Volume 23, No. 3-Fall, 1999

Bridging the Gap
by Donna Smither Mollenkopf

May the Force be with You
by Gerald May

What If?
by Rose Mary Dougherty

Why Do We Do Fundraising at Shalem?
by Patricia Gibler Clark

You Think You Know What Time It Is
by Tilden Edwards

Bridging the Gap

by Donna Smither Mollenkopf

My college-age son has a list of one hundred achievements that he would like to accomplish in his lifetime. Some of these goals he has already mastered--attain certification in scuba diving, become an Eagle Scout, and go on a mission trip. So when we were vacationing in Vancouver, British Columbia, this summer, he informed me that walking on the 110-year-old suspension bridge at Capilano was on his "One Hundred Accomplishments" list.

While I agreed to drive to the area (determined not to set foot on the swaying bridge), he argued that since we both had a fear of heights, we both could venture across the 450-foot bridge together. And so after a few deep breaths, a tight grip on the cold, steel cable, and with a sense of determination, I set out across the cedar planks. With the Capilano River rushing 230 feet below us and with the more than gentle sway of a bridge oscillating from the paths of many more adventurous walkers, we crossed to the other side of the canyon. But I soon realized that getting there was only half of the journey, as the only way to return was to cross back.

After a hike and a spectacular view of the canyon and the river from a lookout on the other side, I began to appreciate the old growth forest, the 200-foot waterfall and the amazement that we had crossed over this splendor. I also became aware that these marvels were only on the periphery of my thoughts and sights when I crossed to the other side. So in returning, I set out with a different sense of the task in front of me.

With my knees looser, my gait more confident and my breathing easier, I used the cable as a guide. I stopped along the way to look at the lush trees and admire the rushing water cascading over the rocks. Smelling the cold crisp air, I sensed the metaphor of this small journey as the thought popped into my head, "This is just like my job!" I can look out at the potential problems that lie ahead of me; plan, set agendas and do all the strategic behaviors that result in the desired outcome; or become sensitive to the opportunities and lessons in front of me.

Either from a sense of caution, anxiety or fear, or from a sense that the Spirit is moving in me and in others to move toward creative resolution, I can go about the same daily tasks and problems. In operating from a deeper place within myself, I can be open to that still, small voice that ultimately gets me across the terrain of a hectic day and at the same time allows me to stop along the way and appreciate the mystery and the beauty of what is happening around me. While that may be more subtle than rushing rivers, it is no less spectacular than the lush cedar forest and the appreciation I missed when I crossed the bridge from a lack of trust.

Just before I transitioned to my new job, I went on a silent retreat to become centered and to seek clarity about how I would go about the new challenges facing me. It appeared as if I had ventured out across a gap and I was unsure how I would get to the security of the other side. After that week of silence and with continued time spent in daily silence and occasional retreats, I find that I do my job from a deeper knowing. I can't explain how it happens, but I have a sense of a Spirit that moves, molds and shapes my world. And when the job seems like a suspension bridge that sways from the strong forces whirling around me, I find respite in the God who holds me and loves me despite my successes or failures.

The attention to my soul and the time set aside for the invitation of God to meet in silence becomes more and more necessary to make the connection between my spirituality and my executive level work; to sustain me in meeting the numerous situations that come at me each day; and to see and appreciate the splendor of a living presence in my work. While I have always seen my work as ministry, Shalem's Soul of the Executive Program was the catalyst to do the soul work that deepens that ministry and encourages me to see new perspectives and mysteries in my workplace.

Donna, Director of the Master of Arts Teaching Program at Goucher College, is a graduate of Shalem's Soul of the Executive Program.

May the Force be with You

by Gerald May

It was 1976, and I had just received my first-level belt in the gentle Japanese martial art of Aikido: the practice (do) of the harmony (ai) of universal energy (ki). A visiting master called me to the front of the room and asked me to attack him. He stood quietly as I charged at him, then turned his head slightly away. My speed increased as I felt powerfully drawn towards him. Then he bowed his head slightly and looked back at me, and I found myself lying comfortably on the floor. We had not even touched.

He explained that he had aligned himself with my attacking energy, joined it from his own centered stillness, and gently guided it back around me towards the ground. From my perspective, it seemed I had inexplicably decided to lie down and rest.

If I had any lingering doubts about the mysterious universal energy the Japanese call ki, this demonstration completely removed them. It was absolutely real. Like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, I felt the Force. In the years that followed, I learned more of the oriental wisdom concerning this energy. It is called prana in Sanskrit, rlung in Tibetan, Qi or Chi in Chinese. The languages differ, but the concept is universal: a fundamental life-breath-spirit-energy that pervades all creation. Oriental methods access this energy in a host of ways: for personal wellbeing in Qi Gong, in martial arts such as Tai Chi and Kung Fu, for healing in acupuncture and Reiki, for spiritual enlightenment in Siddha Yoga and Tibetan and Zen Buddhism.

Recently I have received great benefits from acupuncture and Qi Gong practice, and this has prompted new wonderings: If this spirit-energy is so basic in oriental spiritualities, where is it in Judeo-Christian spirituality? Why hasn't Western religion addressed it?

The answer, I find, is that it is present in Western spirituality, and it has been addressed. The Old Testament often associates energy-power (e.g. koach) with spirit-breath (ruah), as in Micah proclaiming, "I am full of the power of the breath of God" (3:8). In the New Testament, the gifts of the Spirit (e.g. 1 Cor 12) are described with the Greek words dunamis, "power," and hagion pneuma, "Holy Breath-Spirit." The word dunamis occurs over 120 times in the New Testament. It is the energy by which Jesus healed, the power he felt go out of him when the woman with the hemorrhage touched his garment (Mk 5:30, Lk 6:19 & 8:46).

It is important to know that this creative, dynamic power is very different from the "power-over" of authority or mastery (Gr: kratos or exousia). I found it very refreshing to realize that "the power and the glory" and "seated at the right hand of Power" refer to dunamis energy, not the power of mastery (Mt 6:13 [KJV] & 26:64).

It was this same dunamis of the hagion pneuma that the risen Christ predicted before Pentecost: "...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you" (Acts 1:8). Strange as it might seem, then, it is no accident that Pentecostals and Charismatics-and yes, the TV healers-represent the closest Christian parallels to oriental traditions such as Kundalini Yoga, Qi Gong, Kung Fu, Acupuncture, and Tibetan Tantra. Nowhere else in Christianity is spiritual energy so intentionally and directly accessed.

We must admit, though, that Christian understandings of spiritual energy are stunted compared to those of oriental traditions. There are several reasons for this. First, Christianity has long been under the influence of Greek dualism, which separates science from faith and places the spiritual realm far above that of the flesh. This has made it difficult for Christians to refine their abilities to sense the flows of energy or to develop concepts like an "energy body" coexisting with the physical body.

Second, Christianity has traditionally been suspicious of all personal uses of spiritual powers, seeing them as magic, sorcery or witchcraft. The theology underlying these concerns may be sound, but the associated fear and paranoia have unduly repressed many tentative Christian explorations of spiritual energy. Rufus Jones said that early Quakers got their name rightly, because they "trembled with a consciousness of God's nearness." Comparisons have been made between Quakers quaking, Shakers shaking, and Siddha Yoga practitioners experiencing awakening of kundalini energy-but most Quakers and Shakers stopped quaking and shaking a long time ago. Only some Pentecostals and Charismatics continue.

Similarly, mainstream Christian denominations generally view "holy rollers" with scorn. In part, this is a response to narrowness and rigidity in Pentecostal and Charismatic theology. But a larger issue, I think, is that the presence and effects of spiritual energy simply do not fit the rational propriety of modern Christian institutions. Thus it often seems more appropriate for modern Christians like myself to receive acupuncture or practice Qi Gong than to engage in laying-on of hands in Christian healing prayer.

In the early days of Shalem, before we became such a respectable institution ourselves, we did a lot of experimentation with spiritual energy. I'll admit it: people were known to quake and shake, and at least two of us spoke in tongues. But I'm afraid a certain decorum has settled upon us over the years. Now, if anyone feels a quake, shake, or slaying in the Spirit, they keep it to themselves. Personally, I'd like to see a rebirth of that radical experimentation. From a truly contemplative stance, which does not seek to manipulate God, might we be more open to what Wisdom has to teach us about the Spirit's flow? Might we even have the courage to pray directly for the dunamis of the hagion pneuma--and see what happens?

What If?

by Rose Mary Dougherty

"What if I woke up tomorrow morning with amnesia? What would be left of these five days of retreat?"

This is the question that stirred in me the last evening of Shalem's summer retreat while I sat in silence with other participants. As I looked around the circle, I felt an appreciation for the people gathered there: so many good people, all of us together holding one another in our presence for God.

I recalled conversations with some of the people-conversations about desire for God and authenticity; conversations that, in the words of Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets," made me want to be a better person. I had the sense that something had softened in me during the course of the week. Perhaps it was that my heart had been "gentled." I seemed a little less demanding of myself, even of God. Gratitude welled up in me. I questioned what would be left of the week if I didn't have those memories. I questioned how/if gratitude would stay alive. I questioned if, not being able to remember the sense of my heart being gentled, the gentling itself would remain. Or would I revert to old ways which had been part of me for a longer time?

Instinctively my heart told me that, despite amnesia, whatever had been real or whatever had been given me throughout the week would remain. Though I might not be able to attach any fruits to any particular experiences, the sitting, the conversations, the solitude, all of the experiences of the week were important. These experiences were vehicles of transformation, as are all experiences. Yet neither the vehicles nor the memories of them were the transformation itself.

I don't mean to minimize the importance of memory. Even now something quickens in my heart as I recall that evening and the feeling in me when the question was put before me, seemingly unbidden. The memory brings the moment alive, and I sense a fresh invitation for me in the question. It has become almost like a koan for me. My exploration of it is far more important than any conclusions I reach.

Sometimes the question translates itself into a shorter version: "What's real here? What will remain with me?" Sometimes I alter the question, "When all the particulars of this event, this encounter, this experience are gone, what of it do I want to remain with me?" Another way I sometimes deal with the question is to ask God what God sees in a given situation. I ask God for God's perspective on what is really going on, what the heart of the matter is.

I rarely have answers, but the questions have a way of relativizing things for me. I still engage in the circumstances of the present moment as fully as ever. I do what I can do, but I'm not as attached to results as I have been in the past. When I am caught in the web of my own self-centeredness, my own agenda, or when I realize I've hurt someone or been hurt by them, I can let go of my judgments more easily. I realize that I don't know the last word, even on matters that seem very clear.

So the memory of this question serves me well, as have other memories. Sometimes it has been the memory of long-standing love in a friendship that has helped ease the pain of a current misunderstanding. Sometimes it's been the memory of God's palpable presence in my life that has made times of absence more bearable though not less painful. There are times when memory has provided me with reasons for "hanging in there" in situations when nothing in the immediate circum-stances could provide good reason. Often memory has been a resource in decision-making. Getting in touch with what has been most authentic for me in the process of past decisions can sensitize me to what is authentic in my way of being with current choices.

My Judeo-Christian tradition has helped me value memory, too. In Scripture, the word "remember" appears 161 times in passages such as Psalm 143 ("I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works") and Hebrews 10 ("Remember those earlier days after you had first received the light, when you stood your ground..."). We who are of liturgical traditions ground our celebration of Eucharist in the shared memory of the last supper and the words of Jesus, "Do this in memory of me."

Despite my appreciation of memory, however, I am also aware of the pitfalls of depending too heavily on it. Memory can attach me to the past. When I find that nothing measures up to my image of the past, I can become disgruntled with the present. I forget that I am remembering with all my accumulated conditioning. I am not remembering reality; I am creating another perception of it. Sometimes, too, memory can keep me from seeing situations and people with fresh eyes.

When I find myself asking the "what if..." question, there's part of me that wants to pray that I could live in the present as though I had amnesia. Living this way, perhaps, could free me from any slavery to the past. It could allow me to live fully in the newness of each moment. Perhaps then, the invitation of Isaiah 43-"Forget the former things, and do not dwell on the past. See, here and now I am doing a new deed. Do you not perceive it?"-would come alive for me in each moment.

What if I woke up tomorrow morning with amnesia? Then, maybe, for a little time I could say yes to life just as it is.

Why Do We Do Fundraising at Shalem?

by Patricia Gibler Clark

In many conversations over the years, I have heard people say they wonder about the costs of programs and why fundraising is necessary to support Shalem above what people pay for program tuition. Don't the programs cost enough already? Aren't people paying their way for the programs? Why are people asked to contribute above what they give for tuition? Isn't fundraising just to cover Shalem's overhead and administrative costs?

Yes and no. At Shalem, we have struggled to have the spiritual work thought of as something more than a "fee for service." There is a holy mandate, if you will, by which Shalem abides, and that is to help people realize their true nature in God's eyes. This is why people come to Shalem programs. Tuition payments, in this way of thinking, are a contribution to Shalem for assisting that way into the holy relationship. It is not simply an exchange or a purchase of time.

One of the greatest needs of our culture today is to bring into life, from a well-attended spiritual life, creative imagination and strong compassion to address our world and personal struggles. Shalem, the organization, in partnership with participants, graduates, contributors and other interested supporters, contributes to meeting this larger need. Money coming into Shalem is, in effect, going into the world for God's healing love.

Donations are necessary as a gift to Shalem's mission as well. Tuition does not cover all the direct and indirect costs of programs. Charitable gifts do help pay for program costs as well as postage, auditor's fees, telephone bills and administrative salaries -the administrative and economic reality that undergirds and makes Shalem programs possible. However, income from all sources-tuition, contributions, book sales, investments-goes into one bank account, from which are drawn the funds for all the needs of running Shalem. We like to think that all we do, all we spend, is for programs, Shalem's mission, and the energy of the Spirit to support our experience of and availability for God.

The depth and integrity of Shalem's spiritual life-whether it be reflected in the quality of prayer in our programs or in the quality of our discernment for administrative decisions-is what we want our first focus to be. How are we letting God guide in our programs, operations and fundraising? Can our financial decisions come more from the needs of our people and our neighbors in the world in relation-ship with God?

Some Shalem staff members and volunteers have formed a study group to read Freeing the Human Spirit by Michael Spence. Using the model of a Waldorf school, Spence talks about the commitment of teachers to bringing an awareness of God to each student. He talks about how "conventional business economic thinking is often a part of the day-to-day running of our operations and fundraising that undergird the school's mission and programs." However, he also goes on to say, "on an unconscious level, people have a sense of the spiritual basis of the organization that permeates the whole of the school."

Just as in this example, Shalem wants "the spiritual basis" that initially draws people to Shalem to be experienced throughout our whole organizational life. We struggle to help people sense that whatever allows them to feel at home with our programmatic ministry also is at work in our fundraising and administrative life. We often use "conventional business economic thinking"-some of us use it more than others! However, in our writings, mailings, and institutional products, we seek mostly to make them "feel right" in an integrated and authentic spiritual way.

As you consider your response to this year's fundraising mailings, I hope you will sense this integration. And, to help you probe your own spiritual grounded-ness in making a contribution to Shalem.

I offer these questions: How much of the work of the Spirit at Shalem is a gift to you? What lies behind questions of fees, payments and affordability for you? Observe what happens to you when you make a gift to the work of the Spirit, either through a gift to the Shalem Annual Fund or to another organization or individual with a spiritual mission. How are you able to transform your thoughts and concepts about organizational structures and institutional needs? What are the ways the creative imagination, freed by the human spirit working in partnership with God, is able to address the deep needs of our world today?

At Shalem, we do fundraising to offer each of us a way to keep company with the Spirit at work in all of life; to know there is no separation between money and the love of God at work in so many ways; to acknowledge how much we are driven by money and how much we want to turn this drive into humble cooperation with the Divine. We do fundraising to nurture a strong and healthy spiritual life.

In fundraising, as in all things, we invite your prayers for Shalem's work as well as your participation as you are able and called by the Spirit.

You Think You Know What Time It Is

by Tilden Edwards

I began making notes for this article on a plane. As I was doing so, the pilot announced that the trip would last three hours and eight minutes. That is an expression of humanly measured, chronos time. It carries a tacit implication that time is a spiritually neutral, expedient affair that is in our hands, to carry out a list of self-determined tasks or pleasures, as we see fit. Biblical tradition has a different way of viewing time. It sees real time as a series of divinely-given opportunities for fulfillment, opportunites called kairoi in Greek. These opportunities are marked by an invitation and empowerment to let go what is false and unloving and to embrace the particular divine promptings of the moment. Life is seen as a dynamic and communal movement from, in, and toward the One whose offspring we are. When we approach time as God-centered, we understand the truth of Psalm 31:15, "My times are in your hand," and the truth of the divine call to us through Jesus' invitation to live into the kin-dom in our midst.

The new millennium can be seen as just another round of humanly-derived, spiritually empty time, in which we are born, grow, and die on our own terms. Or it can be a reminder to us of divine intimacy and invitation flowing through human chronos time, that both Hebrew and Christian scriptural covenants reveal and other spiritual traditions confirm. In this second sense, I think we truly have something to celebrate. We each have our own stories of what that divine intimacy has shown. My own experience has given me an abiding sense that everyone by grace carries the divine nature through time, however hidden it may be. God's Spirit beyond us murmurs to God's Spirit within (and God's Spirit within murmurs to God's Spirit beyond), drawing us into the divine communal dance in ever fresh ways.

But then there are the many lost times when I find myself living out of "forced" time, trying to make things happen, with no simple turning to the Spirit's guidance for this moment. I lose a sense of divine intimacy and try to operate separately, with my own timed-out projects and with many active vices that flourish in a self-preoccupied atmosphere. Our culture gives a lot of reinforcement to this way of living out of a self-possessed sense of time, and the bitter fruits include a widespread sense of broken community with God, neighbor and our own true being in the image of God. The growing search for new spiritual ground at the end of this millennium seems to reflect a sense of spiritual orphanhood on the part of many people: wandering and homeless children searching for their true home in a spiritually meaningful sense of time.

The power of the cultural spiritual wandering and the power of my own reinforcing spiritual forgetfulness propel me to spiritual practice, where I can let my time be "re-membered" with God's ever-opening time. Rumi sums up spiritual practice in relation to time very succinctly when he says, You think you know what time it is. It's time to pray.

I take this to mean that I often think it's time to do what the inner scheduler has determined, apart from opening to the larger Hand of time and letting the moment be guided by what shows itself in that opening. Prayer in this context is the active desire to live my times out of God's time, expressed in whatever form of prayer is right for me. When grace and will combine to open my time to God's ever-liberating time, I am freer for what's called for in my attitudes and actions.

These times are most graced when I no longer even perceive them as "my" times. Then they simply are a concrete participation in a larger flow of divine time. This participation may take a rare ecstatic form (where, in the middle of some activity, I am suddenly caught up in a sense of everything in and around me flowing effortlessly together) or more often will involve very simple, unselfconscious, called-for acts of the moment (responding to a request, cooking the evening meal, giving money to the street violinist, bearing lightly a painful knee, appreciating the flower before me, or lifting someone in prayer). Such direct participation in the divine flow of the moment may be what Jesus had in mind when he said, "Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" (Mt. 6:3). Such little acts contribute to the kin-dom of God ever-growing through time.

When the new millennium is ushered in (at least by one way of calculating it) at midnight on December 31st, I hope I will remember what time it is. St. Paul echoes Rumi where he says, "You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep" (Rom. 13:11). My sleep, the culture's sleep, is to the hidden divine kin-dom leavening time, drawing creation toward the fullness of time when there will be only communal "awakeness," a creation with no sleepwalkers left. My first act at midnight I hope will be a prayer for whatever divine stroking or pinpricks are needed to further wake me and the world to kin-dom time.