Your invitation to spiritual growth ...

Welcome! and thank you for your interest in Jubilee. It is truly an exciting time to be engaged in the world of spiritual accompaniment.

In response to specific requests and to the shifts in our lives and world, the Pacific Jubilee Program is continuning to evolve. Please watch this website for program updates.

Phase 1 ~ SoulWork was formerly known as Year I. This year of formation, discernment and spiritual practice is now being offered in a more flexible form that allows participants top compete this first phase in as little as one year or as many as five.

Phase 2 ~ SoulGuiding (formerly called Year II) continues to be the primary year of formation for spiritual directors. The next intake for Phase 2 is May 2012 with applications due February 15, 2012. (Click the tab “Phase 2” above for more information.)

Phase 3 ~ SoulCare In response to requests for ongoing skill development, community spiritual practice and retreat for spiritual directors we are adding Phase 3 ~ SoulCare with an inaugural retreat and skill development event in October 2012.

Phase 4 ~ SoulMentoring Again in response to interest from particpants and Pacific Jubilee alum alike of we are augmenting the existing program with ongoing learning and skill development opportunities. Like Phase 3, this Phase is optional. SoulMentoring is still under construction but the vision includes such things as i) a program of training for Supervisers of Spiritual directors, ii) an “associates” program for alum who wish to assist and learn at future Phase 1 and 2 events, and 3) an intern program for group leadership skills developing (through experience and mentoring ). Stay tuned!

On behalf of all the staff of PJP I hope you will join us on this transformative journey. Please watch this website for new information as it becomes available and please be in touch.

The last word here goes to Don Grayston co-founder of Pacific Jubilee (over two decades ago). Don served as the program director for over 23 years. We wish Don a fabulous sabbatical and look forward to welcoming him back to staff duties in a year. Don’s brilliant mind, deep faithfulness, and unfailing graciousness have shaped and grounded this program (and many of us) in remarkable ways. His reflection on the current state of spiritual direction follows.

Blessings,
Lois Huey-Heck, director, PJP
lhuey-heck@naramatacentre.net

Friends, known and unknown: We live in a time both exhilarating and challenging for the ancient practice of soulfriending or spiritual direction.

Why exhilarating?

Because spiritual direction (by whatever name we may use - spiritual companioning, spiritual guidance, soulfriending) is exploding out of the box of its traditional one-to-one model. This is not to say that this model is not valuable; its value has been experienced times beyond number, and we continue to encourage its practice.

But in addition to this traditional model of direction, we are seeing a huge increase in the hunger for and the availability of compassionate listening and the practice of presence in so many new contexts: hospice, chaplaincy, the workplace, youth activity, AA and other 12-step programs.

And how can we tell that real soulfriending is taking place in these new contexts? If they include openness to Presence, discernment, awareness of the many dimensions of the spiritual journey, and the telling and hearing of each other’s sacred stories. Beyond this, in offering compassionate listening, one shares in and offers a divine activity. One listens for, in and with the Divine Listener, who offers in the present moment the wholeness we as humans seek. The day on which wholeness/salvation/fullness of life is offered to us is none other than today, the now of our living, the today in which time and eternity intersect, the only today we have. As the song says, “Now is the time, / here is the place, / and this is holy ground.”

And why challenging?

Because we live in a culture of fear, even for some, despair—and this, in North America, in the midst of unprecedented prosperity—for some. Because the political and economic paradigms are shifting under our feet. Because we are hearing and seeing predictions of catastrophe which we often do not know whether or not to believe or accept. Because so many of our old certainties and institutional loyalties have withered or dried up on us. Because the journey to fullness of life includes the necessity of finding courage for the descent into the depths and the ascent to new heights. Because this descent and ascent carries with it responsibility and accountability.

So please read what follows with this understanding: that at this time of millennial change, spiritual direction/soulfriending offers to many of us a way both ancient and contemporary of re-grounding and renewing ourselves as people of Spirit, as pilgrims on a journey, as discerners of God’s presence and call. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Don Grayston, co-director, PJP, Lois Huey-Heck, co-director, PJP