Volume 21, No. 1-Winter, 1997
Table of Contents
The Call to Spiritual Growth in Parenthood
by Patience Robbins
Praying on Command
by Rose Mary Dougherty
Why Shalem?
by Johanna Greene
It's All Light
by Gerald May
A Pure Love Energy
by Yong Chin Denn
The Soul of the Executive
by Tilden Edwards
The Call to Spiritual Growth in Parenthood
by Patience Robbins
Spiritual growth and parenthood--do they fit together? Before the birth of my daughter six years ago, I had an understanding of spirituality based on practices. Spending a half hour in uninterrupted prayer, reading the Scriptures reflectively, attending a retreat or day of quiet, serving a meal at a soup kitchen were a few of them. However, when I became a parent, I soon realized that this definition made spiritual growth seem just about impossible. After much reflection and sharing with others, I realized that I could either idealize life without children or search for the hidden but profound spiritual growth that can occur from being a parent.
When I allowed myself to see anew my present life experience, I discovered that three areas inherent to parenting could become ways of nurturing my relationship with God: the repetition of ordinary and necessary tasks, the constant giving of self, and the experience of letting go. These components are so much a part of parenting that I didn't need to add any more practices. I just had to be willing to change my understanding and embrace these as my way to God at this time of my life.
The first discipline, endless repetition of essential tasks, are tasks that just have to be done, such as changing diapers, picking up toys, washing clothes, buying and preparing food and cleaning up dishes. I found myself asking many times: how can these simple yet necessary chores that consume so much of my time and energy nurture my spiritual growth? I finally recognized that it was not so much the tasks themselves that were important but the attitude with which I did them. As I was able to willingly and freely do these tasks as a way of expressing my care, then they could be a concrete way of loving and serving my family and a way of saying "yes" to constant opportunities for service.
There is also the giving of self that is required to nurture and honor the growth of the child. This demands time, energy and qualities of patience, listening, respect. When I collapse from tiredness by the side of my daughter's bed in the evening and agree to read a bedtime book, it flows from my desire to let her know how precious she is and worthy of my attention. In the parenting class I took, one of the tools for showing respect is to use active listening and I-messages which help children learn about feelings and how to express them. The use of these tools requires self-discipline, as much as any ascetical practice of which I know. Being present to my daughter and choosing to nurture her often calls forth a genuine dying to myself.
Inherent in this whole experience of parenthood is a letting go as I realize that this life which came from me is not mine to possess or control. As much as I want independence and self-confidence for my daughter, I struggle with my feelings of wanting to hold on and protect her from life's difficulties. When I reflect on letting go in this way, I remember Mary. When she said: "Let it be done to me according to your word," she had no details of what that would mean for her. As for all parents, there is the continual experience of surrendering one's child, not holding on or controlling but trusting in the child's resources and abilities to meet the challenges of life as well as in a loving God who brings good out of all things.
I learned quickly after my daughter's birth that parenthood requires a lot of service, self-giving and surrender in many small
and big ways. What is the gift for me? Perhaps it is in all the moments of handing over my agenda and expectations and saying "yes" to what is. The mystery is so ordinary that it does not feel spiritual. I am reminded of Richard Rohr's words: "The best way to become holy is not in what you do but what you allow to be done to you by the circumstances of your life." As parents we have countless opportunities to respond to the demands of life with a gracious "yes" to God. It may be saying "yes" to one more load of laundry, reading one more book to my daughter, fully attending to her when she is upset, or missing a day of reflection because she wakes up with a runny cold. This acceptance is a grace and flows from the center of my being.
And there is another gift that comes through children. They are natural contemplatives and can model a way of being in the world. Gerald May writes: Babies just are contemplative, wholly immediate and completely open. He notes that contemplation is characterized by two qualities: 1) immediacy, that is, centeredness in the present moment and 2) openness, a simple receptiveness to all the thoughts, feelings, sights, and sounds and other perceptions that each moment brings. With my daughter, I have practiced being in the moment and sensing all that is around me. I have delighted in making mud soup, searching for worms, watching and laughing as a pet bunny rabbit hops around the yard, dancing in warm rain. She has shown me how to receive what is, rather than focusing on a need to accomplish or produce something.
Parenthood reminds me of a dance in which I am constantly struggling for balance. It calls me to a creative dance--of weaving together times of service, surrender, and self-giving with times of being, delighting and receiving what is. At moments, the dance is painstakingly difficult and it forces me to accept my limitations and claim time alone. These precious moments of solitude enable me, once again, to dance from my center. It is within that deep and free place that I recognize that God is in the very ordinary circumstances of my life and I need only to humbly and graciously say "yes."
Patience, a 1988 graduate of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, provides nurturance and support through a ministry called Sacred Moments in which she offers experiential groups, spiritual direction and foot reflexology. She lives in Mt. Rainier, MD, with her husband and daughter.
Praying on Command
by Rose Mary Dougherty
At Shalem's Winter Retreat, I was in a small group where we gathered once a day to share what was going on for us and to support one another in our prayer. One of the things we talked about was what it was like to be in the larger circle with others three times a day when we weren't feeling particularly prayerful. One person said it was hard to come into the circle when her desire for God felt so faint and tentative. It was as though she wanted something more to bring to the group. She wanted to be able to join her prayer with that of others, but this was difficult when all she was aware of was emptiness. Another said that it was precisely when she was feeling so empty that she needed to be with the group, because the prayer of others sustained her. Someone else said that it was particularly hard to bring unwanted feelings like anger and jealousy into the circle for fear of contaminating the group. And so the conversation went until we came around to seeing the circle of our gathered presence as a symbol of our individual and collective presence for God--a simple, all inclusive presence that allowed space for everything.
Then someone turned to me and asked what it was like leading retreats when I wasn't feeling particularly inspired or prayerful. Was it difficult? Did I sometimes feel I was "praying on command?" My initial response was to laugh and say that I didn't have enough discipline to do anything "on command." But I couldn't let it end there. I added that I honestly didn't feel pressured. I had too much evidence of God's Presence and caring love for each of us to feel responsible for activating that Presence or for making prayer happen for myself or others. More often than not, I felt nourished by the prayer of those gathered with me and others who prayed for me during those times.
Sometime later, I realized with gratitude how much the content of my response had become a reality for me. I really had come to trust implicitly God's work in my life and the lives of others. Leading was not a burden. It was a gift, mostly to me. More and more, it brought me home to myself and challenged me to view my way of being present in other aspects of my life from the perspective of trust.
Yet I realized that this wasn't always the case. There was a time when I fretted through both the preparation for and leadership of events. It was almost as though the fretting was what I had to do to feel responsible. Of course prayer was part of that responsibility, also. So I prayed mightily. I prayed that God would give me what I needed to be effective. However, I wanted to be sure that I had what I needed ahead of time. So I would pray and then set about creating what I thought I needed. During the time of actual leadership, I prayed frequently and fervently, "God, please give me what I need for these people. Let me be open to what you want to give me for them." Then I would get caught between wondering if God would leave me on my own to "deliver the goods" and trying to figure out what the goods were.
I'm almost embarrassed to remember what leadership was like for me then. But that's what I knew and God was very faithful through my diligence. I'm not embarrassed about my preparation and prayer. There will probably always be some place for these. It's just that my way of approaching these preoccupied me with my responsibility. The preoccupation overshadowed trust and receptivity. My work seemed more my show for others, rather than God's show for me and others. I think I missed a lot of what God was wanting to do for me. Then was then and now is now, and something new has been given. When was it given? How did I come to claim the trust that is mine now?
I think the seeds of that trust were planted several years ago when I went with Tilden Edwards to South Africa to work with spiritual directors there. Two things stand out for me about that time. First, before I went, I read everything I thought relevant about the people of South Africa. I listened to anyone who had something to tell me about the spirituality of the people. Then I tried to picture the people I would be with and what their needs might be. I prayed for them and set about preparing input and experiences according to my sense of what was called for. Somewhere in the midst of my diligence I realized that I really didn't have a clue about what I was preparing for. I couldn't possibly know what these people needed because I couldn't ever really know what their experience was. I needed to trust something beyond my ability to imagine what was called for. I sensed that whatever I was to say would be given me in the moment but not one moment before. I trusted that sense (perhaps it was the only thing I could do), but I think I knew at some deep level that what was going on in me was trustworthy. And so I relaxed. Instead of fretting through preparation, I spent my time reading novels. Of course I couldn't shirk responsibility completely, so some of them at least were about South Africa. But I only read what I enjoyed. It was wonderful!
The second thing that happened through this time was that I had a growing belief that I was going to die in South Africa. As that belief crystallized, I began to question, "What is it that I need to do in South Africa? Why am I going there?" I turned my questions into prayer, asking God to let me know my real mission in South Africa. I was sure that if this was to be my "last hurrah" there must be something very special that only I could bring. But as much as I tried to fantasize about what that might be, nothing even remotely heroic or profound showed itself. What finally came to me was that my time in South Africa was primarily God's gift to me, God's way of readying me for the next part of my journey. There was no need to be concerned about my "mission." I only needed to appreciate what was given.
Obviously I didn't die in South Africa. But then again, perhaps some little part of my false self did die there. All I really know about that time is that lessons were taught me that I can't easily forget. When I fall back into old ways of being super-responsible with people in their prayer, I soon become very uncomfortable. Something just doesn't fit with the way trust has beckoned me.
However, this trust has not yet found its way into other parts of my life. Midway through an academic course I was teaching this fall, I realized that I was taking responsibility for what the students would learn, acting as though I believed I really had to deliver the goods to them. I was so intent on my role as teacher that I missed much of what they had to offer me, particularly from the wisdom of their life experience.
Often a similar dynamic is operative when I participate in meetings. As I write this, I am coming to the close of a North American meeting of some thirty sisters of my own community, a meeting I came to primarily because I had strong feelings about a question being put before us. I even thought I knew the answer before I came. Yet something is happening to me in the course of this meeting. I am beginning to realize that there is much I don't know, that we don't know together. And I am willing to hear the little parcels of truth each of us brings. More importantly, I am trusting God to take us beyond what any one of us, or all of us together, can see, and I am learning to appreciate what God is doing in me.
I no longer try to pray on command not only because I know I can't, but also because I know it doesn't fit with my experience of trust. Perhaps now I am being weaned from the need to know on command or decide on command. What will be next? Learning on command? Receiving on command? Perhaps next, or at least finally, will be the graciousness to see the giving and the receiving, the teaching and the learning, all as one and to live trustingly in each moment.
Why Shalem?
by Johanna Greene
"No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." (Matt 5:15-16)
I often speak of "blessings on my journey." Such a blessing has been my calling, which also evolved into my avocation--pastoral ministry to individuals and groups. It has become like a light in these maturing years of my life. This light has shone in many places and now is to emit its rays at Shalem, which I describe to my friends as a serene place for study and spiritual enrichment and whose staff is most congenial as guides and encouragers, a blessing I almost missed. For it was on a Thursday afternoon, in March 1996, that Rose Mary Dougherty and I met to discuss my joining the Shalem program staff.
Time was not a problem, for I had left Georgetown University Protestant Campus Ministry responsibilities, which had required a major segment of available time, and my varied activities at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church and our fledgling sister church, Calvary, were not all-consuming. Also the schedule as outlined would not deny me quality time with my family. I felt prepared by my seminary training, completion of Shalem's Group Leaders Program and my many years of experience in religious programming and ministry in my faith tradition. Yet I was reluctant to commit to coming on staff at Shalem.
My reluctance revolved around a sociological concern as to whom I am to serve in ministry. I question whether my energies should be used solely in my community or be shared again with a broader, all-inclusive community. I suppose this concern stems from the social and economic deprivation and needs in Black communities as well as the accompanying needs for spiritual healing and my sensitivity regarding my initiatives in these situations. Then there are always those thoughts on the real possibilities of rejection by the wider community. After relating these concerns to Rose Mary, she asked me to think more about the offer and call her. Later when I called and told her that I would come, she asked what made me change my mind. Why did I choose to come to Shalem?
I do not remember how I responded then to that question, but since that time, this decision (as some others) was cause for reflection. Why? Why? Is there a solid answer? While my thoughts constantly revolve around the social issues of my country and more closely those of my community, I inevitably return to "my calling, the divine light in my life," what it is and what it requires.
The illumination of this created energy is not just for me but through my knowledge and drive to give to others. Paul says, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us" (2 Cor 4:7). All that I do is not of my own but the power of God through me. To fear the responsibility or to limit access is to fail in my obedience to go where God sends and to do as Jesus bid. Jesus was specific. The lamp is to give light to all even in the times in which we now live where polarization is this country's theme of the day and it is easy not to love those who hate you. People speak of a united America, of togetherness, but for many, circumstances and situations, as well as attitudes and behavior, nullify the intent.
The historic situation of African Americans opens them to vulnerability. I am one among them. I often feel much the way W.E.B. Dubois described in The Souls of Black Folk, "two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." Yet I realize I have something to share with the wider community, for I have been guided and encouraged in ecumenism by such outstanding persons as Dr. Cheryl Sanders, my Christian Ethics professor at Howard University, Dr. Wilhelmina Lawrence, a deceased mentor and an historic womanist leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the World Federation of Methodist Women, and others whom I have read or with whom I have shared in personal conversations.
Further, I believe that the invitation to be an associate of Shalem is the result of the Holy Spirit working through individuals to further guide me on my journey of spiritual formation and sharing. Am I not to hear the summons? As far back as l985, the Holy Spirit had been leading me to Shalem, first through the counsel of Dr. Edward Bauman, then Pastor of Foundry Methodist Church, which led to an introductory group and later encouragement by a seminary colleague to explore more fully the offerings of Shalem--all before the commitment to the Group Leaders Program. I believe all of this just as it has happened was God's way of telling me to be mindful of my calling and to keep me on track. Had not Jesus, in speaking to the disciples told them not to put their lights under bushel baskets but let them shine out before others?
Being with Shalem is part of my witness; this work, too, is my calling. It is not denying attention to my community, for I serve there; it is sharing something of my culture with others. I bring to Shalem my gifts of love, healing and service for the common good. Additionally, it is an opportunity for experiencing the blending of rich faiths and cultural traditions. Shalem's doors are open for study and worship to the wider community including African Americans; knowledge of my presence at Shalem may encourage my sisters and brothers interested in contemplative spiritual enrichment to feel more welcome. God wants no distinction made in whom will share in God's glory or kingdom. To those who acknowledge the family of God and the oneness in Christ, "from one blood, many nations and people come." If there are those who reject the light that shines through me because of whom I am, they remain in darkness. This is my witness, this is my call! The lamp is lit--it gives light to those who use it. I travel to Shalem with joyful expectancy, being open to the Spirit for still richer meaning in my life.
It's All Light
by Gerald May
"The light shone in the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it. We saw its glory, endlessly overflowing with love and grace." (John 1:4 14)
After two years of writing personal-experience articles for Shalem News, it's time to exercise my intellect again. Perhaps you'll join me. What I want to do is develop some of the concepts about contemplative awareness that I first described in Will and Spirit fourteen years ago.
From a psychological standpoint, we can define contemplative awareness very simply as "openness to what is." This entails two basic qualities. The first is immediacy; contemplation is grounded in the present moment. The second quality is openness. In contemplative awareness, attention is panoramic, not focused on one thing to the exclusion of others.
The two qualities are interdependent. Thoughts of the future or memories of the past do occur in contemplation, but they do not kidnap our attention away from what is happening in the present moment. Similarly, we may be involved in an immediate task, but it does not keep us from being open to other thoughts, memories, or sensations that occur. In other words, we are open to whatever happens within and around us--nothing preoccupies.
I believe this is our natural state of consciousness, the kind we are born with. But for most of us it does not seem normal. It is not what we're used to, because we are in the habit of trying to concentrate on one thing at a time. Contemplative practice involves unlearning these habits of focusing attention. It is a rediscovery of how to relax our brains so that thoughts, feelings and perceptions flow naturally and with ease.
This requires willingness to relax our tendencies to grasp and cling, easing control over what comes into our minds, and letting go of personal agendas. For this reason, contemplative practice is often not easy. In easing control, one needs faith and courage; faith in some essential goodness, and courage to take risks where faith seems shaky.
The good news, though, is that we need not be concerned about the content of thoughts or perceptions. Whatever arises is part of the present moment, part of contemplative awareness. It requires no judgment. As long as they do not preoccupy us, the contents of awareness need not affect contemplation. And there is no need to be concerned about distractions. If one is simply open to what is, nothing can be a distraction.
Besides these two qualities, there are two fundamental kinds of awareness. The first might be called objective. It is awareness of something: sights, sounds, thoughts, etc. The second kind is simply being. To call it subjective isn't quite accurate, because there's no particular subject. It's just being. The two kinds of awareness coexist simultaneously. Right now, for example, you are aware of the words you're reading and some of your reactions to them. That's the first kind, objective consciousness. But in addition, you are also directly experiencing being here, being aware.
This being-awareness has not been given much attention in Western psychology. In Will and Spirit, I called it "direct consciousness," "bare attention," and "consciousness without content." I drew parallels between it and existential concepts like Heidegger's dasein ("being there") or Karl Jaspers' description of consciousness as the "manifestation of being." Recently, psychologist Daniel Helminiak has called it "unreflecting" consciousness. He notes that Francis Brentano, one of Freud's teachers, described this kind of consciousness as "inner perception" as distinct from "inner observation," and that Bernard Lonergan called it "consciousness-as-consciousness" in contrast to "intentional consciousness."
As I said in Will and Spirit, being-awareness is paradoxical. In one sense it is the essence of self-awareness, but it contains no sense of self-as-subject. In fact, it makes no subject/ object discriminations whatsoever. Helminiak notes that as soon as we try to objectify this awareness, as in, "Here I am, being aware," its immediacy is lost and we are left with only a concept of it. This happens, I think, because objectification demands a dualistic frame of mind--a separate sense of self as observer. Being-awareness is always with us, but is realized only within an atmosphere of union.
Western studies of consciousness have focused almost exclusively on objective awareness: dualistic awareness of or attention to various objects of consciousness. Eastern thinking, however, has developed a greater appreciation of being-awareness. For example, some Hindu schools coalesce being (sat), consciousness (chit), and bliss (ananda) in a foundational concept of satchitananda. In some Tibetan Buddhist teachings, pure presence (rigpa) is distinguished from dualistic mind (marigpa). Both are manifestations of the basic "luminosity" of the mind, which we would call awareness. In one particularly beautiful Tibetan poem, the mind is likened to a flowing river that eventually joins the ocean, "Where the child-light and the mother-light become one."
From a practical standpoint, the prism of one's consciousness at any given time projects a multicolored spectrum that falls somewhere between open awareness and focused attention, between immediacy and preoccupation, between dualism and unity, between awareness of and being in.
The thing is, it's all light. As I understand it, contemplative life grows as awareness becomes more open, immediate, and immersed in the unity of being. Yet there is a way in which contemplative awareness also encompasses the entire spectrum of possibilities. It is big enough to hold dreams and reveries as well as just-this-moment. It can include carefully looking-upon one thing as well as the oceanic perception of all things. It honors a sense of self-and-other as well as being-in-union. Like the "mother-light" that births all consciousness, contemplative awareness embraces all possibilities. And whether we realize it or not, it is with us always.
A Pure Love Energy
by Yong Chin Denn
My early spiritual development, as I see it, was mostly my own making. Since my youth was during the Korean War, I was largely left alone. My father was declared missing in the war, and my mother left my sister and me with relatives in order to work. In my relative's house I observed their ideas about God. The existence of God was commonly acknowledged and the acceptance of their humble place and our role in God's creation was taught simply in the context of our daily life. Many old, wise stories were told to us about how we ought to serve people and all other living beings we come into contact with in our daily life. Later, my mother came and took us to live with her. She did not have much time for spiritual matters but instilled in us a sense of independence, teaching us to develop a strong self-image.
When I sought God's aid in the first major crisis of my adult life, I realized that I had to let go of my self-image. I could not stand before God and say, "Here I am Lord, this is the way I am," and expect to gain the divine way. Yet letting go of "the way I am" felt like death. Can one exist without a certain way of thinking or being that one is used to? I had not yet gained the divine way, still God seemed to ask me to drop "my way" first.
The wrenching pains I endured during this process of release were much more intense than the pain of my life's crisis, and my first inclination was to abandon my spiritual journey. In retrospect, I see that the pain was inevitable considering the emotional and spiritual state that I was in at the time. However, if I had had more simple faith in God's goodness, I would not have suffered so much fear. God never forces his will upon anyone; he gave us our own free will. When we come to God with our troubles, we are praying that he will give us the grace to see more clearly or grant us his peace and love within so that we can then make our own decision. Our spiritual journey will not make us God's puppets. Rather, we will be more closely approaching the true selves God intended us to be.
From my own bits and pieces of experiences of God, and through reading other people's unitive experiences, one thing has become clear: somehow, we lose the physical, emotional sense of ourselves and merge into all there is and discover that each element is in its place, radiating peace and love. We experience a sense of coming home, a sense of perfect unity and harmony. The fact that we painfully long for it afterward is a further sign that we instinctively feel that that is where we belong. The pure, all-encompassing love energy we feel and yearn for is God.
The homemade image of myself I created before I knew who I really was is not worth fighting for, but its inconvenient intrusions into my daily life must be tolerated. The real meaning of self-sacrifice, or dying to the self, is the death of this homemade self-image. We are deathly fearful of losing this homemade self. Constantly, we try to bargain with God, seeing just how much of our self-image we are willing to let go of at a given moment of our life. It is similar to my experience of learning to swim as a little girl: I remember trying to swim with one big toe always touching the bottom of the pool. Soon I realized that I could not swim as long as my one toe was touching the bottom.
We can clean our actions of selfishness and practice various virtues, yet at some point we need to abandon our homemade self in order to be born from above and see God. We need to reclaim our rightful heritage as children of God, a pure love energy. It really is not a dying experience since the homemade self was only an image, a mask. It is a birthing experience of our spirit being. When the Holy Spirit invites us, we need to simply consent without fear. The only part we are responsible for is to tame our homemade self so it yields to the soul's spiritual journey back to God.
When one is blessed to have been brought up to trust and love God from early childhood, that simple pure faith alone can help overcome fears that arise during one's journey towards God. However, most of us seem to struggle along, our faith growing bit by bit from the tiniest seed of love for God, taking small, fearful steps toward God. During this timid process, our love for God grows little by little. We are like the newly hatched turtles in the spring, blindly yet instinctively crawling towards water. We set out for love from our mother's loving care and travel all the way to God's divine love, looking for perfect love outside us. However, when our spiritual eyes are opened, we drop the pursuit and simply see the perfect love in ourselves and everything which is God.
For me God is pure love energy itself and we are all a part of the love energy within God. With it the duality of subject and object in love relationships somehow disappears. My age-old desire to possess the unconditional love of someone or to have someone to love seems redundant. The unconditional love of every soul is already extended to me. The soul's oneness is such that it is as if a part of me is loving the other part of me. The unconditional perfect love that we are seeking cannot be found from the level of our homemade self. When we connect with others from the center of our being, the perfect love is the only operating energy we will find.
From my childhood relative's house, I walked miles to reach my real home in God. In fact, it took me nearly a half century. Yet I haven't the foggiest idea how to live in my real home as a member of God's household. The verse, "my spirit sent by God, taking nothing with me," gives me hope for now.
Yong Chin Denn is a 1996 graduate of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program. This article is taken from one of her program papers.
The Soul of the Executive
by Tilden Edwards
Said the spiritual elder to the executive:
"As the fish perishes on dry land, so you perish when you get entangled in the world. The fish must return to the waters...you must return to solitude."
The executive was aghast. "Must I give up my work and go intoa monastery?"
"No, no. Hold on to your work and go into your soul."
(adapted from Anthony de Mello, "One MinuteWisdom")
The great spiritual challenge now is this: how can we live from our souls amidst our work and daily living? Living from soul is living from the core of our true nature, where divine energy infuses our being with loving wisdom. Then the divine image in which scripture says we are made is freed to shine through our being and doing. When we are empowered to live from soul in our daily activities, we become a blessing to life.
The Sufi mystic Rumi once said that we have the energy of the sun in us, "but we keep knotting it up at the base of our spine." The sun is God's energy in our souls, ready to purge the dross of our lives and transform us into gold, into radiance for the earth. If we only allow it.
At some deep level I suspect we all know this is true. But with so much in the structure and values of contemporary society that subvert this knowing, we often need the company of others who can help us claim the depths of our soul. We need soul friends who stimulate and support our wanting to live from the divine Sun, whose rays are always ready to stream through us and melt our delusion, fear, and willfulness. That soul company includes not only the physically living but our spiritually living ancestors as well, whose recorded experience expands our spiritual imagination and encourages our freedom for God.
Shalem tries to provide such company for many people. Now we're about to offer it in a new program to a vocational group that has major impact on the way our society and the world are being shaped for the future: executives who hold significant positions of leadership in different but increasingly interdependent sectors of the society. These executives often work under tremendous pressure from conflicting constituencies in jobs that can sometimes be lonely and soul-wrenching. They operate in an environment of unprecedented societal changes. Temptations to cynicism, narrowly defined individual and corporate self-interests, and other soul-denying values can impact the choices they make. The organization's employees and families, and its larger social and ecological environment, all are affected by executive leadership. We all have at least an indirect stake in important workplace decisions concerning people, products and services, and the values they reflect.
The models and support for spiritually grounded organizational leadership are few, and yet if we are to truly thrive as a society in the next millennium, such grounding is imperative. We need leaders in government, business, education, and the church who desire to lean back into the guiding wisdom of the Holy Spirit available in the midst of every situation, however obscurely. We need leaders who believe that a fundamental dimension of their calling is to partner with the Spirit through the maze of daily decision-making, contributing to the common good. We need executives willing for such partnering even where no one around them is consciously doing so and their spiritual leadership must be circumspect and trusting of the Spirit's hidden life in the organization.
We believe that such leaders can find courage and help from one another and from the wisdom of contemplative spiritual tradition and practice. Every kind of vocational group needs support for such leadership, but Shalem wants to begin with executives, because they affect both so much of what happens in the workplace, where so many people today spend most of their waking hours, and indirectly what happens in the larger society.
The climate feels right to offer such help today. The Spirit is moving--pressing many executives to find deeper spiritual ground for their leadership and lives. The practical riches of contemplative understanding have much to offer executives who search for ways to live out of a larger spiritual vision and practice in their work and daily lives. This is why Shalem will be offering a new two-year extension program, The Soul of the Executive. Our hope is that over time we will have helped to evolve an increasingly large and varied cadre of executives who are committed to spiritually-grounded leadership and mutual support, whose fruits will contribute to the unfolding of God's shalom in the world.
Besides building long-term, honest community and support as spiritually-motivated executives, the program will have two other purposes:
- To develop deeper understanding of the divine-human relationship, especially as experienced in Christian contemplative tradition and as it applies to concrete issues of personal life, the workplace, and societal envisioning;
- To learn spiritual practices that can assist openness to God's liberating presence in the moment and lighten the power of false "gods" that numb our souls. These purposes will be carried with due attention to the kind of society and leadership needs that are emerging today.
The program will also have three residencies. The first will meet for five days at a retreat center in the Arizona desert; the second a year later for five days at a retreat center in Maryland. The third will be a two-week pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Sinai desert, where we will seek the relevance of Jesus' and other spiritual leaders' transforming influence at the font of Western spiritual traditions. Before and between residencies, participants will have staff resources and one another's support for their own spiritual practice, reading, and spiritually-grounded leadership efforts in the workplace and beyond.
Shalem has a long history of working with spiritual leaders on a sustained basis. We want to offer that experience now for executives who are ready to explore and claim their calling as spiritually-grounded leaders. We especially want to include the preponderance of executives who work in settings that require a certain hiddenness in their living out of this calling but where its fruits will speak for themselves.
The faculty for this unique program will include experienced Shalem staff as well as a number of nationally distinguished leaders. As a group they will bring a broad range of spiritual, societal and institutional experience and vision.
As a final and important note, we need your help. We feel that the best way to interest people who are ready for such a program is through those who know us and who know executives in significant leadership positions in any sector of society. These executives might include, among others, mid-level or higher executives with significant responsibility for others in business, education, government, not-for-profit organizations, and bishop-level leaders in the church. We are looking for people who want to bring a fuller spiritual dimension to their executive leadership and daily lives and who would welcome the encouragement and support of other executives. Please consider any one you know who might be right for this program.
The program brochure will be sent you in a special mailing in March. More detailed materials will be available from the office by request. In the meantime, we ask for your prayers as we begin The Soul of the Executive extension program.