Education and experience
I have offered spiritual direction for over 25 years now and still love this art, this ministry, this calling. Though I have also served as a pastor’s wife and as a pastor myself, my heart has always been most full while companioning others who are seeking the deeper ways of the Spirit. Over the years, in addition to offering spiritual direction privately, I have provided individual and group spiritual direction for various retreats, conferences, middle governing bodies and churches, served on the national Resource Team for Spiritual Formation of the PC(USA), and trained and supervised students in spiritual direction for the Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction program at San Francisco Theological Seminary/Redlands University.
BA in Psychology, University of California at Berkeley, 1976
Certificate (now Diploma) in the Art of Spiritual Direction, 1996
Masters of Divinity, San Francisco Theological Seminary, 2003
Doctor of Ministry in Preaching*, McCormick Theological Seminary, 2012
*I have been asked what my preaching degree has to do with spiritual direction. My response is that it has a LOT to do with spiritual direction if you are a person of color, especially an Asian American woman. We have been enculturated to stay quiet and in the background. A good part of what effective spiritual direction is all about – or what I seek to do – is helping people find their voices in contexts that have not felt “safe” to use them before. In order to do this with integrity, I felt called to fully explore and embrace my own voice – a work that continues to this day.
“Diana is a deeply gifted spiritual director whose warmth, wisdom, intuition, and humor infuses every encounter with meaning and nourishment. She has broad experience with people from many backgrounds and communities and is able to draw on the wisdom of a rich diversity of wisdom traditions. I have worked with her closely for several years in my capacity as Director of Programs in the Art of Spiritual Direction at San Francisco Theological Seminary/Redlands University, where she taught and served as an advisor. It is a profound pleasure to witness her sensitivity to the Spirit, her courage, and her radical compassion. It is an honor to know her and to have learned from her.”
— Dr. Wendy Farley, Rice Family Chair of Spirituality, SFTS, author most recently of “Beguiled by Beauty: Cultivating a Life of Contemplation and Compassion”