The great spiritual guides of the past would have seen the spiritual director as one who emerges as an almost accidental side-effect of the life of prayer and recollection. Spiritual directors will often find themselves thrown into this ministry, feeling quite unprepared and ill-equipped for it. Yet in the very process of guiding others, we are guided. . . . Spiritual direction, Leech feels, suffers from this model since direction must be situated in an ongoing relationship, quite unlike a therapeutic model. It is therefore a by-product of a life of contemplative listening.
Direction flows out of a life of prayer.
During one of the question periods, someone asked about the practice of prayer in a parish setting. He said that having a prayer group may be one step in the parish toward a more grounded vision of the place of spiritual direction. Begin with a small group of people that pray together, and in that group teach one another to pray. Use the Scriptures in a meditative and contemplative way, praying the Scriptures in a framework of silent reflection. He cautioned that to form and nurture such a group requires flexibility and a willingness not to be legalistic.