Volume 22, No. 1-Winter, 1998
Table of Contents
Where Does God Fit In?
by David Vryhof, SSJE
I Pray God Rid Me of god
by Rose Mary Dougherty
Islands in the Sea: Soul Friendship and Celtic Sacred Landscape
by Lynn Schlossberger
Varieties of Spiritual Companionship
by Gerald May
Money, Money, Money: Does It Really Make the World Go 'Round?
by Barbara Erakko Taylor
Resting Through Our Work
by Tilden Edwards
Where Does God Fit In?
by David Vryhof, SSJE
Some time ago, a minister came to our monastery seeking spiritual direction. I was asked if I would have a conversation with him.
"I have been negligent in my spiritual life," he began. "I haven't been doing all the things I know I should be doing, and now I realize that I need to do something about it." For the next twenty minutes, he set forth his "plan," outlining a complex system of devotional exercises which included Bible reading, Bible study, Bible memorization, various ways of praying (thanksgiving, intercession, confession, praise), spiritual reading, regular attendance at worship, tithing, fasting, family devotions, and more. By the time he finished with his list, I was exhausted!
"That's a pretty impressive list," I admitted, "and I think it reflects how much you want to be in relationship with the Lord and how much you want that relationship to be renewed. But tell me," I said, "where does God fit in?"
He paused, looking confused. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "This is all about God. I'm doing this for God."
"Yes," I said, "you're doing it for God. But how do you know that all this is what God wants from you? Is God asking you to do all this? Or might God simply be inviting you into a closer and more intimate relationship with him?"
"I'm still not sure what you mean."
"Well, how would your wife feel if one day you came home and said, 'Honey, I realize I've been negligent in our relationship, so I've decided to take you to dinner twice a week, buy you a new dress each month, redecorate the house for you, take out the garbage and do the dishes every evening, and send you to your mother's for a month each year'? Now, she might be touched by your intention and genuinely appreciate some of the things you've decided to do for her. But she might also say, if you gave her the chance, 'I really don't need a new dress each month and I really don't want to go out to dinner more often. The house is fine as it is, and I don't want to spend a month with my mother each year. What I'd really like is for us to spend some time together. I'd really like more time to listen to you and to have you listen to me. I'd like for us to talk more and get to know each other more deeply. I don't want more things from you; I want more of you!'"
When I think back on this conversation, I'm not sure what caused me to respond to this man in the way I did. It might have been the preponderence of the word "I" in his speech or the general sense I had that these spiritual "tasks" he was proposing had more to do with him than with God. I might have responded differently at another time. But as it turned out, this was a moment of grace for him, a moment when he saw his relationship with God in a new way. He began to see the possibility of relating to God not as a taskmaster but as a friend and lover, and he began to see prayer not so much as a duty to be performed but as an opportunity to grow together in love with the One who had created him to live in union with Himself.
I've thought about this conversation often since that time, because it represents a tension I feel in my own spiritual life. On the one hand, all of these spiritual disciplines seem to me to be good things to do; I have recommended many of them to directees and I practice some of them myself. I believe they all have the potential of deepening our faith and strengthening our relationship with God. On the other hand, I feel convinced that spiritual growth is not something that can be won by our own efforts.
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow," Jesus taught us; "they neither toil nor spin, yet...even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these" (Mt. 6:28-29). This kind of growth is not the result of self-dependence or self-effort. A lily does not toil or spin; it does not stretch or strain; it makes no effort of any kind to grow and is not even conscious that it is growing. Rather, there seems to be an inward life-principle that causes it to grow. Planted in good soil and nourished by sun, wind and rain, it gradually becomes just what God meant it to be.
But this effortless, natural, carefree way of growing that Jesus spoke of is not always the way among Christians. Many of us are convinced that we ought to grow and we instinctively long for growth, but instead of letting God care for our growing, we set out to accomplish it by our own toiling and spinning, stretching and straining; and soon our lives are filled with wearisome tasks that drain our energies and burden us. I am convinced that the key to spiritual growth is to abide in God, to use St. John's metaphor, as a branch "abides" in a vine. Spiritual disciplines, it seems to me, are a way of connecting us with the Vine, or of planting us in good soil, ready to receive the benefits of the sunlight and the rain that God is prepared to shower on us. What God requires of us, I think, is an intelligent and free surrender; we can trust God to supply the growth.
David is a member of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Winter 1998 class. This article is taken from one of his program papers.
I Pray God Rid Me of god
by Rose Mary Dougherty
It was years ago that I first heard these words of Meister Eckhart. I'm sure they must have been said within the context of our images of God and what we cling to in place of God. But the context must have escaped me then as it does now. What I heard were the words, and I was confused, somewhat frightened. Not seeing the words, I was unaware that the second "god" was in all in lower case. I missed the point of the prayer. Yet I respected Meister Eckhart and wanted to understand what he was saying, perhaps even pray his prayer. But I couldn't. God was all I had, and I'd staked my life on God, the only reason why my choice of vocation as vowed religious made sense. Why rid me of God? The closest I could come for myself was, "I pray God rid me of me." I was the problem, not God.
It seems that God heard the prayer that I was able to pray, though not in the way I expected. I had had an image of God charging through my soul, something like the Maid Brigade, whisking away all the cobwebs of those faults I had come to abhor. But it didn't happen that way. Little by little, life's circumstances and grace chipped away, not at me, but at the many images I had claimed as me. Sometimes I was amazed by glimpses into inner beauty that I hadn't realized were part of me. At other times I was discomforted when I saw hitherto unknown areas of my own brokenness that inflicted so much pain on others. It seemed as if everything I thought I knew about myself was called into question.
Everything I thought I knew about God was being called into question, also. The felt experience I had come to rely on to tell me who God was just wasn't available. Up to this point God, like myself, had been reasonably predictable and easy to define. Now there were no certainties accessible to me, except that, even as I felt the ground of my interior life quaking beneath me, there was some knowing that God was--though I couldn't define or even describe the God who was.
Times of spiritual sharing were extremely difficult. There wasn't much I could talk about, and sometimes I got bored, annoyed, even jealous hearing others talk about their experience. I was uncomfortable leading groups or sitting in staff meetings where we talked about the assumptions underlying what we did in groups. One part of me felt fraudulent, waiting to be discovered. Another part felt more authentic than ever. In this part of me, I heard the word, "Trust."
It was into this heart scenario that the prayer of Meister Eckhart came again. The words leapt out at me from an article I was reading. I saw the prayer as it was meant to be prayed: "I pray God rid me of god." I didn't need to think about the words this time. My experience had been preparing me to recognize their truth. They made heart sense to me. Immediately the fraudulent feeling part of me began its protest, though faintly and unconvincingly: "Watch out, you're rationalizing or spiritualizing." At the same time, however, the place of authenticity was savoring the words, " Behold, I am doing something new. Do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:19)
God continues to rid me of god and of self. Often I do not perceive at the time what is going on. Sometimes I latch on to images of God or myself in relation to God. I try to imagine what God might be up to and then I set out to make what I imagine happen. At some point God breaks through once again in some new and surprising way and I am left realizing how little I know about much of anything. Such was the case through this summer and early fall.
September was to be a sabbatical month for me. During the summer I prayed about what the time might be like, what I wanted it to be. I knew that I wanted to do some reflection and reading around discernment, and some paying attention to my own process of knowing, hoping that this work would eventually find its way into my writing and teaching. Mostly I wanted it to find its way into my being. My initial prayer was that I could be open to whatever might be in the offing for me and that I might return home more deeply grounded in God. That prayer was gentle yet consistent in me.
The month before I left, someone showed me a photo he had taken, I think in the California Big Sur. It was the picture of a tree standing alone in the center of a cliff which overhung the ocean. That photo engraved itself in my heart. What struck me was the solitary stance of the tree, its rootedness and strength, and its raw exposure to the buffeting of the elements. I saw myself in solitude like the tree, with God as my grounding, my strength, and my buffeter. The photo became an image of what I thought my time might be. What had once been a gentle yearning in me now became intense prayer as I entered the drama of readying myself for a month of solitude on a farm on the edge of the ocean in Nova Scotia.
Only my first day alone matched my expectation of what the month might be about. On that day, even the weather, with its heavy rain and gusty winds, was typical of what I had been told I might expect that time of year. As I braced myself for a month of similar experience, I found myself praying, "Well, God, it's just the two of us. I hope we can survive this together." I must have known we could survive because I gave myself easily to sleep that night.
The next morning I awoke to sunshine and a warmer temperature, though the lingering presence of the storm was evident as I walked the beach. When I returned home, I tried to pray with the image of the tree on the cliff. I felt drawn to being the tree, rooted in God, willing to be buffeted by God. Somewhere during the quiet of that time, I heard a tapping sound. I looked around to find its source and there sat Albert, the resident farm rooster, sitting in the flower box outside the window. I burst out laughing and watched him for a few minutes and then said to myself, "I have work to do." But Albert was persistent and so was God. Each time I tried to get too serious or became too engrossed in what I thought I should be doing, Albert would appear, sometimes at the window, sometimes at the door, pecking until I answered. Each time I was taken by surprise; each time I was filled with delight.
And so the month went: little that I expected but everything that I needed. I can't name what happened during that time, or even what I did, but I sense the gift of it all deep inside me. Albert has become a God symbol for me. Even now the memory of his presence invites me to let go of my expectations, to let God be God and tell me who I am. I continue to pray, "God rid me of god; rid me of me."
Islands in the Sea: Soul Friendship and Celtic Sacred Landscape
by Lynn Schlossberger
The ancient Celtic Christian world remains an enigma that touches us at a deep spiritual level. Powerful images surface, and they seem incongruous. Archetypal waves pound against small, stony islands in the North Sea, where sea birds and contemplatives wait for God. Inside the cover of the Book [of Kells], delicate knotwork designs (the product of Celtic scriptorium) dazzle the eye with their intricacy, their gold illumination reflecting candlelight and visions of God's Presence unfurling from the Gospel text they illustrate. Somehow the work of the Holy Spirit has an imprint in both places, and they call out to be reconnected. More than a thousand years later, we are left to come to terms with fragmentary images of sacred spirals inscribed in stone, exposed to the sky, in remote, dramatic and dangerous places, and a dim awareness that the spiritual journey, in the Celtic Christian world, was connected to such places.
Surely one would have a companion for such a journey, with whom to share the silence, to reminisce. I imagine that the role of the Anamchara, or soul friend, was experienced as a thread winding through the Celtic tapestry of passionate experience of God's immanence, a meandering path in the wild Irish landscape. The natural world was certainly experienced as a rich source of metaphor for spiritual life. For example, Celtic Christians understood themselves as people who lived on boundaries, both physically and spiritually; St. Columbanus is quoted as describing his people as "living on the edge of the world." Boundary-places, like the rocky coastlines of their island homes, were seen as misty, fragrant, liminal places, places where the membrane separating physical and spiritual worlds became permeable under the right conditions. Every searcher was in need of reliable guidance, however; everyone needed a trusted soul friend, a life-companion, in the encounter with the sacred. The tradition that emerged was known as Anamchairde and each practitioner as Anamchara.
Wilderness and community had a mysterious, intertwined relationship in the Celtic landscape of the soul from the early 6th century, when the monastic form of Celtic Christian community became rooted, until the early 8th century, when the traditions of the Roman church ended their eccentric, Spirit-guided way of life. Wilderness and community belonged to one another. Movement between the two was understood to have great spiritual significance. Early Celtic spiritual pilgrims felt called to wander permanently away from their monastic communities, seeking a unique place to which they were called, their "place of resurrection." The finding of one's proper place in this world was an important image for Celtic spirituality; its reverence for nature included a deep sense of honoring each thing in the place where it belonged. By the 7th century, the spiritual practice of pilgrimage, with no planned destination, was becoming less common. People then sought rough niches in the close wilderness, places to stay for a period of time, quiet and immersed in God, remote enough for sacred abandonment of self but accessible enough to offer hospitality to visitors and Anamchairde to spiritual seekers.
The polarity between wilderness and community was expressed in Celtic monastic communities by a circular surrounding wall, the circle whose form is perfect, and symbolizes infinity. The space enclosed by a circle was sacred, and sacred space afforded blessing as well as sanctuary to those within. It was contrasted with the untamed, dangerous wilderness outside, into which anyone might be called at some point in their spiritual journey. Those within the monastic community, when called to contemplative experience, also formed sanctuaries within the sanctuary, the inner boundaries marked with high crosses. Boundary-places were meticulously tended and honored and may have been used for worship. Boundaries were generally not intended to exclude people but rather to assist the seeker with focus of attention within the landscape.
Like the desert monastics, the Celtic spiritual seeker might go into the wilderness specifically to live with uncertainty and with the darkness of those who are lost and struggling. But the Celtic tradition placed little emphasis on sinfulness and judgment, and it seems likely that the experience of darkness, of that which is alien, might have been understood as an encounter with the boundaries of one's own understanding of where home is, of what being at home means.
As in the ancient Celtic myths, the Anamchara is the guide in the journey that binds one's wilderness and one's hearth. If Celtic monastics sought the places of spiritual encounter in the landscape, even preferring to live "on the edge of the world," then there must be companionship suited to liminal places. It would be a natural part of Anamchairde to sit in places where the boundary between the physical and the spiritual worlds tended to dissolve, the place where one ran out of words to define what one knew of home, and to see what was given. Ultimately, one must make one's own pilgrimage; and yet, the journey to the islands in the sea requires companionship to do its work. If God was invited to be present to the seeker in some unfamiliar way in the wilderness, then it is surely essential to have a friend along. One must, after all, find a way back. Anamchairde would have to be a place of encounter between what one discovered of God and what one already knew and a place of entwining them. If the place of encounter really was the hypnotic island of one's imagined paradise, and one was at risk of becoming permanently lost, God would provide a reminder of the home for which one had words, in the person of the Anamchara.
Lynn is a member of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Summer 1997. This article is taken from one of her program papers.
Varieties of Spiritual Companionship
by Gerald May
Spiritual direction's recent rise in popularity has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in confusion. Most people would agree that spiritual direction means companionship with another person or group through which the Holy One shines with wisdom, encouragement and discernment. Some, however, expect this companionship to be of a professional nature, with a trained, supervised, and perhaps even certified spiritual director. Others see it as spontaneous and gifted, strongly resisting signs of professionalization.
In truth, spiritual guidance can happen authentically in a vast variety of forms. To give a sense of the range of these possibilities, I will list some examples below. The list is neither exclusive nor exhaustive; some forms of guidance might combine aspects of more than one category, and I may have neglected to mention other forms. Further, I will describe them as one-to-one relationships, but most of the examples can also be applied to groups. I have divided them into two major groups: Formal Spiritual Direction and Informal Spiritual Companionship.
Formal Spiritual Direction
These relationships are explicitly defined as spiritual direction, with
a clear separation of roles between director and directee. Meetings are
usually scheduled in advance on a regular basis, and a directee normally
has only one formal director.
Professional ("Expert") Spiritual Direction is in large part patterned after contemporary psychotherapeutic models. It is a highly structured relationship in which the director is seen as providing a professional service to the directee. The focus of meetings is firmly on the directee, and the director seeks to remain caring but unattached. Mutuality and relationships outside of direction are discouraged. The director is viewed as an expert: skilled, trained and experienced. Directors are usually supervised and may be certified. Fees for service are common. The "locus of discernment" (where discernment happens) varies according to the director's style; as in counseling, some directors make assertive discernments for their directees, while others are more non-directive, helping directees come to their own discernments.
Gifted ("Charismatic") Spiritual Direction is also a formal relationship in that meetings are held regularly and the focus is primarily on the directee. The director, however, is seen more as gifted and called than skilled and trained. Many such directors claim no expertise, do not consider themselves professionals, and place their primary emphasis on remaining attentive to the Holy Spirit as the true Director. This kind of direction is not usually seen as a service but as God's gift to the director as well as the directee. Fees are therefore not normally charged. Mutuality and extra-direction relationships occur more readily than in professional direction. Here again the locus of discernment varies, but is more commonly placed in the directee.
Master/Disciple Relationships are a special kind of charismatic direction in which the director is seen as a uniquely transparent window of the Divine. As in the desert tradition of Christianity and in many Hindu and Buddhist paths, the locus of discernment generally resides in the master. Mutuality is not generally acknowledged. It is a formal relationship in terms of the identification of roles, but meetings are seldom regularly scheduled. Thank offerings are common, fees virtually nonexistent.
Institutional Direction: In some religious communities, a representative of the community assumes an official role as spiritual director and may exercise institutional authority over the directee. Mutuality is uncommon in such relationships, and the locus of discernment is usually assumed to be in the director.
Mentoring, Discipling, and Eldering are identified formal relationships that usually focus more on moral and educational guidance within a particular faith community. They can, however, include dimensions of spiritual direction.
Informal Companionships
These relationships are characterized by a lack of structure and role
definition. They are not considered exclusive, and most people have several
such companionships. Meetings tend to be irregular and spontaneous. There
is nearly always some atmosphere of mutuality, and each person retains
his or her own locus of discernment. There is no notion of providing a
service, and fees are out of the question.
Wisdom Sharing: My maternal grandmother was a wisdom figure in our extended family. People seemed naturally drawn to her, presumably because of her prayer, love and insight, but this was not identified or discussed openly. People listened carefully to her words but always felt free to express their own opinions and make their own decisions. They also felt a desire to support her, often visiting simply to pay their respects.
Spiritual Friendship: Most people have friends with whom it feels natural to discuss their life with God. They communicate as friends do, according to their desire and as time and circumstance allow. Some of these friendships may be lifelong, others very transient. All, however, are recognized as opportunities for mutual support and discernment.
"Soul Mates:" Here a deep inner connectedness is mutually recognized between people, and their interactions are of profound spiritual significance for both. Their prayer and life experience blend powerfully, and it is common for such relationships to include deep love that lasts a lifetime.
Occasional Encounters: These are chance meetings, in spiritual settings or elsewhere, in which some kind of spiritual guidance happens for one or both parties. Although it is certainly possible for these to grow into ongoing friendships, they are usually one-time events.
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It seems to me that professional standards are appropriate for directors who see themselves as providing an expert service, especially if they charge fees. Those who practice spiritual direction in this way would rightly avail themselves of specialized training programs, formal supervision, perhaps even certification. Ethical standards of conduct are decidedly important here, especially in relationships where the director assumes responsibility for making discernments for the directee.
In contrast, people who are called to more gifted or informal companionships, especially those who believe the locus of discernment should remain in the directee, may feel uneasy if they attempt to fit into a professional model. Enrichment programs that foster a simple, contemplative availability to God are likely to suit them better than training programs that focus on skills and methods. Shared support and prayerful accountability may make more sense than formal "clinical" supervision. Communal confirmation and affirmation would take the place of certification, and mutual reverent respect rather than standards of practice would form their basis of ethical conduct.
Though this listing may be misleadingly arbitrary, I hope it will be helpful in clarifying your own sense of authenticity as a spiritual companion.
Money, Money, Money: Does It Really Make the World Go 'Round?
by Barbara Erakko Taylor
I have funny childhood memories about money. In one, my best girlfriend and I would periodically go to the local laundromat and play the coin-changer machine. If we kept on plugging in quarters, eventually we got an extra dime.
Even younger, I remember trailing behind my sister on a "money hunt." On this day, she suggested we go look in the nearby park. Soon, she was gleefully finding quarters and dimes, one after another--a steady stream of monetary manna. I trailed behind despondently. "I'm not finding anything," I said in tears. Moments later, I too found a dime and then a quarter. My luck had turned.
I raced home to tell Mom about our wonderful fortune. "Mom," I said. "Look at all the dimes and quarters I got! We went money hunting!" Then Sandra walked in. Mom said, in that unmistakable, deadpan parent voice, "Put the lunch money back, Sandra." And there went my wealth.
Those are my fond memories. But there are sad ones, too--when I didn't have enough, when I couldn't get what I needed, and even, ironically, when I felt I had too much--and worried about those less fortunate.
Being poor--with a dream--was fun. I remember that going grocery shopping with virtually no money was an adventure. I had to choose between saran wrap or aluminum foil because I couldn't afford both. But I had a dream. I was writing my first book. However, I found that being poor in an oppressed situation had the opposite effect. I felt sacred energy being sucked out of me. I felt like a barren woman. I felt poor.
So when Shalem offered the program Spirituality and Money, I knew I had enough money baggage to come, and on an evening in October, I found myself with four co-leaders and seven other participants--ready to listen and share.
It was my first intimate experience of Shalem, and I loved the fact that our "leaders" refused to be leaders. Among themselves, as fundraisers and money managers, they used money every day, both vocationally and personally. Moreover, it was within a Shalem context, for all of them had organizational associations with the Shalem program and ministry. It was perhaps inevitable that they would want to explore the spirituality of money--if indeed there was any. And, not having the answers, they naturally thought of us--other sojourners on the economically-paved road through a God-centered yet earth-bound life.
I was amazed, and grateful, that we often had similar--very similar--concerns. It seemed that both ends of the money spectrum (extreme poverty or unexpected wealth) produced questions of "Why me?" Some of us also struggled with our inability to trust God to provide. There was a part of us that wanted to be generous--to give what we possessed ... but with a savings account nearby earning interest.
Each week we reflected on a different aspect of money--our work, our sense of faithfulness to God, our concept of play and relaxation, our global responsibility. For me, money issues did not "fall into place," with all my questions solved and resolved. Actually, in one sense, nothing happened. But, in another sense, great things happened.
Nothing happened in the sense that if I wanted all my worries, problems and concerns about money to go away, they didn't. I trod across well-worn ground, familiar anxieties, with not-too-altruistic clay feet. But--and this is the great thing--I did not walk alone across the sometimes frightening monetary landscape but together with others whom I came to enjoy and respect.
Have I completed my spiritual negotiations with money? No. But the Shalem program stirred something deep inside me very gently, and I want to stay with it and listen.
Near the end of my Shalem experience, a friend told me about the book, Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. Intrigued by her enthusiasm, I bought the book. First, I was asked to re-compute my real hourly wage, deducting all of the expenses incurred to have that job (the wardrobe, the car, the commuting expenses, the office lunches). A person making $11/hour may actually make only $6. That equals one hour of our non-refundable, non-usable, finite life energy. Having a true cost of our hourly labor, we can then compute how many real hours of life energy each purchase costs. Dinner out might tally up to four life energy hours. Was it worth it?
I began to look at my book purchases. I love books--the smell of them, the feel of them, the information they contain. I also have stacks of unread books. Now, when I see an interesting title, I compute the number of life energy hours to buy it plus the number of life energy hours it will take to read it. I read really s l o w w l y. My enthusiasm has been tempered, my consciousness awakened.
The authors say there is no blame, no shame for how we have lived, and we do not need to look at life like a budget. It is more a listening inward to the choices we make with a financial tuning fork. The tuning fork has three tonal qualities: Does this purchase fulfill me? Is it in alignment with my values? How would this look if I were working for the well-being of the whole world?
If it rings true on all three tones, it will resonate with the deepest sense of our graced and spiritual self. I suspect that rarely happens. But, like living out our faith, it gives us a way to grow into becoming fully human, fully alive.
The end of the Shalem program was, for me, a new beginning. How comforted I am not to be alone in my confusion about money and spirituality. I learned, quite poignantly, often humorously, and always in a caring way, that money is a deep-rooted concern for all of us--from our first allowance to our last income tax.
And God, the manna master of money, probably gives us just the right menu to feed fully on God's love and nurture that love in others.
Barbara, a writer who recently published Silence: Making the Journey to Inner Quiet (Innisfree Press), has led a contemplative life style for nearly twenty years.
Resting Through Our Work
by Tilden Edwards
At one point in a recent workshop, I asked people to be in touch with their desires. Afterward, two pastors came up and said the first desire that spontaneously came to each of them was for rest. You don't have to be a pastor for that desire to show up very fast in a lot of folks! Many of us are hardworking people; we need separate rest time just to recuperate our energy. But we also need a quality of resting as the very ground of our true work. Meister Eckhart says:
People must be so empty of all things and all works, whether inward or outward, that they can become a proper home for God, wherein God may operate.*
Truly resting from our work can leave us empty of striving. In that emptiness there is space to let in the divine whispers that are always moving through our souls. The Spirit-breath can move us to realize our sometimes awesome, sometimes playful communion with what is and the One who radiantly lives through what is. The Spirit-breath can also shape images in us that inspire our work. These may be very simple inner movements, such as wanting to write someone a letter, bring some things to the clothing drive for the poor, do something for a family member, or tend the garden. The whispered images may also plant seeds of larger things: a new direction in our lives, a creative idea for the workplace, a vision for a spiritual community, an organized challenge to some social injustice.
When we are moved by these whispers into outward work, the temptation is to stop listening and take over the activity. That leads to other temptations, such as becoming attached to the work having a particular predetermined result or worrying about how others may be judging what we're doing. Then the work becomes more "self" work than it needs to be, more our work than God's work. It can lose touch with the ongoing whispers that come from continually "resting" into the divine Source of our inspired work.
By the latter I mean the value of opening what we are deciding, feeling and doing again and again during the day to the great Whisperer. In that space of opening, I have found that my consciousness realizes its connectedness and availability to the divine Consciousness. In my relative emptiness, I breathe in the qualities of a larger confidence, energy, and loving wisdom that I want to breathe out into my work and thus join the Great Work of God in ongoing creation.
My own anxieties can impede the fullness of my empty presence for God. And even when I am widely open to the Spirit's presence, I often am not given anything clear in that opening. Sometimes it feels more like a windless presence through which I am being guided imperceptibly. But, in my very desire to lean close to the Spirit's breath, I think I am freed from my own separating narrowness a little, freed for something closer to what's called for to live through me.
I'm sure all of us could give our own witness to the fruit of such "resting" into work, however small it may seem at times. I think the Spirit's invisible breath wants to waft invisible goodness/Godness through us in countless little ways all through the day. The most important thing it needs from us is our willingness to restfully open into its ever-active presence.
The 14th-century mystic Hafiz speaks to this need for resting into God when he says:
Don't do a thing,
Just rest.
For your separation from God
Is the hardest work in this world.**
I believe our best work flows from our spacious resting in God. The often yawning gap between our opening rest and striving, separated-from-God work needs to be closed. We need longer periods of such rest at times, in our prayer and meditation. Such periods accustom us to the Spirit's presence. And we need an undercurrent of such resting right through our working. Then I think our work will be more restful (in the deepest sense of that word) and on-target. We will see how good it is to live directly out of the divine Wind ever-seeding the soil of our lives.
*Quoted in Matthew Fox, Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart's Creation Spirituality in New Translation. NY: Doubleday, 1980, pp.216-217.
**The Subject Tonight is Love, versions by Daniel Ladinsky, Pumpkin House Press, 1996.