Moving Toward Spiritual Maturity: Psychological, Contemplative, and Moral Challenges in Christian Living

by Neil Pembroke, PhD New York, NY: The Haworth Pastoral Press, 2007, 188 pages, CDN$47.09, US$19.95

Reviewed by Antoinette Vo te Roeder

The author of Moving Toward Spiritual Maturity is a senior lecturer in pastoral studies in the School of History, Philosophy, Religion, and Classics at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. The reason I mention this at the outset is that this background colours the entire thrust of the book. Neil Pembroke is a very good teacher. He writes clearly, uses many examples to illustrate his points, documents his sources, and personalizes his stories in order to engage us more thoroughly. And his book reads like a Master’s thesis. His approach appears to be to take experts in the fields of psychology, philosophy, and theology, and allow them to speak on the subject at hand. Then Pembroke sets out to critique them adding his own interpretation of the subject. From the start I was dazzled by a cast of authorities from Aristotle to Aquinas to Freud whose ideas I had to keep in mind in order to learn what it means to move toward spiritual maturity. Because of this mind boggling array it might behove the reader to read this book in sections rather than as a whole. The sections are divided into three major areas of concern: Toward Psychological Wholeness; Prayer, Contemplation, and Conversion; and Conscience and Responsibility.

How do we quantify spiritual maturity? How do we qualify it? In chapter three Pembroke presents us with Jesus’ statement: "You must be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect" (p. 49). He offers wholeness as an interpretation for perfect and says wholeness is found in Christ. In spiritual direction we sit with our imperfect selves as we pass the vulnerable threads of our directees’ lives through our hands. We are called to be people of deep reflection, self awareness, and prayer. And people who are compassionate and loving without compromising boundaries. Pembroke addresses these issues eloquently. He is really calling us to co-creation, and to taking responsibility for our own lives and growth. He gives us some valuable tools with which to discern and make choices.

Dear to my heart is the state of our earth. Pembroke does not fail to address this though he does not go far enough. "What do we need, then, in order to experience this deep connection with nature that is productive both of inner healing and care of the environment?" (p. 87). His answer is "Clearly, we need to break out of the shackles that Cartesian thought has put us in. We need to see ourselves as living in kinship with the natural world" (p. 87). This is not sufficient. We need not so much thought as we need experience. We need to touch, feel, smell, see, and be in nature and commune with her as we would with our dearest friend. There are people living in urban centres who never experience nature unless it is in the form of a street tree or a thunderstorm that knocks out the power. To make nature into a channel of "spiritual attunement" (p. 88) is to look at nature as tool rather than in its isness, it’s right to be.

Any spiritual growth in our time, of necessity, must take in the recognition that the earth’s life systems are shutting down. In that kind of world, what does spiritual maturity look like? That is my question.

Antoinette Vo te Roeder is a spiritual companion and supervisor in the contemplative tradition. She received her spiritual direction training at the Jubilee Program for Spiritual Direction in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is the author of Weaving the Wind, a poetry collection celebrating the natural and spiritual world. She has been published in the pages of Presence, Connections, and Listen. Her email address is: avroeder@telusplanet.net.