Blog

SGTI Launches New Cohort in Chicago

10/1/2018

This August marked an exciting beginning for the 18-month training program at The Spiritual Guidance Training Institute. Drs. Banashakand Lundy, both graduates of the GTF and current adjunct faculty, welcomed a new cohort that hailed from New York, North Carolina, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Texas. The training takes place online with 2 residential weeks in Chicago. The new “emerging spiritual guides” created community together while beginning the exploration of spiritual direction, immersing themselves in deep listening practices, spending time in silence, and visiting interfaith worship services... (Read more here)

(This article recently appeared on the Graduate Theological Foundation website.
Author: Jeanette Banashak, PhD, EdD)

http://blog.gtfeducation.org/the-spiritual-guidance-training-institute-begins-second-cohort/

SGTI in Chicagoland News

8/22/2018

We are pleased to announce that SGTI and co-founder, Jeanette Banashak, is currently featured in "Voyage Chicago."

You can read the article in its entirety here.

http://voyagechicago.com/interview/meet-jeanette-banashak-spiritual-guidance-training-institute-north-side-also-online/

Encore Presentation Sept. 15 - Interspiritually Present

8/8/2018

SGTI is pleased to announce a wonderful opportunity for you to learn about what it means to be "interspiritually" present as you companion others.

Interspiritually Present:
Exploring the One Heart of Spiritual Companionship

an interactive, day retreat will be offered by Drs. Jeanette Banashak and Janice Lundy on Saturday, Sept. 15 at Dominican Center in Grand Rapids, MI.
We hope you will join in.

This is the same presentation made by Jeanette and Jan in an all-day institute at the recent Spiritual Directors International Conference in St. Louis in April.
Details below.

As spiritual companions, how do we sit with others who have different practices and beliefs, yet similar longings for connectedness?

In this full-day seminar on spiritual companionship, we will:

Begin with recognition and understanding of the Perennial Tradition and what our place is within it
Learn who the spiritually independent is
Learn tools for contingent communication
Practice with others using Pure Presence® - an interspiritual model of non-judgmental, compassionate listening and presence
Explore the relationship and interconnectedness between our identity within our particular tradition and other religious/spiritual/ethical traditions

As we discuss the major shifts in this interspiritual age, we will consider how our religious/spiritual identity intersects with our companions.

This program is open to spiritual companions, spiritual directors, chaplains and ministers in healthcare settings, ministry leaders, and related spiritual companionship roles.

Cost: $85; $65 for spiritual directors actively practicing at Dominican Center
(use code "Present" for this price)
Price includes continental breakfast, lunch, and materials.
Participants encouraged to bring a comfortable cushion.

Date: Saturday 09/15/2018
Time: 8:45am - 3:00pm
Register: dominicancenter.com/checkout/

Interspiritual Meditation, Part 5

7/30/2018

Interspiritual Meditation: Week 5 ~ Hindu Meditation

Loosen the load of sweetness I’m carrying,
The sling-knot is biting into my shoulder
This day has been so meaningless,
I feel I can’t go on.

When I was with my teacher, I heard a truth
That hurt my heart like a blister.
The tender pang of seeing
Something I loved as an illusion.
The flocks I tended are gone.
I am a shepherd without even a memory
Of what that means, climbing this mountain.
I feel so lost.

This was my inward way, until I came
Into the presence of the Moon, this new knowledge
Of how likenesses unite. Good friend,
Everything is you. I see only God.
Now the delightful forms and motions
Are transparent. I look through them
And see myself as the Absolute. And here’s the answer to the riddle of this dream:

You leave, so that we two
Can do One Dance.

-Lalla, tr. Coleman Barks

Interspiritual Meditation, Part 4

7/18/2018

Interspiritual Meditation - Christian Meditation
Week 4/7

Nada te turbe,
nada te espante
todo se pasa,
Dios no se muda,
la paciencia
todo lo alcanza,
quien a Dios tiene
nada le falta
solo Dios basta.

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things pass away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

-St. Teresa of Ávila

Interspiritual Meditation, Part 3

7/9/2018

Interspiritual Meditation - Taoist Meditation
Week 3/7

Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.

I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.

-Tao Te Ching, tr. Stephen Mitchell, chapter 67

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia.org)

Interspiritual Meditations, Part 2

6/27/2018

The Second in a Series of Interspiritual Meditations

Buddhist Meditation
Buddha continued:

“Subhuti, if anyone gave to the Buddha an immeasurable quantity of the seven treasures sufficient to fill the whole universe; and if another person, whether a man or woman, in seeking to attain complete Enlightenment were to earnestly and faithfully observe and study even a single section of this Sutra and explain it to others, the accumulated blessing and merit of that latter person would be far greater.”

“Subhuti, how can one explain this Sutra to others without holding in mind any arbitrary conception of forms or phenomena or spiritual truths? It can only be done, Subhuti, by keeping the mind in perfect tranquility and free from any attachment to appearances.”

“So I say to you –
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:”

“Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.”
“So is all conditioned existence to be seen.”

Thus spoke Buddha.

-Diamond Sutra: Chapter 32

Interspiritual Meditations

6/15/2018

The first in a series of interspiritual meditation experiences. Enjoy!

Day 1/7

We recently returned from a beautiful experience at the Spiritual Directors International Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The final plenary session involved interspiritual readings from seven religious/spiritual traditions.

A bell was rung, a practitioner of the tradition read the excerpt, and the bell was rung again.

We want to share the experience with you during the next week – daily we will post one of the sacred readings. You may want to practice passage meditation, lectio divina, or slow readings of the texts. You may want to have a bell or chime beside you as you read.

(As much as possible, we have tried to stay true to the translations read, and we may have taken liberties when the exact source was unknown.)

Sufi Meditation
1. O doves that haunt the arák and bán trees, have pity! Do not double my woes by your lamentation!
2. Have pity! Do not reveal, by wailing and weeping, my hidden desires and my secret sorrows!
3. I respond to her, at eve and morn, with the plaintive cry of a longing man and the moan of an impassioned lover.
4. The spirits faced one another in the thicket of ghaḍá trees and bent their branches towards me, and it (the bending) annihilated me;
5. And they brought me divers sorts of tormenting desire and passion and untried affliction.
6. Who will give me sure promise of Jam‘ and al-Muḥaṣṣab of Miná? Who of Dhát al-Athl? Who of Na‘mán?
7. They encompass my heart moment after moment, for the sake of love and anguish, and kiss my pillars,
8. Even as the best of humankind encompassed the Ka‘ba, which the evidence of Reason proclaims to be imperfect,
9. And kissed stones therein, although he was a Náṭiq (prophet). And what is the rank of the Temple in comparison with the dignity of Humanity?
10. How often did they vow and swear that they would not change, but one dyed with henna does not keep oaths.
11. And one of the most wonderful things is a veiled gazelle, who points with red finger-tip and winks with eyelids,
12. A gazelle whose pasture is between the breast-bones and the bowels. O marvel! a garden amidst fires!
13. My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
14. And a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Ka‘ba and the tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran.
15. I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take, that is my religion and my faith.

-The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, by Ibn al-Arabi, tr. Reynold A. Nicholson

Your Well-Being Is Mine

5/21/2018

This essay by SGTI co-founder Jan Lundy is currently being featured on
the Spiritual Directors International blog.

Our spiritual health is intrinsically tied to the well-being of others.

It’s true, isn’t it? We feel the best (body, mind, heart and soul) when we know that those we love are doing well.  When our dear ones are having difficulties, naturally their plight weighs upon us. If we are spiritually healthy and well adjusted, we’ll hope that they will be free of struggle. We hold this hope because we are self-aware, mindful, and in touch with just how difficult it is to be a human being.

Bringing others into our experience of prayer or meditation is a powerful practice. When we first embark on the spiritual path... (Read more)

Companioning Myself

5/6/2018

Companioning Myself
by Jeanette Banashak, PhD, EdD

Is there an experience that you have had that you haven’t explored as a spiritual guide for yourself? What are some of the questions you could ask yourself as you explore the depths of your inner world?  How might they help you create meaning?

I recently spent some time in South Africa, and as is the case with nearly anything I do, I witnessed the land and her people with the lens of an interreligious and interspiritual companion. As a spiritual guide, I am writing this reflection to re-live some beautiful moments in South Africa. As I journeyed across the land, I was not always aware of the interior land that was unexplored without reflective-reflexive expression. In other words, I want to be a spiritual companion for myself.

At the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg (originally named Egoli or Gauteng, meaning the place of gold, by the first Africans), I read a quote in one of the exhibits from Nelson Mandela. He said, "The cell is an ideal place to know yourself. People tend to measure themselves by external accomplishments, but jail allows a person to focus on internal ones, such as honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, generosity, and an absence of variety. You learn to look into yourself.” Though I cannot fully comprehend Mandela’s 27 years in prison, it is with his pursuit of goodness that I write this piece.

My reflective expression (I chose one experience for the purposes of this blog): What did I feel as I biked through sewage, surrounded by tin "houses" in Soweto? What did I notice in my body as I learned that there are vacant apartments (for the past 8 years!) since Jacob Zuma changed Mandela's vision of offering free housing?  What was my response to the children's memorial site that explained how, in 1976, 11-18 year old students stood up to their oppressors? Who am I in relation to the mothers and sons, the sisters and grandfathers? And, to quote spiritual director, Kaye Twining, who do I now know myself to be after such an experience?

Throughout the bike tour in Soweto, I felt deep grief, sadness, fear, surprise, amazement, respect. My sadness and grief were felt in my stomach; I felt surprise and amazement in my heart. I got choked up at the memorial site with the famous picture of Hector Petersen after he was shot. And yet, what were the other names of those peaceful protestors who also were shot or injured? At times, I had a difficult time feeling connected to the people of Soweto. I tried to notice when I wavered between pity and compassion, when I felt sorry for them or practiced loving kindness. As I ponder the experience and look back on photographs, I can embrace our common humanity while honoring their historical and cultural context. This is not easy! But, it is my way forward if I am going to have a reflexive expression fueled by compassionate action.