Kenton Smith
Spiritual Director
M.Div., D.Min., DASD
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Availability: Practice is closed at this time.
Training & Experience:Training & Experience: I am a Christian contemplative in the second half of life living in the wonder and tension of God, life and death. I graduated from San Francisco Theological Seminary in 2011 with aDoctor of Ministry degree focused on spiritual direction as a metaphor for pastoral leadership. In 1998 I earned the Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction at SFTS and co-founded Soul Work Studio (a spiritual direction practice for individuals and organizations). Prior I graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary and pastored four PCUSA congregations from 1974-2009. Formerly I served as a staff member and group trainer for the graduate Program in Christian Spirituality at SFTS and the PCS Advisory Board. During two interludes I worked as a consultant for ExecutivEdge of Silicon Valley (executive coaching) and Vesper Society (a private foundation focused on health and justice). I am a board member of the Contemplative Center of Silicon Valley. Specialties: Individuals growing into the second half of life and organizations seeking to learn discernment in decision making. Style of Spiritual Direction: “I never have conversations like this.” This is a common response to direction. Who does that? Who listens with full attention solely on us? A spiritual direction conversation has no equal because it is an intentional practice of devotion to the well-being of another person. It is not therapy, a director is not fixing, analyzing, correcting or changing anyone. A director listens to our lives to the “me that is me, yet not me, yet not not me.” We don’t know where one begins and the other ends. Yet we are changed, we grow and become more of our true selves almost without effort. The mystery of a direction conversation is endowed with an invisible, inaudible, intangible Presence (the not me yet not not me) that loves us as we are, that knows our innate beauty, goodness, brokenness, and unfinishedness. Joseph Allen wrote, “when we have determined what we most deeply want, we have found what God wants for us.” Direction is growing and learning God’s unique way with each of us, who we are and what we are meant to be or do. This is the paradox of spiritual direction; we explore and uncover who we are and what we most deeply want yet at the same time experience what the Mystery we call God desires for us. Personal: My wife and I have been married for fifty years with three grown children and seven grandchildren. I am an auto racing enthusiast engaged in HSDE track days, fitness junky, ballroom dancer, I write theopoetics and enjoy amateur photography. I am an ordained Presbyterian minister (PCUSA) now honorably retired. |