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By one measure, he has a REALLY BIG church!
Chaplains at Atlanta's international airport serve 56,000 employees and a quarter-million travelers who arrive and depart daily.
As a reporter for National Public Radio recently pointed out, that's a lot of congregants for the airport's chaplains. (To read the story, click here.) |
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Ray Wiggins of Unity South Atlanta Church serves the airport as one of the volunteer chaplains tending that big flock. A Licensed Unity Teacher and Spiritual Leader of Unity South Atlanta, Wiggins says it’s a joy to be in the airport to assist travelers and employees. He has a dream of Unity placing a full- or part-time employee to serve in the Chaplaincy Ministry there.
Imagine having free copies of the Daily Word to distribute, as well as business cards containing The Prayer for Protection. With all the drama of traveling, how wonderful to have the positive, uplifting message and the presence of a Unity minister to greet you with a smile and possibly even a good Unity hug.
What do you think? A Unity presence at the world’s largest airport? Let us know! |
Spiritual Direction: Tending to the Holy
By Maggie Rosche, Licensed Unity Teacher candidate
Maggie Rosche |
Maggie Rosche is a Spiritual Director and Associate Chaplain at Holmes Regional Hospital. A former board member and chaplain at Unity Church of Melbourne in Florida, Maggie now coordinates Small Group Ministry and is a Licensed Unity Teacher candidate. She was formerly a public health social worker, educator, and trainer in Buffalo, N.Y.
So what is spiritual direction, anyway? That was my question when I first heard the term early in 2006. The name sounded stiffly formal, traditional, and, frankly, arrogant to me at first. Actually, a name change more in synch with modern sensibilities has been considered, but so far nobody has agreed to a better one. So spiritual direction it still is. | Spiritual direction is sometimes referred to as spiritual guidance, companioning, or friendship. It is the ministry of accompanying a fellow seeker or group of seekers as they notice, explore, choose, and live from their spiritual ground. In Christian history, spiritual direction is traced back to the desert fathers and mothers who companioned less experienced new Christians, and specifically to the Jesuit Ignatius Loyola, who founded a formal direction process. But the practice itself is ancient, and basic in most faith traditions.
My own call to spiritual direction came as I was deciding whether to embark on the Leadership Development phase of LUT. I wasn’t as yet comfortable committing to the LUT path. Something was missing. When I read the Spiritual Direction brochure, I was hooked immediately, in my heart and in my gut. I knew without doubt that this was my next step. I enrolled in the Orlando Audire Program, a three-year multidenominational spiritual direction training process, postponing my LUT journey. And my inner guidance was entirely correct.
Learning about the ministry of spiritual direction was a spiritual “boot camp” for me. The first year especially focused on my own relationship with the divine, bringing me face-to-face with questions such as “Who is God to me?” and “Who am I to God?” I experienced direction for myself and was able to feel and live my own divine process like never before.
A dynamic personal grounding is a necessary platform for the sacred ministry of companioning others on their journey, getting the personal director out of the way, and surrendering to the real “Director,” the process of God unfolding in daily life.
From a Unity perspective, I find spiritual direction akin to holding the sacred space of a Unity prayer chaplain for my directees (the people I companion) while they are free to focus safely and exclusively on their evolving spirituality, the prayer that their lives, and their own dynamic relationship with the Christ. It is all about knowing what I am, who they are, and what that means for how we relate to the world. It’s also about allowing the Christ of us to do the driving, with the fallible ego self stepping to the back of the bus. Direction establishes and holds Rumi’s “namaste field” where we can meet, attend to, and dance with the mystery.
I have companioned both individual directees and spiritual direction groups, but I find increasingly that being a spiritual director is much larger than these specific practices. It is a life-encompassing ministry, a transformation through the “renewing of my mind.” It is the flowering of contemplative practice, the intention to see all of life in light of God, rather than, as is so often true, defining God in the light of life experiences. As such it is a useful discipline in both personal and ministry undertaking from chaplaincy, to Transformation Experience groups, to Small Group Ministry, to friends and family. It’s an attitude and intention thing.
I was pleased during my own journey to see Spiritual Direction featured in several Unity venues, highlighting the benefits of journeying with like-minded people. In the July/August 2007 issue of Unity Magazine, Mary Rose O’Reilly shared that the direction process leads us toward "living in the soul," seating us squarely in the world, in order that we may live our divinity in "prophetic witness" as God’s healing instruments. And the current Association of Unity Churches' Contact magazine highlights a direction group for ministers that meets monthly for renewal and exploration of the essential question, "How it is with your soul?"
For myself, the intentional living of that question allowed me to finally embrace LUT ministry. Of course, every directee’s process is different, but the questions encountered along the way arise out of a common humanity and hard-wired longing for the wholeness of our divine source. Spiritual direction is the ministry of reverently “tending the holy.” This is the stuff of spiritual direction, a sifting through the everyday holy of life.
Our Website Angels
We have been blessed by many contributors to our website and give heartfelt thanks to them for their loving wisdom and generous support. They walk their talk! Thanks to: Dottie Holt, Kym Farmer, Bill Allard, Audrey Bloom, Norm Bogert, Harry Borders, Theresa Flannery, Joann Ostern, Michael Roach, Unity Center for Spiritual Living, Merritt Island, Florida, and Anonymous Donor.
To support the work of Licensed Unity Teachers in the Southeast Region, click here.
This website was developed with the generous support of the Suncoast Unity Ministers Association.
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Copyright © 2010 Southeast Unity Licensed Teachers • Stuart, FL • 000-000-0000 |
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