Are You Functioning as an Atheist? — Sojourners Institute

A Predictable Phenomenon: Functional Atheism in Spiritual Direction

A predictable phenomenon occurs with many spiritual directors: we turn into functional atheists. In other words, our sessions start to feel drained of real, raw Spirit.

I know because I’ve been there. I know because I’ve been working with spiritual directors for over 20 years. And there’s a pattern I keep seeing.

We want to be helpful. We want to be effective. We work hard to listen deeply and speak carefully. We want to be liked. The ego feeds off all this wanting, and we fall into a kind of tunnel vision.

In that tunnel, driven by effort and striving, we begin to miss the quiet intuitions, feelings, and thoughts that arise from our depths.
All that strong wanting drowns out the still, small voice of the Divine.

It’s so easy for us to forget, in the midst of our genuine desire to be helpful spiritual guides, that we are not working alone.

Functional atheism arises in that moment when I feel the weight of “it’s all up to me.”

It grows in the soil of being a lone ranger, of working alone. And when we work alone, we get tired!

What turns this whole hard-working ship around is remembering this:

There are three parties involved in a spiritual direction session: The client, you, AND the Divine.

When we remember this, we begin to function within a dynamic, interactive web of connection. And in that web, we receive important information from all three sources:

From the client—through their words, expressions, and energy.
From ourselves—via the wisdom of our body, higher heart, and higher mind. Insights and hunches arise seemingly out of nowhere.
From Spirit—through sensations, emotions, and thoughts guided by a Higher Source. These are the subtle yet powerful movements of intuition.

And, when intentionally attune to the Spirit in a session, we plug into the highest and most powerful channel of information.

I recently revisited a video presentation (above) where I reflect on why we get stuck with clients—and on the power of realigning with Spirit. It starts off slow, but hang in there; it’s worth it—it deepens as it unfolds.

So here’s my reminder to you:

You don’t have to work so hard.
Trust your client.
Trust the guidance of Grace.
Trust yourself.
And go with the FLOW.

And if you’d like to dive deeper on this topic, check out the class I’m hosting through Spiritual Directors International: