Accompanying Directees in Deconstruction: A Two-Part Dialogue
Event Overview
Session 1:
Friday, November 15, 2024
Session 2:
Friday, December 6, 2024
All sessions 11:00 am - 1:00pm Central
remember to adjust for your timezone
Spiritual direction and supervision can be life-giving places for those in deconstruction, who are questioning the precepts, doctrines, practices, and systems that their faith was built upon. This vulnerable season is often fraught with confusion, hurt, and betrayal, especially when triggered by the failure of institutions and communities to live and function in loving, integrative ways. When these structures cease to function or become actively harmful for this person, spiritual direction and supervision can be nurturing spaces for those who no longer have walls to support and shelter them. These challenging seasons of spiritual instability, where one is stripped of supporting structures - whether directee or director - creates a kind of vulnerability that must be befriended and accompanied.
Session 2:
In session two, we'll think together about what our own deconstruction experiences as spiritual directors might mean to our practice and our directees. These tender spaces can feel particularly fraught and threatening when our vocation is accompanying others in their journeys with God. In conversation, we'll explore through cases and examples what issues might arise and how to bring them to supervision, as well as what tools might be helpful for our own self-supervision after sessions. We'll also explore what supervisors need to tend to as they hold space both for directors who are experiencing deconstruction and for directees who are experiencing deconstruction.
Upon purchase you gain access to the event recording for 18 months (available after event) & handouts
Our Presenter
Tara Owns CSD CSDS
Founder and Executive Director of Anam Cara Ministries
Tara has been accompanying others in their journeys with God for 15 years as a certified spiritual director and supervisor. She is also co-director of Together in the Mystery, a ministry of supervision and continuing education for spiritual director supervisors. Her deep longing is to see others move toward wholeness with themselves, with God, with their communities, and with the world.
Tara holds a Masters of Theological Studies in Spiritual Formation, combined with a certificate in Death, Dying & Grieving, from Tyndale Seminary, and the Advanced Certificate in Supervision from the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education at Fordham University. She pioneered and leads the Anam Cara Apprenticeship, which is a relationally delimited training in spiritual direction. Tara also teaches rabbinic Scripture study groups and trains others in the process of wrestling with God and the Word in community and leads an intentional community of sojourners in the Anam Cara Abbey.
In addition to her work with Anam Cara, she teaches for the Potter’s Inn Soul Care Institute and is on staff with Paseo for their spiritual direction training program, Stewards of the Mystery, and guest lectures at various seminaries, churches, and non-profits. Tara is the author of two books, Embracing the Body: Finding God in Our Flesh & Bone (IVP, 2015), and At Play In God’s Creation: A Contemplative Coloring Book (Franciscan Media, 2016), and was the Senior Editor of Conversations Journal for seven years. She lives out her own wrestlings in the mountains of Colorado with her husband, daughter, and rescue dog, Brother Juniper.
Purchase Virtual Event
ESDA Member rate is $35 per individual session, or $60 for full series. (discount reflected in cart checkout)
Non-member rate is $40 per individual session, or $75 for full series.