Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

Insights: Inner Life @ Work

Today, another great interview from On Being. This time it feels like a ‘turning of the tables’: Krista Tippett interviews Tami Simon from my other favourite podcast, Sounds True. The show is titled: Inner Life at Work. I’ve had good reason to reflect on my work of late, on the physiological and psychological effects of environment, people and the socio-political realities that are inherent in workplaces, and indeed any gathering of people. 

Tami Simon is the publisher and CEO of the multimedia publishing company Sounds True and hosts a weekly podcast series called Insights at the Edge. 

Excerpt 

“…Something I learned specifically from Reggie Ray in … meditation training, [which] was so helpful to me in meditation practice and also in meetings and in every situation really, a long business dinner that's going on for four hours. What I've noticed is that I come into the front of the body.

So that means when I say come into means like my energy, my attention is more forward and there's even a sense of kind of leaning forward and it's the sense of like pushing my agenda. And there is a somatic correlate to that energetic of pushing forward and I've got something to say and here's how we should do it and I know the right way. All of that comes from being in the front half, if you will, of the body and pushing forward. It's going to be this way.

I notice when I bring my attention back so it's just sort of in front of the spine or even further back, back, back, there's actually this creation of room once again to receive other people. And the ideas that are somatic architecture, meaning how we are in our body actually creates a state of being that communicates so much to other people…”

You'll find the podcast here. 

A Religion of Your Own

I’ve been listening to a podcast interview with Thomas Moore, aired on the Voice America / 7^th Wave show Abundant Living. The episode is titled: A Religion of Your Own. 

Among a number of themes Moore discusses his new book A Religion of One's Own (Gotham Books) which will be available in January 2014, although as at today it’s not yet listed as a pre-order on Amazon.com. 

Moore discusses: 

• The distinctives in the terminology around the use of the terms religion and spirituality
• Our need for psychological and religious maturity – a religion we can own as ours.
• How the arts can help us to explore complex and subtle issues around psychology and religious health. 

Moore encourages people to actively study and deepen their understanding of their own tradition, while, from the depths of that tradition nurturing an exploratory willingness to engage with and enrich ones own religious tradition with the insights and perspective of other religious and spiritual traditions, practices etc. He encourages people to develop the spiritual practice of spending time in nature. He explores how a contemplative approach contributes to religious depth. Run time for this episode is approximately 57 minutes. 

As always with Moore, there are some really valuable insights, and I found it an encouraging and affirming conversation. 

You’ll find the conversation here. 

Uncomfortableness, a Necessity for Growth

“…No matter what your type, remember that we must be willing to be uncomfortable for a while if we wish to be released from whatever has bound us…” 

- Understanding the Enneagram, p. 361. 

Ignatian Spirituality & Silence

Ignatian Spirituality has been really important to me over the last decade. Indeed it has been the most significant input into my formation and journey; it and the Cistercian spiritual tradition, which for me goes back further, to 1995. 

My first encounter with Ignatian spirituality was in 2002 when I read what was then Paul Mariani’s just published book Thirty Days: On Retreat With The Exercises of St. Ignatius. Mariani was at a crossroads in his life and so he decides to do a “30-Day Silent Retreat”; to complete St Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester MA (which, given it’s beside the ocean is a retreat house I’d love to do a 30-day retreat at). During this time he discovers “…that his expectations and assumptions about who he is, what he knows, and what he believes are about to change radically…” Ignatian spirituality does that to you! It was a fascinating read, and I was ‘hooked’. 

Jonny Baker recent had the opportunity to go to a retreat house, St. Buenos’s in North Wales, and to do a 10-day silent retreat. He records some reflections, and offers some photographs here. 

For more in St. Buenos’s and the experience of silence I would highly recommend the BBC2 TV series (screened in 2010) The Big Silence – “Abbot Christopher Jamison, a Benedictine monk, believes that he can teach five ordinary people the value of silent meditation, so they can make it part of their everyday lives.” More information here. 

The series is available on DVD from The Way which is the name of a wonderful Jesuit journal (on Ignatian Spirituality) but it is also the publishing arm of the British Jesuits.  

Becoming More Fully, Deeply and Authentically Human

Back in 2006, my friend Len Hjalmarson asked me a few questions, including “How do I understand ‘Spiritual Formation’?” Now, in 2013, I re-read my answer. Did I still hold to what I’d expressed back then? Yes, but even more deeply so. I struck by how much further down the “rabbit hole” my life experiences and questions had taken. For example, I hinted at the importance of “vulnerability”, but that has taken on so much more importance; has become more deeply embodied in my life. Has taken my through experiences, and to places I would never have imagined back in 2006. So, there’s a consistency, but there has been added more depth, depth as a consequence of life experience, and ongoing personal change and growth. 

Here was my 2006 response to the question already noted:   

“Christian Spiritual formation, in many ways hinges on how we understand the word “spiritual,” i.e. what does it mean for us to be spiritually formed?

Spirituality, it seems to me, has a lot to do with what David Bosch describes as being in tune with what God is doing in the world and participating in God’s work (missio Dei). It also has to do with being in tune with what God is doing inwardly in us – for this too is part of the missio Dei. 

At the end of the day, however, Christian spirituality has simply to do with our responding to the increasing vitality and sway of God’s Spirit within and without us. “...Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing...” (The Message, 1 Cor. 2:10-16). 

A friend, Mike Riddell talks about a “vibrant spirituality... [One] that needs to be earthed, conversant with human suffering, attainable within the complexities of life, holistic, creative, communal, and contextual.” Christian spirituality nourishes ways of being vulnerably and openly human in the face of such complexities. It’s concerned with the heights and depths of life. 

Provocatively perhaps, given that we don’t use the word much nowadays, I have a lot of sympathy for any definition of Christian spirituality and spiritual formation that has at its heart a theology of becoming holy. As Geoffrey Rowell has said well, the quest for holiness is the quest for God, and that quest turns out, we discover, to be God’s search for us. This is pure irony, given that in focusing on our formation and on my spirituality, we often miss the point, that this is about God, its about our responding to God who loves, woos and invites us to become more whole and holy than we currently are.

The Spiritual and the Religious

“…To discover who I am I need to discover the relation in which I stand to an active, prior Other, to a transcendent creator. I don’t first sought out who I am and then seek for resources to sustain that identity…” 

- Rowan Williams, 2008. 

More here. 

Installations and Stories

I’ll never forget an art exhibition; a big series of installations I went to in Melbourne quite some time ago. I always get so much inspiration from others creativity; their imagination; the way they see things; the differences… 

Cheryl Lawrie is a gifted artist, a person I had the pleasure of meeting and enjoying a few wines and a conversation with many years ago at a gathering in Auckland. She’s one of this people that “inspire” me from afar.

Here’s an example of the kind of creative and evocative work she’s involved in curating, which I ‘revisited’ this morning, station by station: 

“…What we always hope for, from the spaces, is that people will encounter a moment of transformation; where they can put their story against a bigger story of life; where they can have their story held and honoured. There’s only a tiny part of that equation that we have control over. My nervousness in advance isn’t ever about whether we have prepared a gorgeous space [that's a given, with this team!]; it’s about whether we have prepared the kind of space that people can enter into and make their own. Over this last weekend we saw people changing in the space – coming in boisterous and belligerent for example, leaving hopeful and calm. We heard whispered stories of grief and promise and confusion. We had repeat visitors from people who just wanted to keep coming back, because they’d thought of another story they wanted to tell, or a truth they wanted to whisper: I think I might be gay… my girlfriend has just found out she’s pregnant… am I ever going to do more than this?

It was a beautiful space… and it went something like this: …” 

Read about it here. 

The Enneagram: Recommended Resources

The four books I keep coming back to with respect to The Enneagram system (wikipedia entry) are: 

 

The Everything Enneagram Book (2007) by Susan Reynolds. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Enneagram in Love and Work (1995) by Helen Palmer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and Others in Your Life (1988) by Helen Palmer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Essential Enneagram (2009) by David Daniels and Virginia Price – this is the best “little” book, providing a wonderful summary of key features of each type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

More academic / technical

The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul (2000) by Sandra Maitri. 

The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues: Finding the Way Home (2005) by Sandra Maitri. 

Specifically “Christian” 

The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (2001) by Richard Rohr OFM. 

While not without some degree of criticism, in my experience The Enneagram is a wonderful tool for growth and change; for working with what Jung call’s our shadows and our pathologies for the sake of health and wholeness. If affirms strongly the gifts and richness of difference, while at the same time aiding in ones quest for self-awareness, consciousness and relational health. Sadly I’ve also seen it used badly – a tool for self-justification, blame, avoidance, and manipulation etc. 

From a Spiritual Direction point of view it’s a really important too. Really useful too in relationship-counseling and such like. 

Authoring Your Life

A brief and thoughtful article - Are You The Author of Your Life’s Story? –written by Thomas Moore. It’s from the Jan-Feb 2013 issue of Spirituality and Health. 

Excerpt: 

“…The word author comes from the Latin for “increasing” or “growing.” An author creates something new. In the best of worlds we are each the author of our own lives. But it often feels as though someone in a position of authority is taking over the task and writing our story for us.

And yet each of us has the challenge and the opportunity to create a new way of being human. We grow ourselves. Along the way, we may listen closely to someone we respect and admire and give that person a key role in our creative process. We share our precious authority. We hope they will help us author our lives—but only as long as we ask them to…” 

You can read the complete reflection here. Clearly too there’s and important, indeed a critical need, from a Christian perspective, for the work of “authoring” to include opening (ongoing...) to the deep and transformative work of the Spirit. There’s the importance too of community, of friendship etc. This isn’t just “our” work as individuals.

Defining, Practicing, and Integrating our Spirituality

“…How do we define, practice, integrate our spirituality? Unless our spirituality is more consciously evolved, we will lead superficial lives governed by routine, addictive behaviour or collusion with the collective. Our spirituality is the most critical field of relationship, for from the quality of our spirituality comes the tenor and outcome of all relationships…”

- James Hollis.