Susan S. Phillips is Executive Director and Professor of Christianity and Sociology at New College Berkeley (an affiliate of the Graduate Theological Union in California). Susan is keenly interested in how engaging the caring practices will shape us spiritually. She is a certified spiritual director (Mercy Center, Burlingame, California) and has practiced spiritual direction since the early 1990s.

The book Candlelight offers an intimate view of spiritual direction through written re-enactments of actual spiritual direction sessions. The experiential practice is accompanied by theoretical and theological foundations guiding it. The book includes the stories of nine men and women whose stories illustrate how the journey of Christian discipleship is helped by spiritual direction.