Paying Attention: The Task of Attending in Spiritual Direction and Practical Theology

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between practical theology and spiritual direction through the discipline of attending and argues that focused, actively engaged, theologically perceptive attention is fundamental to the practice of both. The examination of the task of paying attention develops Jane Leach's question in "Pastoral Theology as Attention" (Contact: Practical Theology and Pastoral Care 153 [2007], pp. 19-32), "Whose voices can you hear (and whose are silent)?" The paper reflects on what it means to attend both to the voices and the silence within the two disciplines and finally makes suggestions for ways in which the resulting insights might be of mutual benefit for both spiritual direction and practical theology.