Spiritual companionship can take many forms, from informal and occasional through formal and highly regulated. In your spiritual journey, you will find colleagues who share or respect your spiritual concerns or activities but are too busy or distant to engage in regular conversations. Still, your encounters with these individuals will enrich your spiritual life and clarify your spiritual concerns. However, it is important that you also establish more regular and formal forms of spiritual companionship.
 
One of the most common types of spiritual companionship involves regular meetings with a spiritual director or counselor in which you can share the fruits of your prayers and the concerns that continue to challenge you. Usually, these individuals may be formally trained in this task (i.e., a spiritual director or spiritual counselor) but it also be a person who you and others have come to trust for their wisdom or insights. In either case, like your selection of which styles of prayer best suit your personality, it is important to take into consideration the spiritual traditions shaping the style and focus of your potential spiritual directors or counselors.
 

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Another option is to companion another individual, usually someone on a similar path as yourself, to create what the Celtic Christians called a “soul friend”. Soul friendship offers a more intimate relationship than spiritual direction since it is not intended to be a professional conversation, but it is very important when creating this kind of friendship that it remains rooted in mutual respect for the other person’s discernment of God’s presence in his or her life.
 
To understand the dynamics of this type of relationship, you might find it helpful to consult Ray Simpson‘s Soul Friendship: Celtic Insights into Spiritual Mentoring (which is slightly more expansive than his later Soul Friendship in the Celtic Tradition: Ancient Insights for Today) or Edward Sellner’s The Celtic Soul Friend: A Trusted Guide for Today.
 
Finally, you also may find it helpful to create small groups of like-minded individuals with whom you can share your journey. This creates a more communal form of soul friendship, and it requires the same mutual respect among its members for each person’s discernment process. Because it involves more people, this type of group should either be focused on the issue of discernment (allowing each person to share their individual journey freely) or focused on the pursuit of a common goal (such as a shared project in which the members of the group are trying to discern their role).
 
If you are considering this approach, you might find it helpful to consult, Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community by Suzanne G. Farnham, Joseph P. Gill, R. Taylor McLean and Susan M. Ward.
 
Whichever path you choose regarding spiritual companionship, it is important that you remember to be completely open and honest in all your conversations — speaking to them about your concerns with the same honesty you demonstrate when you speak to God in your prayer.

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