For the past two years, Rick Wheeler has spent each Wednesday afternoon providing spiritual direction to participants of the Men’s Residential Center (MRC), Volunteers of America Oregon’s residential facility for drug and alcohol treatment. He works with three to four men at a time, providing spiritual direction to aid in their recovery.
“Spiritual direction seeks to answer the questions of how might there be a power greater than yourself working in your life, and what is your resistance to that call?” Wheeler says of his work.
Spiritual direction is a more than 1,000-year-old practice in the Christian tradition. Wheeler received training in spiritual direction from the Mercy Center in Burlingame, California. Two years ago, he began to look for a place where he might be able to share this skill and was put in contact with Volunteers of America Oregon. At the same time, the Men’s Residential Center was looking for ways to create a paid position to provide spiritual direction, so when Wheeler contacted them and asked to volunteer, their response was “an instantaneous yes.”
Although the practice of spiritual direction is based in Christianity, the men Wheeler works with come from diverse spiritual backgrounds – some have had religious conversions in jail, while others identify themselves as atheists. Yet the common thread is that all have recognized the need for spiritual guidance. Wheeler sees his work as helping the men re-establish contact with some form of a higher power and tapping into something that may aid in their survival and success once they leave treatment. “Every once in a while, the light goes on, and they become completely different people, sometimes after abusing alcohol and drugs for more than twenty years.”
Program Director Greg Stone says the work that Wheeler provides is very valuable to MRC participants as they move through recovery. “Too often in their addiction, the drugs and alcohol have become ‘their god’,” Stone says. “They will often make choices that are very harmful to themselves and others. In recovery, they began to feel the pain of these past choices, and Rick's work allows them to make amends and get past the shame and guilt they are experiencing.”
Still, this transition is not always easy, and Wheeler stresses that they must be open to the experience. He likens his role to that of a midwife. “It’s a relationship that’s already there, but if you can’t feel it and don’t have that nourishing, it doesn’t happen,” he says. “My job is to listen to where they might be open to a higher power, to notice the resistance to that, and what the consequences of that resistance are.”
The road to recovery does not end when participants complete the program at MRC, but for those open to it, spiritual direction can provide the tools and help to maintain a clean and sober lifestyle. “The value of his being among us is self-evident to the man desperate enough to humbly need a power greater than his addiction,” says MRC Counselor Paul Daniel. ”Rick models well the possibility of the hope for self-acceptance and the simplicity of serenity amidst chaos.”
And for Wheeler himself, the opportunity to share his ability and experience with those who need it reaps its own rewards. “The connection and payback just feel so good,” he says. “It’s hard to find quality places to volunteer, but VOA Oregon does it right. I feel very supported, and VOA gets a lot of credit in why I keep coming back.”
For more information about becoming a volunteer, contact Doran Whipple at (503) 235-8655.