| Spiritual direction is one of the important practices in Christianity. Recently, cross-cultural spiritual direction has become a recurring theme of this field. Many Korean Christians have experienced spiritual direction with North American directors in the United States and Canada. However, if the director and the directee have different cultural backgrounds and the director does not understand the directee's cultural story, spiritual direction will be much more complicated. This project aims to facilitate cross-cultural spiritual direction between North American directors and Korean directees by understanding narrative and cultural aspects of the Korean self.;In order to understand the current discourse about cross-cultural spiritual direction for a Confucian culture, I present four North American directors' experiences of cross-cultural spiritual direction with Korean directees and review current resources of North American spiritual directors, focusing on narrative and cross-cultural aspects of spiritual direction. I also explore one historical glimpse of cross-cultural spiritual direction for a Confucian culture, using Mateo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary to China.;After providing four Korean Christian life stories as case for understanding a person from a Confucian culture, I analyze the life stories using perspectives of narrative psychology, Confucianism, and Korean indigenous psychology. In narrative analysis, I use four narrative foci: plot, turning points, mitigation, and audience. In cultural analysis, I use three relationship factors in Confucianism, hierarchy, gender, and age and Korean indigenous terms, jung or affection, han or deep-rooted grudge, shimjung or aroused affection, woori or we-ness, chemyon or social face, euiresung or ritualized behavior, and bujayuchin or affection between parents and children. These analyses show how characteristics of Korean Christian self are revealed in the life stories. Those insights from the theories and analyses are then applied for the practice of cross-cultural spiritual direction between North American spiritual directors and Korean directees. |
