Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction

Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction offers an intimate view of spiritual direction through written narratives of actual spiritual direction sessions. The experiential practice is accompanied by theoretical and theological understandings that guide it. The book includes the stories of nine men and women whose stories illustrate how the journey of Christian discipleship is helped by spiritual direction.

Click here to see a photo of the Madonna and Child icon (in the Archbishop's Chapel at St. Catherine's of the Sinai) that was used on the cover of "Candlelight"

"Illuminating is the precisely accurate word for this brilliant evocation of spiritual direction in action. If I were permitted only one book on spiritual direction, this would be it." —Eugene H. Peterson, author of The Message and Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

“Some form of spiritual direction is to be found in all the world religions and in many tribal religions as well, but it is only recently that this function has come to be widely recognized in modern societies. As we grope toward understanding what spiritual direction might mean to us we badly need to know how it actually works today. Here Susan Phillips’s book offers a signal contribution. She gives us not a ‘how to’ book but illustrations of spiritual direction in practice as no other book I know of does. By following the experiences of those she has directed over time and through deepening insight we get an understanding that no set of generalizations can provide. This moving book deserves close attention by all those concerned with retrieving the rich possibilities of spiritual direction today.” —Robert N. Bellah, Professor of Sociology, emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of Habits of the Heart.  
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The Crisis of Care: Affirming and Restoring Caring Practices in the Helping Professions
edited with Patricia Benner, and containing chapters by the editors and Eugene H. Peterson, Robert N. Bellah, Charles Taylor, Joel B. Green, Anna E. Richert, E. Dawn Swaby-Ellis, David C. Thomasma, Jaime Escalante, Sandi Schaffer, W. Thomas Boyce, Mima Baird, Morris A. Magnan, Theresa Stephany, William Visick, Douglass E. Fitch, Lynn Schimmel, and Harvey Peskin

“There is a crisis in caring for persons that cuts across the boundaries of the helping professions. Patients in hospitals feel depersonalized, students suffer from inadequate attention, clients wonder if therapists really care about them, and parishioners feel unknown in their places of worship. Caregivers are rewarded for efficiency, technical skills, and measurable results, while their concern, attentiveness, and human engagement go unnoticed within their professional organizations and institutions. Arguing that moral judgment and human values must be restored to caregiving in order to revitalize our failing institutions, helping professionals and scholars join together in this volume to explore the ethic of care and the moral sources from which caregivers draw inspiration for their work. Contributors from the fields of medicine, nursing, teaching, ministry, sociology, psychotherapy, theology, and philosophy articulate their values, hopes, commitments, and practices both in theoretical essays and in narratives of caregiving that reveal the complexities of skillful practice. By combining stories of care, the reflections of caregiving practitioners, and interpretations of caregiving within a larger social and theoretical framework, The Crisis of Care: Affirming and Restoring Caring Practices in the Helping Professions identifies the values and skills involved in quality caregiving at the individual level and affirms their importance for reshaping our public caregiving institutions.” —Midwest Book Review

“Health care reform has brought some old thinking to new prominence: ‘whether you can cure or not, you can care’ and ‘don’t be ashamed of spirituality.’ This book is a happy marriage between those two ideas in a way that is interdisciplinary and understands that ethical discrimination develops through practices as well as through adherence to principles. Narrative accounts make the book practical and readable.” —C. Everett Koop, M.D., Surgeon General, U.S. Public Health Service, 1981-1989.

“In a world grown both suspicious of and hungry for caring practices, this book meets a profound need for an interdisciplinary examination of the healing kind of caring to which the helping professions aspire. Weaving together personal narratives and philosophical deliberations, the authors manage to speak wisely to the heart and the head.”—Angela Barron McBride, distinguished Professor and University Dean, School of Nursing, Indiana University.

“Particularly welcome is that the authors of these essays expose their own lives in order to help us all better appreciate how substantive convictions can make a difference in our lives together. This is a wonderful book, and hopefully, it will be read widely, not only among so called professionals but as a resource for us all to know better how to live.”—Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Theological Ethics, The Divinity School, Duke University.

“A timely and important book. The editors and authors—speaking for physicians, nurses, teachers, psychotherapists, pastors—challenge us to do no less than ‘redesign the structures and processes of our public caregiving institutions.’ They narrate the ‘why,’ prescribe some ‘hows,’ and leave the reader convinced that restoring caring practices in health care is both doable and urgently required.” —Ernest L. Boyer, President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Garden or Circus? Metaphors We Live (and Die) By (CD)
An evening public lecture given at Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.
“Highlighting the impact of stress on modern society, and the need for a Christian response, the [author Susan Phillips] uses metaphors of ‘garden and circus’ to present her thoughts on Christian care. ‘In face of contemporary pressures’ and ‘beyond the frenzy and disengagement,’ the author encourages [us] to hear and obey Jesus’ three-fold call to disciples in the garden of Gethsemane—stay awake, be watchful and pray—seeing ‘the garden through the circus.’”—Transformation: An International Dialogue on Mission and Ethics (vol. 22, no. 3)




Finding Direction in Spiritual Direction (CD)
An evening public lecture given at Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

“The term ‘spiritual direction’ is bewildering to many. In this public lecture Susan Phillips addresses that confusion, bringing clarification from the practice and theory of spiritual direction, as well as from biblical imagery and metaphor.”

Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective, edited by Jeffrey P. Greenman and George Kalantzis (IVP Academic, 2010). This book contains Susan Phillips' chapter: "Spiritual Direction As a Navigational Aid in Sanctification."

This volume, edited by Jeffrey P. Greenman and George Kalantzis, marks another compilation from the Wheaton Theology Conference. 2009's event produced the wealth of work represented here exploring the theological foundations for a faithful approach to the church practices that contribute to spiritual formation, that is, to our sanctification in the power of the Holy Spirit. Including essays from keynote speakers Dallas Willard and Gordon Fee as well as contributing essays by noted presenters such as Chris Hall, David Gushee, Linda Cannell, Cherith Fee Nordling, Susan S. Phillips and Lawrence Cunningham, this book offers a stimulating exploration of the historical, biblical and theological dimensions of spiritual formation. It will be of special interest to those who serve as pastors, spiritual directors, church ministry leaders and Christian educators.

Where Faith Meets Culture: A Radix Magazine Anthology, edited by Sharon Gallagher (Wipf and Stock, 2010). This book contains Susan Phillips' chapter "Sabbath Living," as well as chapters by many Christians who have written for Radix magazine and taught at New College Berkeley over the years, including Margaret Alter, Robert Bellah, Susan and David Fetcho, David Gill, Joel Green, Virginia Hearn, Walter Hearn, Margaret Horwitz, Mark Labberton, Earl Palmer, Luci Shaw, and others.