Consider working with a spiritual companion to support your journey
Practiced throughout Christian history, spiritual guidance is offered to those seeking to develop their spiritual lives more fully. More commonly referred to as spiritual direction, spiritual guidance explicitly indicates that the Holy Spirit is the director, and a thoughtful spiritual guide suggests and provides resources for nurturing the journey. While spiritual guidance is less problem-solving-oriented than therapy, both practices can easily complement each other.
As folks progress on their journey, deeper questions tend to arise. These can include:
- How could I engage a deeper connection with Divine Mystery?
- What resources are available to me during a “dark night of the soul?”
- Where can I find meaningful work to do?
- Where is a source of security that will not disappear in a divorce, downsizing, illness, decline in the stock market, or loss of someone important?
- How do I know how I’m being led by Spirit?
- Is there some form of community that is willing to provide support for the journey?
- What can I really expect to happen when I pray, and how can I pray?
- What is my core identity?
- How can I create a more balanced life between work, play, rest, and worship?
- Where can I serve others in ways that will use my energized gifts rather than say yes to needs that drain me?
Spiritual guidance focuses more in the present and the options that are realistically available. Significant benefit can be gained by exploring aspects in one’s past such as early images of God, when prayer seemed to work, and experiences with the church. A key challenge is to explore the wide range of spiritual practices and prayer forms available and find a few that will fit one’s personality, stage in life, and experience with a faith tradition. These might include: guided meditations, journaling, repeated sentence prayer, daily devotions, chants, music, artistic expression, praying Scripture, walking in nature, centering, and discernment. The primary focus is on one’s relationship with God.
Spiritual Directors at Cedar Cross
We have several options for spiritual guidance at Cedar Cross, available for retreatants as needed and upon request.
Spiritual Direction is also available in tandem with an overnight individual retreat. Retreatants often find it helpful to incorporate one or two sessions for spiritual guidance while also allowing space to rest and reflect. Spiritual guidance sessions are best scheduled in advance of your retreat, but sometimes can be arranged quickly. We know that retreatants sometimes realize a need for support in the midst of their retreat journey, so we do our best to support you. Inquire for more information.
Meet Jimmy W. Allen
Jimmy is a pastor with more than 25 years experience in vocational ministry and a graduate of Campbell University Divinity School and the Ruah School for Spiritual Direction. He first came to Cedar Cross as a spiritual directee, and now also serves as the retreat coordinator. His approach to spiritual direction is rooted in fostering an awareness of Spirit’s leading and God’s ever-present grace. He is known for going to the net in doubles’ tennis, and he can quote most episodes of the Andy Griffith Show.
Meet John Hilpert
John’s background is in vocational ministry and urban planning. He and and his late wife Margaret are the founders of Cedar Cross. As a spiritual guide, he offers help with spiritual disciplines, and discernment around vocation or ministry. In particular, John has long been an advocate for the ministry of the laity. John also enjoys designing outdoor sacred spaces, maintaining trails, and writing both short stories and non-fiction. He makes excellent soup.
Meet Ginger Meek Allen
Ginger trained in spiritual direction at the Haden Institute, and is also a trained SoulCollage® facilitator. She is also a goldsmith who took to building stone hardscapes during the pandemic. Creative arts, dreamwork, and alchemy as a metaphor for personal transformation are areas of interest for her. She is the mother of four young women and has a soft spot for rescue dogs.
“Making things is a form of prayer for me. There’s something special in that sacred space where matter and spirit intersect in my hands, whether it’s a gold ring or a loaf of bread. The same thing happens in the human soul, and it fascinates me every time.”
Meet Julie Hilpert
Julie’s path integrates several traditions as various pathways to the One Spirit. She completed her Visionquest and went under the Elk Robe, striving to be a hollow bone for Spirit in all that she does. She is also an initiated Sufi and leader of Dances of Universal Peace (an embodied spiritual practice). She has been an ordained United Methodist minister since 1977, certified as a spiritual director in the late 1980s, and worked in pastoral counseling/clinical social work for 26 years, later shifting to a blend of therapy and spiritual direction. Julie has studied the Aramaic Jesus and the ancient Middle Eastern worldview for many years.
“My journey has been primarily devotional, a very personal relationship of Love first with a long and evolving relationship with Jesus, whom I now call my Beloved, and many other personal doorways to the Divine, including Holy Wisdom, Grandmother Moon, and most recently a daily practice of both reading and writing poetry.”
How to schedule a session
If you would like to meet with a spiritual guide during your retreat, please let the coordinator know when you register, or reach out when you become aware of your need. Mid-retreat sessions are available, as well as ongoing sequential sessions.
Most commonly, ongoing meetings with a spiritual guide are once a month for about an hour.
For mid-retreat or ongoing work with a spiritual guide, payment is requested using a sliding scale model of your own pay rate for 2 hours of work. This covers our prep, session, and followup. Extensive phone or email exchanges may be available at the discretion of the director, with an appropriate payment suggested. If a session is canceled within 24 hours of the appointment, a payment is expected.
While one-on-one sessions are the most common format, group spiritual guidance is available.