Welcome to Spinnaker Spiritual Direction!

Spiritual Director
The name 'Spinnaker Spiritual Direction' came to me as I was considering what spiritual direction uniquely offers an individual, couple or small group: Spiritual direction is helpful in the way that deploying a spinnaker sail is helpful to a yacht 'running before the wind' in a regatta. When the spinnaker balloons out and is filled with wind the yacht 'flies'. So, too, people who embrace spiritual direction put themselves in the best position to receive the divine wind/breath/spirit, so they can flourish in their spiritual lives. Another way to think about it: Having a spiritual director is like having a physician of the soul -- a companion to help you listen carefully and discern the leadings of the Spirit.
The COVID-19 Pandemic may be officially over; however, you may still be feeling added anxiety and stress for yourself, your loved ones, and people all around the world, especially because COVID still has the potential to impact so many people's lives. As confirmation of this... you will have heard the recommendations to take 'annual' vaccines for COVID, Flu and RSV. Coming to feel enveloped by the love God is a great way to calm your nerves and be able to engage in meaningful life experiences again.
If your heart has been touched by current events, such as the impending elections in the United States; those impacted by the Israeli/Hamas War; the War in The Ukraine; Global Warming including forest fires, droughts and flooding; the plight of Tibetans, Uyghurs, those in Hong Kong and Taiwan; the plight of migrants everywhere; the plight of Native Americans; racial justice; gun violence; child trafficking; the rights of women; People of Color; and those in the LGBTQIA+ Communities -- spiritual direction could be an excellent place for you to explore your feelings and deepen your relationship with God or your higher power, however might conceive of it. Then, afterward, you might be in a better position to discern ways that God may be calling you to respond to concerns near and dear to your heart.
Here are some opportunities/turning points that might encourage you to establish a relationship with a spiritual companion in spiritual direction:
- If you consider yourself spiritual but not religious
- If you'd like to offer your talents to benefit others, but are baffled by some challenges before you
- If you are struggling to find meaning in life, if you are experiencing difficulties in relationships, or if you feel your have reached a dead-end at work
- If you have suffered a loss, or are living with a chronic illness, or if you are feeling all bound-up by certain religious teaching
- If you are interested in becoming a more compassionate person, if you would like to deepen your spiritual life and explore a variety of spiritual practices.
- If you wonder why God seems to be particularly present -- or absent or distant.
- If you are just starting your first job and are filled with enthusiasm; if you find yourself experiencing a predictable mid-life crisis or if you are well into retirement and are becoming keenly aware of your mortality.
- If you have recently had some interesting or disturbing dreams and don't know quite what to make of them.
- If you have shared your spiritual pilgrimage through body art/tattoos.
- If you have questions about how your gender identity may impact your spiritual life.
Whatever your reason for seeking a spiritual companion, I'd welcome the opportunity to serve as your spiritual friend/soul friend/spiritual director/spiritual companion .
The balance of this home page is designed to help you to learn more about the benefits of spiritual direction for individuals, couples and small groups
The Appointments page will enable you to provide me with your contact information so we can set up an appointment for an initial consultation, an opportunity for you to ask a question or to set up a regular time to meet, whether in-person or at-a-distance.
My Experience page will help you get to know me better, come to a deeper appreciation about those for whom the ancient art of spiritual direction would be of benefit and the costs associated with spiritual direction for individuals, couples and groups.
Store: I will send you an invoice with a link that will outline options to pay for your spiritual direction appointments (and other resources), if you choose to do so with a credit/debit card. You can use your favorite from among the following payment options: Visa, MasterCard, American Express & Discover Card, Apple Pay, Android Pay, Pay Pal, ACH from your checking or savings account and spiritual direction gift cards available through this website.
Another option would be to 'click' on the image from the Store page that relates best to the category, location, or time of your spiritual direction. Once you have paid, you will immediately receive a receipt sent to your e-mail address.
I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Sincerely,
Dr. Howard Kempsell
he / him / his
From Howard Thurman...
There is something in every one of you that waits, listens for the genuine in yourself—and if you can not hear it, you will never find whatever it is for which you are searching and if you hear it and then do not follow it, it was better that you had never been born. You are the only you that has ever lived; your idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all the existences, and if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.
Based on excerpts from Dr. Howard Thurman’s Baccalaureate Address at Spelman College, May 4, 1980, as edited by Jo Moore Stewart for The Spelman Messenger Vol. 96 No. 4 (Summer 1980), 14-15. Cited by Kathryn McElven, Courage & Renewal Coordinator, in 'To Hear the Sound of the Genuine Within Us', January 2, 2015, www.couragerenewal.org

spinnaker |ˈspinəkər| noun
a large three-cornered sail, typically bulging when full, set forward of the mainsail of a yacht when running before the wind.
Apple Dictionary/New Oxford American Dictionary
a large three-cornered sail, typically bulging when full, set forward of the mainsail of a yacht when running before the wind.
Apple Dictionary/New Oxford American Dictionary
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Direction & the Role
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Individual Direction
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Group Direction
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Benefits of Spiritual Direction
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Spiritual direction and the role of spiritual director
Thomas Merton in Spiritual Direction and Meditation, wrote:
There is a temptation to think spiritual direction is the guidance of one’s spiritual activities, considered as a small part or department of one’s life. You go to the Spiritual Director to have him take care of your spirit, the way you go to the dentist to have him take care of your teeth, or to the barber to get a haircut. This is completely false. The spiritual director is concerned with the whole person, for the spiritual life is not just the life of the mind, or the affections, or of the “summit of the soul” – it is the life of the whole person. For the spiritual person (pneumatikos) is one whose whole life, in all its aspects and all its activities, has been spiritualized by the action of the Holy Spirit, whether through sacraments or by personal and interior inspirations. Moreover, spiritual direction is concerned with the whole person not simply as an individual human being, but as a child of God, another Christ, seeking to recover the perfect likeness of God in Christ, and by the Spirit of Christ.
A spiritual director is one who offers “kindly support and wise advice,” one who “enables us to accept more perfectly what we already know and see in an obscure way” and may help us see “things which we have hitherto been have unable to see, though they were staring us in the face.” (Adapted from pages 6, 7 & 21)
Peter Ball, in Introducing Spiritual Direction, offers this helpful reminder:
'Spiritual' can give the impression that [spiritual direction] is concerned primarily, or even exclusively, with spirituality, a person's prayer life or mystical experiences. In actual practice the conversation between a person and a director covers life in all its many aspects. The spiritual side certainly plays an important part but is by no means the only aspect. Rather, spiritual direction is about the whole person and the whole of life, with its mix of relationships and events, hopes and fears, work and leisure -- indeed the whole intimate connection between all that a person is and does and his or her spiritual nature. Spiritual direction is concerned with helping people make sense of things, of God and of the depths of the spirit, all taking place in the context of a human being in the real world that we inhabit. (page 9)
There is a temptation to think spiritual direction is the guidance of one’s spiritual activities, considered as a small part or department of one’s life. You go to the Spiritual Director to have him take care of your spirit, the way you go to the dentist to have him take care of your teeth, or to the barber to get a haircut. This is completely false. The spiritual director is concerned with the whole person, for the spiritual life is not just the life of the mind, or the affections, or of the “summit of the soul” – it is the life of the whole person. For the spiritual person (pneumatikos) is one whose whole life, in all its aspects and all its activities, has been spiritualized by the action of the Holy Spirit, whether through sacraments or by personal and interior inspirations. Moreover, spiritual direction is concerned with the whole person not simply as an individual human being, but as a child of God, another Christ, seeking to recover the perfect likeness of God in Christ, and by the Spirit of Christ.
A spiritual director is one who offers “kindly support and wise advice,” one who “enables us to accept more perfectly what we already know and see in an obscure way” and may help us see “things which we have hitherto been have unable to see, though they were staring us in the face.” (Adapted from pages 6, 7 & 21)
Peter Ball, in Introducing Spiritual Direction, offers this helpful reminder:
'Spiritual' can give the impression that [spiritual direction] is concerned primarily, or even exclusively, with spirituality, a person's prayer life or mystical experiences. In actual practice the conversation between a person and a director covers life in all its many aspects. The spiritual side certainly plays an important part but is by no means the only aspect. Rather, spiritual direction is about the whole person and the whole of life, with its mix of relationships and events, hopes and fears, work and leisure -- indeed the whole intimate connection between all that a person is and does and his or her spiritual nature. Spiritual direction is concerned with helping people make sense of things, of God and of the depths of the spirit, all taking place in the context of a human being in the real world that we inhabit. (page 9)
Individual Spiritual direction can help a person make spiritual progress...
Jean Laplace, S. J., in Preparing for Spiritual Direction writes:
How many there are who, in accomplishing what they believe to be, or what really is, the will of God, yet remain hard and rigid! They speak of the demands, but forget the sweetness, of the Holy Spirit. They tire out their imitators, and their own efforts can be sustained only to the detriment of their health, their balance and right understanding. Others, lacking the discernment that a guide could give them, are the playthings of illusion or of ill-advised generosity. They fail to see that the ardor they are spending is only a means of concealing from themselves either their own deficiencies or a humiliating situation that they dare not face.
It should be clear that a group cannot begin to fulfill this role. It can reveal an individual's shortcomings, or constrain him to admit to himself the secret springs of his actions. But if he has not reached a sufficient level of personal integration, he is often crushed by this revelation and runs the risk of sinking into discouragement. It is one thing to be able to see what one is, but quite another to bear it with gentleness, making the insight a principle of progress. Discernment by all means, but achieved in peace: that is the objective of personal direction. (pages 37 & 38)
How many there are who, in accomplishing what they believe to be, or what really is, the will of God, yet remain hard and rigid! They speak of the demands, but forget the sweetness, of the Holy Spirit. They tire out their imitators, and their own efforts can be sustained only to the detriment of their health, their balance and right understanding. Others, lacking the discernment that a guide could give them, are the playthings of illusion or of ill-advised generosity. They fail to see that the ardor they are spending is only a means of concealing from themselves either their own deficiencies or a humiliating situation that they dare not face.
It should be clear that a group cannot begin to fulfill this role. It can reveal an individual's shortcomings, or constrain him to admit to himself the secret springs of his actions. But if he has not reached a sufficient level of personal integration, he is often crushed by this revelation and runs the risk of sinking into discouragement. It is one thing to be able to see what one is, but quite another to bear it with gentleness, making the insight a principle of progress. Discernment by all means, but achieved in peace: that is the objective of personal direction. (pages 37 & 38)
Group spiritual direction can help individuals and groups make spiritual progress...
Group Spiritual Direction can help individuals and groups make spiritual progress...
Rose Mary Dougherty, S.S.N.D. writes as follows in Group Spiritual Direction: Community for Discernment:
Group Spiritual Direction is grounded in Mystery. We use a very simple process which honors and supports this grounding: silence, the sharing of a participant, silence, response from the group, silence. We repeat the process until all individuals have had a time for sharing and response from the group. We add a few minutes at the end to reflect on our time together. Sometimes, if it seems that we have lost sight of the Mystery or our reason for being together, we return to silence in the midst of our response to an individual.
...In group spiritual direction...people often become aware of God's ways in their hearts as they hear how God seems to be present for others and as they become conscious of God's presence with them as a group. God breaks open the tiny vessels they each have built to contain God. They come to expect God in surprising places in their lives and the lives of others. (p. 35 & 36)
Rose Mary Dougherty, S.S.N.D. writes as follows in Group Spiritual Direction: Community for Discernment:
Group Spiritual Direction is grounded in Mystery. We use a very simple process which honors and supports this grounding: silence, the sharing of a participant, silence, response from the group, silence. We repeat the process until all individuals have had a time for sharing and response from the group. We add a few minutes at the end to reflect on our time together. Sometimes, if it seems that we have lost sight of the Mystery or our reason for being together, we return to silence in the midst of our response to an individual.
...In group spiritual direction...people often become aware of God's ways in their hearts as they hear how God seems to be present for others and as they become conscious of God's presence with them as a group. God breaks open the tiny vessels they each have built to contain God. They come to expect God in surprising places in their lives and the lives of others. (p. 35 & 36)
Spiritual Direction will benefit persons from all religious traditions, persons for whom no one religious tradition seems to be an exact fit, and even persons who might consider themselves SPIRITUAL, BUT NOT RELIGIOUS OR agnostics or atheists.
In How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist, Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Robert Waldman write:
THE SCIENCE OF GOD
For the past fifteen years I have investigated the neural mechanisms of spirituality with the same fervor that a minister contemplates God. Some religious rituals do nothing more than relax you, others help to keep you focused and alert, but a few appear to take practitioners into transcendent realms of mystical experience where their entire lives are changed. Our research team at the University of Pennsylvania has consistently demonstrated that God is part of our consciousness and that the more you think about God, the more you will alter the neural circuitry in specific parts of your brain. That is why I say, with the utmost confidence, that God can change your brain. And it doesn't matter if you're a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu, or an agnostic or an atheist.
Newberg M.D., Andrew; Mark Robert Waldman (2009-03-20). How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist (Kindle Locations 77-83). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Moreover, spiritual direction may benefit individuals, couples and groups with particular needs not otherwise met by professional counselors or self-help groups.
THE SCIENCE OF GOD
For the past fifteen years I have investigated the neural mechanisms of spirituality with the same fervor that a minister contemplates God. Some religious rituals do nothing more than relax you, others help to keep you focused and alert, but a few appear to take practitioners into transcendent realms of mystical experience where their entire lives are changed. Our research team at the University of Pennsylvania has consistently demonstrated that God is part of our consciousness and that the more you think about God, the more you will alter the neural circuitry in specific parts of your brain. That is why I say, with the utmost confidence, that God can change your brain. And it doesn't matter if you're a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu, or an agnostic or an atheist.
Newberg M.D., Andrew; Mark Robert Waldman (2009-03-20). How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist (Kindle Locations 77-83). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Moreover, spiritual direction may benefit individuals, couples and groups with particular needs not otherwise met by professional counselors or self-help groups.