pat loughery

I’ve been teaching my first course at The Seattle School this fall.  It’s SFD 601, a spiritual formation course in prayer.  It’s a required course for Master of Divinity students and is an elective for the other two majors – M.A. in Counseling Psychology and M.A. in Theology & Culture.

Although I taught several online courses last year at Bakke Graduate University, this was my first time at this school, and my first time in a classroom setting of this type, and my first time stepping into a a role that was lovingly and ably embodied by my mentor and anamcara, Tom Cashman.  Tom’s been described to me not just as an adjunct instructor at the school, but “pastor to the students.”   Over his fifteen-plus years of teaching at this seminary, he’s made quite an impact and leaves large shoes to try to fill.

For this fall’s edition of the course, I’ asked our students to read these books:

• The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life (Emergent Ys, No. 25)

• Beyond Words: 15 Ways of Doing Prayer (Explorefaith.Org Book)

They also read the Intro and Conclusion to this, in addition to the section for their Meyers-Briggs typology.

• Soultypes: Matching Your Personality and Spiritual Path

Our goal for the course is to explore a variety of values and practices of prayer.  We’re looking at well-rooted practices from the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Benedictines, Celtic Christians, Franciscans, Jesuits and others.  We’re also looking at a broader variety of practices of prayer, where prayer is intentional pursuit of the presence of God.  The course wraps up with students describing their own Way of Life, paying specific attention to the practices of prayer that they find most helpful in being in the presence of God.

You’ll find the PDF file for the syllabus at: Syllabus for SFD 601 Spiritual Formation Prayer Practice and Presence FA 12 – Final 1

Our week by week schedule has changed from what that syllabus proposed, partly due to devoting more time to the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator and scheduling a certified MBTI instructor to walk us through results (which proved to be a wise choice).

With that said, I’ll write more about how the course is going so far and whatever else comes up.  Yeah, it’s halfway over now, but there may be some helpful things to say regardless – even if only to myself as I’m looking at the course and learning from victories and failures for next time around.