Nouwen: Spiritual Doula

“Religious leaders, priests, ministers, rabbis, and imams can be admired and revered but also hated and despised. Let's try to love our religious leaders, forgive them their faults, and see them as brothers and sisters. Then we will enable them, in their brokenness, to lead us closer to the heart of God.” Henri Nouwen, Henri Nouwen Society, Daily Mediation, April 10 2018, from Bread for the Journey, 1997 HarperSanFrancisco.

It is so easy for spiritual directors and leaders and those they meet with to get into this well-known religious trap of the “one who knows all” and the “one who knows nothing.”

In order not to get caught in this unfortunate relationship, I remembered one of my favorite programs on PBS, Call the Midwife. This led me to imagine a spiritual director or friend as a midwife helping people give birth to a new life. Then my daughters-in-law introduced me to the new concept of a doula, a birth companion. A doula provides various forms of non-medical and non-midwifery support, physical and emotional, in the childbirth period, preparing the person for childbirth, being there with them at the delivery, and in aftercare, especially assisting with breast feeding or nourishing the newborn.

I am now beginning to see God as the real midwife or obstetrician. God is the one more directly at the delivery, bringing the new birth into the world that it is almost impossible for one to do alone.

I think we are God’s doula, supporting people for their spiritual journey with God. The concept is not unlike the ministry of a deacon in my tradition, standing beside the priest at the altar and standing beside the non-ordained and cheering them on and supporting them in their ministry.

Joanna joannaseibert.com