About me

My name is Tom Stuart and I have been offering Spiritual Direction since 2011.  I love Spiritual Direction.  It is a privilege to observe, support, and encourage people who have chosen to live toward the fullness of life as they intentionally grow in the realm of faith and spirituality.

Much of my own life is given to understanding what it is to be fully human and recognising how that is centred on us being spiritual beings.  That involves me in daily practices of meditation, and spiritual disciplines.  I participate in various groups with the specific purpose of growing in spirit and understanding.

I am now a team member of the “Listen Into Life” Residential Program in Spiritual Direction.  I am the minister of the Charlestown and Garden Suburb Congregation of the Uniting Church in Australia.  I helped establish the Whitebridge Wellness Centre.  I helped start two Facebook groups, Uniting in Prayer and Uniting in Contemplation.  With others, we created a Hunter region “Uniting in Contemplation Group” that meets monthly. I am part of a team that leads Quiet Days about twice a year.  I am also part of “The Gathering” which is a group that meets weekly reading books of great mystics of the past and present.

I am also furthering my training in Supervision of Spiritual Directors, attending a training program in late February this year.

I have interest in the Myers Briggs Type Inventory and the Enneagram as tools for self-understanding.  Included in my reading is the work of Don Beck on Spiral Dynamics, and Ken Wilbur on Integral Theory.  I am greatly helped by the writings of Richard Rohr on male transformation and attend the “Men’s Rites of Passage” that takes place annually in south Queensland.

My spiritual development began in Christianity and the teachings of Jesus remain the primary, as Jesus might say, “yoke” which shapes my life.  I use some of the ancient practices daily, particularly lectio divina.  However, I have also read the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita.  I also participate in fortnightly Gurdjieff meetings in the exploration of “transformation”.

My formal training includes a Bachelor of Social Science, a Bachelor of Theology, a Graduate Diploma in Science (Mental Health), completed four-year training in the “Residential Program in Spiritual Direction”, and a short course in Spiritual Direction Supervision with Lucy Abbot Tucker.

 

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