To Tell the Sacred Tale: Spiritual Direction and Narrative

Stories are the connective tissue between culture and nature, self and other, life and death, that sew the world together, and in telling, the soul quickens and comes alive. This volume describes the inherently narrative process of spiritual direction in relationship to our modern or postmodern contexts. It discusses the significance of narrative across cultures, core metaphors of the self, the benefits of narrative situations and recent research related to the autobiographical self. It encourages spiritual directors to pay close attention to the actual stories directees tell and suggests helpful responses directors can make to these sacred tales based on theory and illustrated with rich case material. Highlights: • There is no other work on spiritual direction that shows how central narrative is to the process. • It is both theoretical and concrete in its treatment showing the relevance of some key hermeneutical and literary theories to working with narrative. • It draws on important discoveries from neuroscience and personality theory related to the sense of self and applies it to religious experience • It fosters a sense of self in relation to God, self, and others in the context of both cultural stories and the stories of one’s religious tradition. †