Dear friends,

One criticism leveled at the Christian spiritual formation movement is that it’s too individualistic and inward: me and God, in that order.

The growing popularity of spiritual direction may sharpen this criticism, as the practice is sometimes described as helping you see where God is at work in your life.

It’s true that the spiritual formation movement emphasizes the inner life. And a spiritual director does help you notice where God is at work in your life.

But if practicing spiritual disciplines or receiving spiritual direction only benefits me — if my mystical experiences increase but patience and kindness decrease — I’ve missed the point entirely.

“If I fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,” St. Paul says, ​“and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” 

I am nothing. Strong words.

The corrective isn’t to do away with mysteries, knowledge, or experiences with God. It’s to add balance: to root ourselves in community and tradition, to seek wise guides who speak hard truth.

Evelyn Underhill (1875−1941) was an intellectual who had already published books and had mystical experiences when she came to Baron Friedrich von Hügel for spiritual direction. What she received was far more direct than most modern models for direction.

Robyn Wrigley-Carr, an Underhill expert featured on the Renovaré Podcast this week, points out that von Hügel believed three elements are essential to a rich and balanced spiritual life:

• intellectual (theological, rational),
• mystical (experiential, devotional) and
• institutional (church, community, tradition).

Seeing that Underhill was weak in the ​“Institutional Element,” Von Hügel ​“encouraged her into regular church involvement, the Eucharist, visiting the poor and Christocentric devotion.”

It changed her. Underhill later wrote of the Baron, ​“I owe him my whole spiritual life.”

A generation later, Eugene Peterson also credited von Hügel as his most formative guide.

As von Hügel was to Peterson, Peterson is to many of us, including me.

While reading Peterson’s foreward to The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill, I could feel my soul being corrected and directed — particularly in the area of the institutional church. Addressing the popular sentiment, I love Jesus but hate organized religion, he writes: ​“There’s something to be said for this, but not much.”

It’s people like Peterson and von Hügel and Underhill — and, of course, the down-to-earth souls with whom we share bread and cup on Sunday — who help us grow into Christian maturity.