced and spoke of it the next time we met. He began by saying, ‘I can’t believe the church posted that sign. Those people are racist. You know white people get killed every day…’ I took a breath and asked him how this sign factored into his prayer that week. He said it hadn’t, and we spoke about his prayer instead. As we ended, I returned to his opening comments. ‘It’s difficult for me to hear you make that kind of statement when there is so much racial difficulty,’ I said. ‘We’re talking about Christianity and loving our neighbor.’ He didn’t respond, we continued the retreat, and that was the end of it. But I was really taken aback.”
Ann Harris-Jacobs, a spiritual director who also accompanies those making the Spiritual Exercises and is an active member of St. Francis Xavier Church in New York, spoke of accompanying a white directee who was working on becoming anti-racist. “It was difficult to listen to her feelings of shame and embarrassment. All I could do was to be present to her and to what the spirit was saying to me and welcome her desire to be different… As a spiritual director. it’s my role to listen, to support, to help bring a person to where God is leading them.”
At the end of this conversation, participants affirmed the importance of bringing the fullness of who they are to their spiritual direction ministry. “I enter spaces of encounter fully embodied in my…ethnicity, culture and skills, my gender, and my age; all of this and more comes in the door whenever I accompany someone,” said Dr. Manns.
“We need to claim who we are and whose we are,” added Sr. Singleton. “We are spiritual directors and we need to show up.”