Volume 26, No. 2-Summer, 2002
Table of Contents
Reflections of an Ardent FundRaiser
by June Costa
Missing Shalem
by CeCe Balboni
Honoring Our Vunlnerability
by Gigi Ross
Contemplative Conflict
by Nancy Eggert
Thinning
by Carole Crumley
Wake Up Call
by Rose Mary Dougherty
Prayerful Listening for Life
by Ann Grizzle
Not Quite as Passive as You Might Think
by Gerald May
Spirit in the Workplace
by Margaret Jane Porter
The Burning Bush
by Diane Zanetti
Reflections of an Ardent FundRaiser
by June Costa
At Shalem I have noticed that my approach to asking for charitable gifts has changed. I now have to view through the prism of the Spirit that motivates the giving, and I have to convey that message to individuals who are experienced with Shalem. At the same time, I need to cultivate new participants and potential contributors.
In our high-tech era and volatile global society, my orientation to fundraising has been defined as a social investment in our future. Phrases such as "how you can get the most out of your donations," "maximizing your giving," and my favorite, "how we can convert tax-deductible contributions to great reward at little or no risk" are often used to promote giving in the 21st century. In this context, how do I raise funds for an institute whose mission is "to be an ecumenical community responding to a call to help mediate God's Spirit in the world through the loving wisdom of contemplative tradition?"
My initial thought was that raising funds for Shalem would require a paradigm shift in how I develop the strategic marketing and fund development plans. But I discovered instead that being at Shalem has made me go deeper into my own spiritual consciousness and theology as an African American. The questions now become: How do I as a messenger and fundraiser articulate with passion the mission and future visions of Shalem? How do I integrate my spiritual connectedness that is rooted in the Black Southern Baptist and A.M.E. faith traditions into a contemplative practice? Will the integration of the two bring about a change in my professional methods and strategic planning of "Asking for the Charitable Gift" and "Marketing the Institute?" How will the long-term benefactors and founders of Shalem view my orientation to fundraising? Will they view my development leadership style as an opportunity for institutional growth? Lastly, will I have to conform to contemplative language to effectively raise funds for Shalem?
These questions are not fundamental and ordinary for even an experienced fundraiser. Or, perhaps, another way of looking at these questions is that for the first time I have an opportunity in quiet space to become introspective about my professional career and spirituality. What are the parallels that continue to draw these two extraordinary passions together in my life? These questions have evolved as a quest for me in my spiritual journey to probe deeper into the spiritual practices of other cultures looking for the common thread that binds us all. I am of the opinion that it is my belief in the Almighty that sustains me and my spiritual growth. As long as I maintain this belief and remain true to my theology, the practice and language will translate into the genuine message of an open spirit.
During my past six months on the Shalem staff, I have started reviewing and assessing the fundraising/marketing material, looking for the differences in my technique and language. For the first time in my career, my prepared phonathon script and outreach survey used these questions:
- What helps you remain spiritually focused in your professional life?
- Have you experienced or been asked by your friends and/or colleagues about your spiritual connectedness with Shalem?
- What are the authentic spiritual threads that continue to make the Shalem Institute unique in its offerings? How have Shalem programs assisted in your daily practices of meditation and prayer?
Pausing to look at a few testimonial letters from Shalem participants, one in particular that relates directly to the phonathon survey questions caught my eye. Written by Susan G. Parker, it reads:
Shalem has provided me with a grounding that has sustained me over the last 12 years. My touchstone is my spiritual direction group, which helps me see God where I sometimes cannot. Most of the major decisions over the last dozen years have been born with the quiet, steady presence of Shalem. I've gone off to live and work in Guatemala, graduated from divinity school, and started a writing business. My daily contemplative prayer practice keeps me sane in the midst of a world that we all know is often too hard and too unfair. Shalem has helped me remember what really matters.
A discerning moment evolved for me in realizing that the Shalem language is truly universal. When you substitute a few words in places that make reference to spirit, meditation, practice and prayer, it translates into passion, belief, joy, love, caring, belonging and peace for other organizations and institutes who are involved in preserving a civil society and environment.
I invite you to ponder these words in your own life and let me know of your experiences. Our journeys continue together.
Missing Shalem
by CeCe Balboni
Last night I signed off on an e-mail note, "Missing Shalem, CeCe." As soon as I pressed send, the questions began. Missing what? Missing whom? Certainly I wasn't missing that set of offices on Grosvenor Lane known as Shalem. I hadn't been to those offices in almost four years since I attended a one-day workshop on spiritual direction. Watching the group direction video recently, I saw the Shalem library and the fountain at the front door. They were familiar, and it felt good to see that much of the Shalem space, but that is not what I was missing. On the video there were faces of people I had gotten to know a bit on retreats- Patricia Gibler Clark and Lynne Smith among others. While fond to remember, this was not what "missing Shalem" meant either.
So there I was, longing for something but not able at all to capture it in those words. I went to bed grumbling about how hasty I am in e-mail and how I was probably born in the wrong century because life goes too fast and flings us too far from home.
And I really was missing Shalem. But it gets crazier. My Shalem time was spent reading, writing, and sitting with others around a candle often in silence. The best Shalem time was always spent in silence-a couple of days or so in the first and second residencies and a longer period on the winter retreat. So what's to miss-I have books, articles, candles, prayer and plenty of silence in Atlanta. It is something else that gets labeled "Shalem" that I am missing.
Several friends of mine are considering the Shalem Spiritual Guidance Program. They are wisely seeking what I am missing. These longing friends know at Shalem they will not be trained for anything, only opened more deeply to what they already know and do.
How does the Shalem spiritual direction program open us? Thomas Merton, speaking to the novitiates at Gethsemane, says that solitude and silence prepare us for community. He says our part in prayer is receptivity: What we can do is to create an empty space in our consciousness and put other considerations aside for the time being so that we can be shaped by whatever comes from the heart.
In solitude and silence we go to the Unknown, believing in and hoping for Love. For just a moment or two, we cease striving with our own egos-what we want and crave and think we deserve. We somehow show up empty and willing to receive what is being given. And while there, in a deep listening, beyond our own consideration, we hear that golden chord-the one that seems to sound in every longing heart-and we are united, in compassion and Love, with all the suffering and longing of those before, with and after us. And because God is so generous with our feeble hearts, we don't even know it.
But some days we are surprised by what Thomas Kelly describes as showing up in life vaguely reminiscent as the Son of Man. God's Love, God's transcendent Love, has swollen our hearts. Compassion and courage emerge for some moments. And the world changes, one heart at a time.
I do miss Shalem. It is one of those special places where I am invited into that silence by others seeking what I seek and listening for what I so long to hear.
CeCe is a graduate of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Class of 2001.
Honoring Our Vunlnerability
by Gigi Ross
The Sunday after Easter I did something different. Not radically different, just a little different. Because I had a commitment elsewhere at 11 o'clock, I went to the 8 o'clock service at my church, Morning Prayer and Eucharist.
After the lessons and the Gospel were read, we sat in silence and then we were invited to share our reflections and questions. In this Gospel passage, Jesus visited the disciples after the resurrection and breathed the Spirit on them. Thomas was not there and refused to believe that Jesus had risen until he could touch the wounds of the crucifixion. A week later, when Thomas was present, Jesus visited again and invited Thomas to put his fingers in the nail holes and put his hand into the cut made by the spear. Thomas then made his confession of faith, "My Lord and my God!"
During the time of sharing, someone remarked that the resurrection didn't heal the wounds Jesus received at crucifixion. Hearing that I thought of my own sharing two days earlier at Shalem. Some members of the staff and board met to take a look at the assumptions we have about Shalem as an entity and about its life and future.
An image came to me in the quiet prayer time: Jesus with outstretched arms. In one hand, he held all that we are afraid of, like change, uncertainty, having no sense of control. In the other hand, he held all that makes us comfortable: people who are like us, routines, knowing what to expect. And there was Jesus, in the center, holding it all. Shalem was there, too, present with Jesus in the tension of holding it all, not choosing comfort over chaos or risk over certainty, but there with Jesus holding them both.
When I shared this with my small group, someone referred me to a tape of Richard Rohr's lecture and workshop, The Anti-Gospel of Our Time made during Shalem's 25th Anniversary celebration, which I listened to over the weekend. In these talks, Rohr equates the holding of opposites with the contemplative mind. For him, staying in the tension, not choosing one side or the other, is the heart of the meaning of the crucifixion. He quotes St. Bonaventure's statement about Jesus being crucified on the coincidence of opposites.
So on Sunday, when I heard the remark that Jesus still had wounds, was still wounded, after the resurrection, I wondered whether Jesus could have been Christ without the wounds. Can we be present with Christ and not be our wounded selves?
These are questions that will stay with me even as, with Richard Rohr and others in the Christian tradition, I am convinced that spiritual transformation will not take away our wounds and that to be wounded is what it means to be Christ; allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to others-vulnerable, as Jerry May reminded me, means to be able to be wounded-as we are present with God to others is to allow the Christ in us to be seen. If anything, our wounds, the aspects of ourselves of which we are most ashamed, are likely to be the vehicles of our transformation. Such is a lesson that Paul learned when he asked God to remove what he called the "thorn in his flesh." God's response is to us as well as to Paul. "My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness."
Maybe in the end, Thomas understood this. As someone in a different reflection on this same passage pointed out, maybe Thomas' encounter with Jesus' wounds revealed the faith that Thomas already had. Maybe instead of doubting Thomas was stating the foundation of his faith-the risen Christ he follows remains a wounded Christ, not a Christ who is perfect according to cultural or human stan-dards. Maybe it is there in eternity with the crucified Christ, holding the opposites we have been given to hold, that we may find the place in ourselves that is most like God.
Contemplative Conflict
by Nancy Eggert
September 11th is in the news again. This time there is anger and conflict, investigations into "what did we know and when did we know it?" The national unity of eight months ago is replaced by contentious debate about homeland security. And absent are the comforting memorial services with bagpipe renditions of Amazing Grace and recitations of Psalm 23, "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. ... Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-they comfort me." Gone is the collective openness to the Eternal Presence that never abandons us. No talk of hope beyond hope.
It seems so natural to welcome the Abiding Presence in the midst of the green pastures, the mountaintops, the setting sun. Even as we are laid low by illness or devastated by the death of loved ones, so often we notice, at least in the remembering, the comforting presence of the One who took us by the hand and walked with us through those dark valleys. But why is it so difficult to recognize, much less welcome, God's loving presence in times of conflict and anger?
Anger and conflict are often surrounded by ambiguity and confusion. We may be unsure of ourselves--but camouflage our interior doubts and fears with the armor of arrogance or a protective fight or flight mechanism. The last thing we want to be is vulnerable and open! Maybe we learned early in life that anger is somehow wrong-even a kind of mental homicide. Do we secretly fear that we will lose control and injure or be injured? Or does our desire for escape from the discomfort stem from an over-whelming desire for peace--that settles for a false peace, a peace at any cost that is blind to injustice?
Sometimes conflict is the result of a necessary refusal of complicity to illusions, an indispensable consequence of bringing evil to light. How easy it is to dissemble about a situation, to deny the dysfunction, the injustice, the notrightness that is going on--especially if exposing the truth would threaten the surface peace and derail the status quo.
What would it be like to be prayerful--open to God's love and guidance, aware, vulnerable, surrendering control - in the midst of anger?
The Holy One is always present, even in the midst of anger and conflict. "Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast" (Psalm 139.7ff).
What would happen if we accepted the invitation to take the hand that is offered--in those uncomfortable and unpleasant times of conflict and anger? What if we refused the temptation to compart-mentalize our lives, refused to limit our openness and vulnerability to times of moral certainty? What would it be like to stand (perhaps only for a brief moment) radically attentive and exposed? Attentive and exposed to the terrifying depths of the situation, aware of our own frailties and misperceptions, as well as the longings and fears and failures of our neighbor. And open to action-even when we don't know the "whole truth"--action that is so often an undramatic muddling through, as we test approaches and receive new insights and feedback.
But what makes possible this open-eyes lucidity, the unprotected attentiveness, the vulnerability? Perhaps it is the lucidity about the transforming love that heals our wounded, messy places and the wounded, messy places of our neighbor. How do we claim and celebrate the light of possibility that grows from our darkness, the new life that comes from a death, the freedom that emerges from shattered illusions? Can we trust that the emptied cup-emptied of certainty and perfection--will be filled again, filled to overflowing with the fullness of life?
Thinning
by Carole Crumley
There is a Winnie the Pooh story that keeps coming to my mind. Pooh has gone to visit his friend Rabbit. It isn't easy for Pooh to visit Rabbit because getting through Rabbit's front door--a small hole in the ground--is a big challenge for such a portly bear. This particular visit is well worth the effort, however, for Rabbit brings out a big jar of honey and Pooh eats (rather overeats) to his heart's content.
Then comes the bigger challenge for Pooh-getting back out through Rabbit's front door after such a hearty meal. To his dismay, Pooh gets stuck! The north side of Pooh is outside the hole and the south side of Pooh is inside Rabbit's living room. No amount of pushing or pulling can unstick the overstuffed bear.
Christopher Robin is called. Upon arriving, he looks at Pooh and knows what must be done. Pooh must thin. No food. Nothing to eat for a week. Pooh is despondent. So Christopher Robin promises to stay with him and to read stories until thinning has happened, stories "such that would comfort a Bear wedged in a very tight place."
I think about Pooh and know how easy it is to get stuck in a very tight place. This stuckness usually happens for me when, like Pooh, I overindulge in some way. And not always on things that taste sweet.
Lately I realized that I have overindulged in the news. Breakfast is accompanied by the morning paper and images of death, destruction and mourning. Dinner is preceded by the evening news and stories of more death, destruction and mourning. Increasingly I find myself stuck in the very tight place of my opinions and judgements, anger and frustration--wedged in by the multiple situations of intractable conflict in the world.
Recently I began waking up with my teeth clenched and my jaw set. When I complained to my dentist, he asked if anything at work was stressful. "No." Anything at home? "No." Actually he said that he could treat the aching jaw but not the causes. That was for me to figure out.
So after looking back over the landscape of my life, I decided to eat less news. In fact, to go on a news-free diet for several weeks. In other words, to thin.
This is what I noticed.
Letting go of my need for news has allowed an interior spaciousness to arise so that the hardness of my judgments seems to soften; the darkness of my frustrations seems to grow lighter; and my opinions seem to turn into questions and wonderings. I found that my prayer has become more a container for holding the opposites of a conflict together. Rather than having to choose sides, there seems to be a place in prayer that is beyond rightness and wrongness, a place where everything is held together.
This doesn't feel like avoiding the pain and sorrow of the world. But it does feel like there is more possibility of tasting something that is of God in the midst of the pain and suffering.
This thinning is far from over. You see I've been overindulging for a long time. But I'm taking my clues from Pooh. Tonight I will go with friends to a storytelling performance. My jaw softens just thinking about it.
Wake Up Call
by Rose Mary Dougherty
Several weeks ago, I was staying in one of my favorite places--Bon Secours Spiritual Center. It had been a long day, and I was sleeping soundly. At 3:40am, I awoke with a start to the sound of someone hammering at my door. I could hear a man's voice, syllables indistinguishable. I threw on my robe and hurried down the corridor where I found the night guard standing by the front door.
"Do you want me," I asked?
"Your wake up call," he responded. "Don't you want to wake up?"
"Yes, but not now, " I replied.
A startled look came over his face. He had misread the room number on the sheet that had been given him. He had called the wrong person.
That encounter with the night guard is a metaphor for my life. Do I want to wake up? Yes, but maybe not now, not in this way. I'd prefer to choose the times I'll be awake and what my wake-up calls will be. But the poet Rumi reminds me, "The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep." And Jesus reminds me through his words to his disciples, "Now is the acceptable time"--not some "now's" but every now.
How then be awake in this moment? In retrospect, I realize that in the times I have been fully awake, even briefly, I have let go of the last moment and have not been pre-occupied about the next moment. In those times I haven't tried to push the past away or cover it over. I haven't tried to alter the pain of the past or my concern for the future. I just am not bound by either. I can receive the present freshly. For that moment I am awake to what is, without agenda. It is difficult for me to be awake in the present moment when I am overly concerned about how/who I should be in that moment. There is an emptying that has to happen, the kind of emptying we read about of Jesus in the Scriptures: "Son though he was, he didn't cling to being God." Jesus, showing up in each moment, just as he was, responded in the moment with no pre-conceived notion of who he should be, defying the expectations of others. Jesus also did not allow others to cling to what they thought he should be for them. To his disciples, he said, "I need to go from you so you will know the presence of the Spirit." To his dear friend Mary he said, when he came to her after his death, "Don't cling to me, Mary. Go share your experience with others."
There's not much I can do about the images of self or of others that I have accumulated over the years. They will continue to be there, rearing their heads from time to time. But I can begin to recognize them for what they are, just images and not reality. I can allow myself and others to be freshly who we are in each moment.
There aren't too many times that I've been aware of being awake, but I do recall a recent time. Quite unexpectedly, I was into a very painful confrontation with someone I love dearly. It threw me. For a few moments, I was back into all the old baggage of the past, including the image of myself as the one who should be able to fix our pain. Then there was a moment of clarity, and I was free just to be present in the pain, letting it be what it was. There was a deep sense of trust in the process rather than in my doings in the process. I could let things be. The wake-up call came not so much in the confrontation itself but in the clarity around it. It seemed like the same old stuff, but I could be different in it.
In his poem, "The Guest House," Rumi says,
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
treat each quest honorably....
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-(Coleman Barks, trans. The Essential Rumi. HarperSanFrancisco,
1995.)
We can not often choose our wake-up calls. Often they appear in the unlikely guises of people we would rather not see or circumstances we would rather not face. But we can welcome these calls, and when we can say our "yes," gradually life itself, moment by moment, issues its own call. Then there are no more sleeping times; we are always awake.
Prayerful Listening for Life
by Ann Grizzle
After sitting in silence around a single candle flame for twenty minutes together, "Carol" slowing begins sharing. She talks of renovating her house, the stresses, her anger and frustrations. No one responds with easy identification, quick sympathy or lighthearted joking. All remain quiet, listening, prayerful. And so she goes on, this competent attorney, delving down into the feelings of helplessness in trying to keep the finances organized or the house straight when there are needs beyond just hers alone. Still no one reacts except with continued listening hearts.
She pauses and then describes a poignant spiritual revelation that has come to her in the midst of this--a sudden lightness realizing that God understands her particular weaknesses, accepts her and wants her to rely on him in these areas of helplessness. Though simple, this deep realization brings her to tears.
The group waits, prayerfully, with a shared intensity of heart in the midst of the silence. And then she says "that's all," sighs, and all breathe into a space of silent prayer. Only after many minutes of quiet does one member venture to offer a few words that came in prayer: "I created you and I love you." Another member speaks an almost identical thought that came in an image--a father embracing his daughter with her own peculiarities and saying, "I love you, you, just the way you are." Another listener speaks of the thought which came in her prayer that we never complete our house or life remodelings, that we must learn to accept that we are always in process, and the process itself must be lived. Another acknowledges the newfound relief and peace that she senses from Carol.
The content of the sharing in group spiritual direction can begin with ordinary events--house renovation, a new job, frustration over a child's poor behavior, thoughts for an upcoming class. Yet the atmosphere of silent, prayerful listening invites the speakers to move deeper and to observe the effect in their soul, in their relationship with God of the events of their lives. The large amounts and regular intervals of silence leave much space for God, without great answers or insights quickly offered by anyone. So the speakers learn in the process how to listen to their own souls before God.
In addition to listening to God regarding her/his own journey, each member spends much of the group time as a spiritual director or, more accurately, a spiritual listener for the other members. Listeners have to learn to stifle and still the quick reassurance, the easy identification or telling of a similar story. They must learn to sit in silence together before God--prayerful, listening. The silence invites them to pray deeper, to listen into the heart of God for God's heart response and then to softly share.
At first this can be awkward, unfamiliar territory. The leader must hush chatting, immediate reacting, easy reassuring and invite everyone to provide a still, listening pond for the speaker to descend down to the soul's stirrings below the surface. After the speaker ends, a return to silence makes listeners go to God for response, to slowly savor the taste of divine flavoring for whatever is on the plate.
As I have facilitated a spiritual direction group for the last year and a half, I have watched a wonderful formation occurring. After many meetings, members have learned to still typical reactive, personal responses and instead sit quietly with one another, to develop a listening attitude, to hear God along with the other. Month after month, this becomes gradually more familiar, more comfortable and eventually refreshing for members who come from a busy, multi-tasking, competitive environment.
Group spiritual direction, beyond offering members a forum for their own spiritual reflections, becomes a schooling for a spiritual way of listening in the world. Not only the initial silence but the pace of listening, the return to silence between words, the quiet presence of these two hours becomes a training ground to go out into the world with a different approach. It develops in its members an ability to be a still listener, to trust silence as an opening to go deeper, and prayerful presence as more bonding than quick reacting. Just as one learns that the fruit of silent centering prayer comes not so much in the time of meditation itself as in the rest of one's life, so too it seems likely that a major fruit of group spiritual direction comes not in the time itself but in the peaceful listening presence it cultivates in members as they go out into the world of activity and relationships. After each group, I can imagine these listening hearts going out with an ear still attuned to God whether in friendship conversations, hospital visits or cocktail gatherings.
Ann is in Shalem's Facilitating Group Spiritual Direction, Class of 2003. This article is taken from one of her program papers.
Not Quite as Passive as You Might Think
by Gerald May
Submit yourself to God. Learn to live in the passive voice - a hard saying for Americans - and let life be willed through you. -Thomas Kelly
In our culture, which so highly values autonomy and self-determination, the passive language of the contemplatives can be very hard indeed. Words like "surrender," "receptivity" and "acceptance" raise specters of quietism and submission, a passivity abhorrent to most modern minds.
Yet such words cannot be avoided. Classically, contemplation refers precisely to the human will being in a receptive, responsive mode as God moves in our lives in ways beyond our understanding. Thus the traditional distinction between meditation and contemplation: meditation is what we seem to do "on our own," while contemplation comes as a sheer gift from God.
The apparent harshness of this dichotomy is eased somewhat by the contemplatives' sense of the immanence of God in persons. For them, God is never wholly "out there" or "up there" somewhere, but is also within us, closer than our breath. In a phrase echoed by many Christian mystics, St. Augustine said God is closer to us than we are to our very selves. And John of the Cross declared without equivocation that the center of the soul is God.
Within this sense of immanence we may glimpse a reality far more unitive than words can describe. We may begin to understand that it is only our senses and images of self and God that seem so separate.
Yet most of us, most of the time, do in fact experience ourselves as separate. If we long for a greater sense of intimacy with God then, it is only natural for us to feel that we or God (or both) need to take some kind of action-and this brings us right back into struggles between activity and passivity.
Modern spirituality has come up with softer images. Viewing the relationship between God and person as a dance, for example, permits a more gentle perspective. God leads in the dance, but the person remains active, responding, participating, joining a beautifully co-creative process.
It may also help to read the classical contemplative authors in greater depth. As one gets to know them better, one might realize that their understanding of contemplative presence is not quite the same as limp dish-rag passivity. I want to share just two examples from St. John of the Cross. Both are frequently quoted, and both are from his commentary on the third stanza of his final great poem, The Living Flame of Love.
In the first example John says, "...contemplacion pura consiste en recibir." This is translated as "pure contemplation consists of receiving," or "pure contemplation lies in receiving." On the surface, it sounds like the expected "do unto me" passivity. But the Spanish word recibir connotes something a bit different. Recibir implies a kind of welcoming, even welcoming with open arms, as one might receive a beloved friend into one's house. Might it be more accurate then, to read John's words as "pure contemplation consists of welcoming with open arms?"
The second example is, for me, even more striking. In several places, John uses the phrase "simple, loving awareness" to describe the attitude of the soul moving into contem-plation. Again, the common interpretation is of a tender yet wholly passive awareness. The Spanish John used is "advertencia amorosa, simple y sencilla." Simple and sencilla imply simplicity, directness and straightforwardness, an absence of complication. The key word however, is advertencia. Just as recibir implies more initiative than "receptivity," advertencia implies an attentiveness that goes way beyond "awareness." In fact, advertencia is used in modern Spanish to communicate an alarm, a warning, or to draw attention to a critically important event.
John himself gives two examples of the kind of attentiveness he means by advertencia. In the first, he says it is the kind of attention one has in looking at a dearly loved one, "opening one's eyes with loving attention." The second example is more emphatic. He quotes the first verse of the second chapter of Habakkuk, the image of climbing the ramparts of a watchtower and standing watch to see what God will say. John's version of the scripture reads, "I will stand my watch, and fix my foot upon my fortress, and I will contemplate what is said to me." Here again, it seems that "simple, loving watchfulness" or "simple, loving attentiveness" communicates the meaning more accurately.
John continues to call this stance "passive," but explains that the soul is passive in terms of its normal senses and intellect. It is not reaching out to grasp or comprehend. Instead, the soul is watchful, attentive and welcoming for the presence of a Loved One beyond all sense and comprehension.
Like anyone else who has ever tried to write or speak of contemplative experience, John was frustrated by the inadequacy of words. He found them at their best in poetry, and at their worst in conceptualization. It is the same today. Words are weak messengers, capable only of pointing to a depth and breadth of meaning that they cannot carry. In this sense, they encourage us not to take them at face value, but to probe more deeply into our own and others' experience along the path they point to. This search for the deeper meanings can lead to surprising, sometimes frightening but always inspiring discoveries--including the possibility that contemplation may not be quite as passive as you might think.
Spirit in the Workplace
by Margaret Jane Porter
In March, Shalem hosted the first annual Soul of the Executive reunion at Virginia Theological Seminary. During the retreat, participants had the opportunity to reconnect with members of their own class and faculty, meet other executives and faculty, and reflect on their spiritual leadership issues. A highlight of the retreat was an "open space" session in which we executives (ever prone to taking matters into our own hands!) identified issues we wanted to explore further in small-group dialogue. Topics included "Building Community at Work," "Developing a Shared Vision of Peace" and "Creating Spiritual Space at the Workplace."
In our session, "Creating Spiritual Space at the Workplace," executives shared concrete ways in which they had been able to foster the spirit at work. Some more familiar (but too often overlooked) approaches included sharing a meal, silently praying for colleagues, and setting our intention to experience the presence of the sacred in every moment and interaction. We talked about the importance of being confident in our own spiritual practice, of being alert to openings, of taking risks while being respectful of the needs and beliefs of all our colleagues, and about the fluidity of boundaries between what was appropriate and inappropriate in a given work setting. We listened in awe as one executive shared her experience of meeting the spiritual needs of her employees. She designed a ceremony to transform the negative spirit energy they feared inhabited their workplace into a positive affirmation of their hopes for their workplace. We all agreed that the support we had received from the Soul of the Executive helped us be more confident and courageous as spiritual leaders.
Margaret was in the Soul of the Executive, Class of 2000.
The Burning Bush
by Diane Zanetti
"To pray, then, is to be aflame with God. The purpose of human effort, and of spiritual direction, is simply to clear away obstacles to this manifestation of the divine flame." -Kenneth Leech
When I read the story of Moses and the burning bush, I have to wonder just how many trips out to the field with the sheep it took before Moses actually saw the burning bush. I would like to believe that Moses didn't see it the first time, that he walked past that holy, burning place in his dust-covered sandals more often than he dared to admit, ate under the shade of the flaming shrub, and trudged back home again in the settling darkness-sheep ahead of him, blazing glory at his back. And I would like to think that a spiritual companion helped him recognize what he could not, or would not, see.
Perhaps my re-imagining of the story has to do with my own encounter with just such a companion. In the midst of starting a new ministry, I began to journey with a new directee. As "Debra" introduced herself to me, she told of how she had discovered Al-Anon, which helped her marriage and revived her spirituality.
She found herself filled with gratitude and love that had no place to go except back to God and back to the church she had left in her college years. As her spirituality awakened, she became aware that she wanted to explore her relationship with God on a one-to-one basis. As she outlined her hunger to grow in prayer, to deepen her faith and to see what life with God was about for her, she ended by saying she had two concerns. She didn't want to become overly zealous, overly "religious," and secondly, she felt if she grew closer to God, it would be "too much." When I asked her to describe what she meant, she said, "I'm afraid I'll be consumed by it."
Here was this young woman, who was just beginning to explore her relationship with God--asking me about prayer, silence, what it means to grow--suddenly talking about an encounter with God that suggested great mystery. I wasn't sure I understood being "consumed." Did that suggest something one would fear to experience? Was she referring to what the classical mystics hinted at? Could I ever think of a time when I would have used such an image in my own relationship with God? Was I missing something if I hadn't? Why was this idea of a "consuming" encounter with the holy something that haunted me long after our conversation?
My own prayer life at the time was in a "new" place, just as my life seemed to be. Ministry was beginning to be a struggle that was becoming more and more unmanageable. My personal and vocational life seemed to be taking more from me than I had to give. I assumed that God was asking this of me. I could not make sense of what I perceived to be God's call and the desolation it brought to my heart and spirit.
I emerged from darkness into light with no less amazement and wonder than Moses when he spotted that blazing bush. Clearly I was on holy ground. Strangely, I didn't know what to do there.
I didn't know what or how to pray. I remember journaling one morning that I didn't know what to do with the gratitude, except to write thank you, say thank you, sing doxology, live praise. Still, I resisted prayer and solitude with God. I felt overwhelmed with something that left me humbled, speechless, amazed and, yes, afraid. The place I had come to was unfamiliar, unbelievable and, I feared, undeserved. What I had with me was nothing but profound trust; there was nothing else. Old images and expectations, old ways of seeing, being and knowing, didn't fit anymore. I was suspended in unknowing, and I knew it.
"I'm afraid I'll be consumed by it." Could this be what Debra was talking about? My experience of the Holy was overwhelming to me, but yes, I could substitute "consuming" in describing the experience. This is so different from the usual use of the word. "He is consumed by his work," we say of someone who has nothing left for anything or anyone else. "My commute to work consumes all my time," says the person who finds her time "used up" in driving. "Used up" is the way I felt two years ago as demands of God seemed to devour and destroy me.
This new sense of consuming Presence is more about being too much alive with love--like being afire with something that makes me back away. Moses' bush was burning with God but not consumed, not destroyed, just ablaze with God. "To pray, then, is to be aflame with God."
Diane is in Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Summer 2002. This article is taken from one of her program papers.