This spring, SGTI, SGTI students and alumni, as well as 1600 others, participated in Spiritual Directors International’s first virtual conference.  We asked the SGTI community the following questions as a way to serve as a debrief of the conference, learn from each other, and share with our readers: What insights did you gain from this year's SDI conference? How might those insights inform your current or future practice of spiritual companionship/spiritual direction?
 
One alumna offered this response (used by permission): 
 
I need sustained belonging within a contemplative learning community. Yet, strong communities of deep-diving seekers actively engaged in the world are truly hard to find. For me, SGTI is such a community. Yet, since this January, after graduating from the 18-month training in inter-spiritual guidance, I’ve feared that my experience of belonging within my cohort would weaken and fade over time, until I was once again without the community nourishment I relished as a SGTI student and need now, more than ever. As winter shifted toward spring, I lived inside this fear, confused and unsettled as I continued discerning how to fit my new growth as spiritual director into my already full life as art therapist and teacher of graduate art therapy students. 
     
In this unsettled place, I considered cancelling my registration for the Spiritual Directors International virtual conference. I doubted I would feel nourished, or connected to other attendees, by spending yet more hours in front of a computer screen. But this would be my first time attending an SDI conference, and I hoped it might offer ways to see more clearly where I am and where I am headed. And so, I showed up, living my questions, hoping to be touched in some way. 
      
I now am at a loss for words to describe how much I was touched by during the conference. Simply put, I no longer feel afraid. Instead, I feel like the little boat of belonging within which I sailed as part of our intimate SGTI cohort has been taken on board the much larger vessel of SDI, within which I can continue to grow, learn, and find connections to fellow seekers who are as engaged as I am.  Deeply inspired by Father Adam Bucko’s workshop and keynote presentation, I am now reading his book on new monasticism and I feel affirmed that I have been a modern-day monastic literally my whole life. Through SGTI and SDI, I have found my fellow monks.
       
On the first day of the SDI conference, I woke to find a wet, heavy snow coating April’s greening new life with strange winter garb. This snow continued off and on all day.  As I sat in my home in Indianapolis attending the day’s virtual offerings, I grieved for the spring-growth I was sure would be frozen and ruined. Instead, when the snow melted, to my surprise, most everything survived and kept blooming. 
     
​As I returned to my normal routine after the conference, my delight at spring recovering from winter’s last blast has been co-mingled with my delight at having found connection to SDI’s abundant community of contemplative learners. A grouping of yellow, purple and white pansies is how nature conveys for me these overlapping delights. As I look into the faces of these flowers, I see brightly dressed monks with wide-eyed singing expressions.  And I feel like one of them, not alone. This is how I felt throughout the entire 4-day SDI conference and how I continue to feel after it. Like pansies surviving frosts and snows, we contemplatives live amidst the suffering caused by humanity’s frozen-heartedness, and willingly serve it, again and again, helping hearts thaw and spirits bloom. And we find each other. Somehow in this non-contemplative, struggling world, we keep seeking until we find each other. Thanks to SGTI, and in new ongoing ways through SDI, I have truly found belonging within a vibrant community of beautiful, flowering, hardy, courageous spirits who are committed to strengthening each other so that we can live authentically in this suffering world and serve with love.”
 
Another alumna shared this in response (used by permission):
 
"A sense of belonging was a big take home for me, too.  The strongest sense for me was what felt like a palpable urge for the SDI community to respond to the blights that have plagued our larger social landscape more than ever, especially since COVID struck.  This sense of purpose came across much stronger to me than it had when I went to the previous two SDI conferences.  I felt that within this culture of SD (spiritual direction) and Interspirituality, there’s a unique contribution we can make and all want to make together.  

I also felt a sense that we’re learning as we go.  One participant shared that SDs have up till now mostly concerned themselves with the inner life of their companions and their immediate social circles.  But there has not been sufficient concern for the collective in SD practice.  And it’s that concern that I felt many of the keynote speakers and much of our community express.  I was really impressed and heartened that it’s possible to align my love of contemplative practice and Interspirituality with a crying urgency to do our parts to hold up the values of democracy, empirical truth and decent regard for all people walking our streets.”
      
We heard other comments and reflections that all spoke to the richness and depth of this year’s conference. We echo these reflections and continue to be grateful to SDI for the many ways it supports us and our communities. We are forever changed."

Written by: SGTI Student Eric Budzynski
 
I give thanks to native and Indigenous traditions for teaching me to know myself as earth, water, fire, and air; to remind myself to live in harmony with these elemental forces and to allow the constancy of their universal language to guide my own actions in responsible and sustainable ways. Brother Wind, Sister Moon, Grandmother Tree, Grandfather Bird, hear my message of welcome and gratitude.
 
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
 
I give thanks to the ancient messages of the Vedas and Bhagavad Gita as a gift from beyond just as the sacred waters of the Ganges flows from the height of the Himalayas. Not needing to limit the Oneness to an archetype of form but a vast explosion of divine, opulent and generous expression allows those sacred and timeless messages to speak to all hearts of all beings. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, hear my message of welcome and gratitude.
 
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
 
I give thanks to the followers of the Covenant in trusting the might and power of the One God and the willingness of that god to touch and intervene with the humanity of the world created in its own image. In giving daring and bold proclamation to thrilling and prophetic voices, those heralds still echo clearly throughout the ages as a message of promise and hope to a New World yet to be known or seen by the children of Adam & Eve. Adonai, Abba, Moses, Noah, David, hear my message of welcome and gratitude.  
 
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
 
I give thanks to Siddartha for offering the Middle Way as a path to peace and awakening and a realization that to live fully is to live in acceptance and awareness of all that life affords and offers each of us. May I dwell with you in the divine abodes of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity and continue to know, recognize and understand my own humanity in that of all beings. Tathagata, Guanyin, Buddha, hear my message of welcome and gratitude.
 
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
 
I give thanks to Christ and his beloved community of saints as witnesses to the impenetrable power of love as victor over death and hatred. Centuries of inspired art and expression have given my own life purpose and meaning to know, touch, taste, see, smell, and hear the invitation to share in your creative reckoning as a faithful believer in your own incarnation. Gregory, Cecilia, Paraclete, hear my message of welcome and gratitude.
 
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
 
I give thanks to the author of mercy and to the willing harbinger of his message of peace in a humble prophet. You ask us to surrender, soften, and break open ourselves time and time over to learn your love so that we may never be removed from it again. Faith, prayer, offering, fasting, and pilgrimage show us the path to the essence of your being. Allah, Muhammad, the Merciful One, hear my message of welcome and gratitude.
 
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
 
I have now arrived nearer to the other shore where You wait patiently with my own resistance and unknowing. This is the place where words fail and end and lose meaning. Sound gives way to the complete and unshakable wisdom of silence and Presence. You offer patience, curiosity and love as a way to ultimately see my own Youness radiantly reflected in You and in everything around me. All You that have gathered to help me bear witness, hear my message of welcome and gratitude.
 
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
Now our minds and hearts are as one.
 
(Inspired, with gratitude & humility, by the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. In partial fulfillment of Certificate In Interfaith/Interspiritual Direction/Companionship.)