Remembering Sheila Pritchard - By David Crawley

Jul 17

BY DAVID CRAWLEY

This piece was first published in the July 2025 issue of Refresh - Sacred Feminine’

’And yes – in the end we will both have disappeared back into God – a palace of nowhere, like stars united in the infinite firmament of Divine Love.’

Regular readers will recognise those words from Sheila Pritchard’s tribute to her brother Andrew in last year’s Matariki-themed issue of Refresh. Prescient words. Before the next Matariki, Sheila herself had ‘disappeared back into God,’ following several months of illness. In this issue, devoted to reflection on the Sacred Feminine, it is fitting that the abundant spiritual legacy of this extraordinary woman be acknowledged.

The reflections offered here are personal – just one window on that legacy. So much more could be said! I am profoundly grateful for all the ways I have known Sheila: as teacher, mentor, supervisor, colleague and friend. Many readers’ lives will have been touched by her in similar ways.

Some 40 years ago, I was a student in Sheila’s class on pastoral care at the Bible College of New Zealand (BCNZ, now Laidlaw College). She began lecturing there following seven years of missionary work in Nigeria and returning to complete her MTh. In the ensuing years, she became a colleague and a close friend.

Sheila has always been a way finder. In those early years, in my experience, few people were talking about things like spirituality, silence and solitude, silent retreats and spiritual direction. Somehow, they were already on Sheila’s radar, and it was clear that she found them life changing. Her enthusiasm for them was infectious!

I was further intrigued when Sheila headed off for her study leave in 1988, to spend time in sacred spaces like the Island of Iona and St Beuno’s Ignatian retreat and study centre in North Wales, where she trained in spiritual direction. Years later, I made my own way to those places – as others have too – inspired by Sheila’s experience.

Again and again – and this has come home to me powerfully in the last few months – her footprints have marked out the paths we find ourselves following.

Some of Sheila’s colleagues expressed doubts about her study leave plans. A Bible College lecturer being trained by Jesuits? The doubts evaporated when she returned to set up new spiritual formation classes, which were soon full to overflowing. It would be impossible to exaggerate the profound and ongoing impact this has had on generations of students, as versions of those original courses continue to be taught at Laidlaw College.

Sheila was an early member of the Spiritual Growth Ministries (SGM) Workgroup. For many years she contributed to the SGM Spiritual Directors Formation Programme, helping to lead workshops, supervising participants and, until last year, marking assignments. My own training as a spiritual director, membership of the Workgroup and involvement with the Formation Programme are all directly attributable to Sheila’s influence.

Over the years, I have heard a number of those lining up to train as spiritual directors with SGM say that their interest in contemplative spirituality began with the spiritual formation courses that Sheila pioneered. Her adventurous dive into the spirituality pond all those years ago continues to create life-giving ripples in so many ways, for so many people.

Sheila was a gifted communicator and writer. Countless people have found – and still find – her ‘Wells or Fences?’ article, and her book, The Lost Art of Meditation, life-changing. She was a contributor to the notes in the Spiritual Formation Bible, published by the Upper Room. Then there are the many articles Sheila wrote for Reality magazine, later published as a collection, On the Journey. Many of us have appreciated her blog, Concentric Circles, and her Facebook posts.

Sheila never stopped exploring, generously pointing us to the books, articles, videos, podcasts and websites that were informing her own spiritual journey. In one post she would be delighting in some small part of nature encountered on a walk, while in the next she would be enthusing about a new frontier in evolutionary, cosmic or quantum spirituality.

And then, in the months of her illness, Sheila chronicled so honestly her day-by-day experience of the dying journey, until writing became too difficult. As she wrote in her tribute to Andrew, ‘Being a contemplative clearly isn’t a passport to easy dying.’ More prescient words.

In November, Sheila wrote in her blog about the ‘ocean of cosmic benevolence’, and her trust in ‘God’s unfailing love’ which, she said, had ‘surrounded and undergirded’ her life since childhood. In negotiating the mystery of death, as in life, Sheila generously gifted us with her wisdom, authenticity and courage.

When it was evident that Sheila would not be recovering from her cancer, she made a number of bequests, so that she could have the joy of seeing what they would mean to those receiving them. In making a generous gift to SGM, she wrote of herself as being ‘like a grandmother delighting in seeing new generations of contemplative people giving life to Spiritual Growth Ministries in the 21st century.’

Sheila … you have been (and still are) such a significant person, a taonga, for so many of us. Not least all the people you have taught, trained, led retreats for, directed, supervised and written for over the decades. I have been privileged to call you friend. One who has been there, always interested, always caring, always wise and encouraging, and always asking just the right question!

We will miss you greatly, yet in that all-encompassing ocean of cosmic benevolence we remain connected.

Haere rā e hoa.

Moe mai rā.

David Crawley is a member of the SGM Workgroup and assists Fran Francis in the Spiritual Directors Formation Programme. He and his wife Sarah live in the leafy Auckland suburb of Titirangi and help lead the local Anglican church..

This article was featured in the Sacred Feminine issue of Refresh - July 2025.

Refresh is SGM’s journal of contemplative spirituality in Aotearoa, New Zealand. You can view the current issue of Refresh or browse the archives in the Refresh section of this website.