In all of the Jesus movies we’ve seen over the years, we seldom get much of an impression of St. Peter’s mother-in-law. Granted, she is a very minor character in the Gospels, but I wonder how “minor” her role was in Peter’s daily routine. My friend, the former Episcopal rector of Big Spring, was fond of saying, “Behind every successful man there stands an utterly surprised mother-in-law.” Whether St. Peter’s mother-in-law was surprised at Jesus’ selection of him to head the apostolic college, we do not know. But probably so! :)

St. Mark records the story of the time when Jesus went to Peter and Andrew’s house and found Peter’s mother‑in‑l­aw in bed with a fever. Jesus immediately decides to cure her. He grasps her hand, and she is cured. He doesn’t chant any magic formulas. He doesn’t perform any showboating, forehead slapping antics. He doesn’t have to raise His voice and scream. Jesus took her by the hand, lifted her up, the fever left her and she got back about her life.

Sort of, I guess. Because the next thing we hear is how the entire population of the town was at the door of the house, bringing folks who were sick or possessed by demons–and expecting something to happen! People know what works and they show up in droves. So, after dinner, instead of having coffee and watching football, Jesus was expected to cure all the sick and demonized neighbors who were camping out on the front lawn. Of course, He responds in His characteristic way–and this is a hugely important point! 

Jesus heals the sick, not simply as a way of establishing His credentials as Messiah, not just as a way of validating His teaching, but simply because this is what God does! Author Ken Blue writes: “The more secure we are in the belief that God’s will is our health and that he personally works for it, the more freely we receive his healing and the more eagerly we work for it in others. Openly receiving healing for ourselves and confidently praying for others rests ultimately in our understanding of who God is. A theology of healing only arises when God is viewed as one who is concerned about sickness and willing to do something about it.”

I was introduced to the labyrinth as a tool for spiritual growth about ten years ago during my initial training in spiritual direction. Since that time I have been drawn to explore the spirituality of the labyrinth in greater depth for my personal growth, as well as introducing it to my parish church as an annual event we did during Lent.

The more that I write and speak to groups about spiritual direction, the more aware I’m becoming of the rapidly growing interest in the labyrinth. Throughout the world, people of all denominations are discovering its many gifts by including this sacred tool in their own spiritual practice. While the origins of the labyrinth are shrouded in the distant past, it still has much to offer and teach us today. If one is able to relax and approach it with an open mind, the spiritual benefits of this walking meditation can have a significant impact on most anyone. 

Parker J. Palmer is an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He completed his undergraduate work at Carleton College and earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley (1970). He served for fifteen years as senior associate at the American Association of Higher Education and is the founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal. In 1998, a national survey of 10,000 educators named Palmer one of the 30 “most influential senior leaders” in higher education. In 2010, he received the William Rainey Harper Award and in 2011, Utne Reader named him one of twenty-five “People Who are Changing the World.” He has published a dozen poems, more than one hundred essays and eight books.

In this short video, Spiritual Directors International member Tara Owens interviews Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who is the founding director at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Rohr is widely known for his expertise and outspokenness on the themes of Scripture as liberation, the integration of action and contemplation, community building, peace and justice issues, male spirituality, the Enneagram, and eco-spirituality.

Dr. David M. Keirsey served as Chair and Faculty in the Department of Counseling for ten years at California State University (Fullerton). He published Please Understand Me in 1978, which introduced the Keirsey Temperament Sorter to the public. In 1998, he published Please Understand Me II, by which time his ideas on temperament theory were being widely utilized by Fortune 500 corporations, government institutions, non-profit, ... and educational organizations worldwide. He began constructing his temperament schema in the 1950's while practicing as an educational psychologist and consultant. Dr. Keirsey founded Advisor Team Inc. in 1996. This company offers solutions for conflict resolution, employee interaction, team building, team synergy, recruitment and hiring, leadership development, employee retention, customer strategy, sales tactics, marketing and messaging, customer engagement, teamwork, and organizational alignment. The company also provides assessment reports for individual, team, and organizational analysis; and Temperament Certification and the Synergy Leaders Coaching certifications, as well as consulting, training, and coaching services.

Summary of Contents

The author provides a thorough historical background of temperament theory, beginning with Plato (4th century BCE) and culminating with the work of Isabel Myers (1958). Having established a basic schema of four temperaments, Keirsey distinguishes his categorizations (Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, Rational) from the Myers-Briggs groupings (SP, SJ, NF, NT) and discusses each of the temperaments at length. The author emphasizes the danger of what he calls the “Pygmalion Project.” This is the tendency to interpret others’ differences from one’s own way of acting or approaching reality as “wrong” and as something to be corrected. This leads to furtive attempts to change other people’s natural personality and temperament, which can only exacerbate problems. The author provides a discussion of how each of the temperaments approach mating (chapter 7), parenting (chapter 8), and leadership (chapter 9). This edition features an updated temperament sorter (4-11) which allows the reader to determine his or her MBTI type. For those interested in simply discovering temperament, the author provides a sixteen question “type sorter” (341).

As a pastor (or commissioned ministry professional) you have the privilege of listening to people pour out their hearts as they daily face incredible challenges. I know you’re always looking for ways you can help them, and I also know that you just don’t have the time to give to each person, which can be very frustrating for you and for the person you’d like to help. When I was a parish pastor, I often didn’t have the expertise I needed to address some of the issues which turned up. That’s a very humbling position to be in, especially if you’ve identified your primary role as one of helping people.

One way of overcoming this trap is to connect with persons trained and skilled to help your parishioners in ways that you are not able to provide. For example, you may already have a wonderful network of dedicated and trained lay persons such as Stephen Ministers, Eucharistic Ministries, Deacons, Elders, and so forth. Maybe you have a Parish Nurse who provides valuable resources for persons facing physical challenges or issues relating to aging and care-giving. Or you already refer persons to Christian Counselors or other therapists and offer to help them along the path towards healing and wholeness.

A specialty area which you may not have considered is spiritual direction. 

The overarching thesis of Dallas Willard’s book The Great Omission is that present day American congregations, across the denominational spectrum, are content to settle for merely adding membership at the expense of moving “members” toward a more mature expression of “discipleship.” 

The author emphasizes that deliberately choosing to be a disciple of Jesus is crucial, and that modern Christianity has made discipleship “optional” at best and “unexpected” for the majority of those on church rosters. The “great omission” of intentional discipleship in the contemporary church is the basis for the title of the book. Willard emphasizes that when a person decides to take Jesus seriously, this choice needs to be fleshed out through the practices and activities of the classic disciplines of the Christian life. Such activities might include prayer, fellowship, service, study, simplicity, chastity, solitude, and fasting, among many others. Willard contends these activities lead to spiritual transformation, which manifests as growth in the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

Una Agnew, SSL (Sisters of St. Louis), is spirituality professor at Milltown Institute, one of the premier centers for the study of theology, philosophy and spirituality in Ireland. She is the author of The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh: A Buttonhole in Heaven, in which she uses the ancient mystical stages of awakening, purification, illumination and transformation to illustrate the fundamental mysticism of the poetry and the person of Patrick Kavanagh. 

In this video, Sr. Agnew discusses the role of silence as a spiritual practice and its role in the art of spiritual direction.

Biographical Sketch of the Author

Dr. Samir Selmanovic, Ph.D, is the director of Citylights (an emergent Christian community) and serves on the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches. He is a founder of Faith House Manhattan, an interfaith “community of communities” that brings together Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists and others who seek to learn from different belief systems. Dr. Selmanovic is a key personality of the emerging church movement, serving on the Coordinating Group for Emergent Village and co-founder of Re-church, a network of church leaders. He pastored a multi-ethnic church in Manhattan for six years, which provided him with an understanding of Western attitudes towards religion. He has published many articles on the role of religious organizations in postmodernity and is a contributor to the books “Emergent Manifesto of Hope” (Baker, 2007) and “Justice Project” (Baker, 2009).