I’mportant

June 29th, 2019 | Click to Comment

This morning I had coffee on my front porch—a rare pleasure that takes more time than I can usually afford. Or so I’ve long convinced myself. Apparently I believe there are more important things to do than taking in the abundance of an early summer morning. That belief has probably caused me to miss out on a lot of other good things as well.

There are so many things I can’t take time for, I tell myself all too often. I have important things to do. I’m portant. As if goodness and value is something I need to manufacture.  As if there were not something more vast and wise and powerful that wants to show up through me.

The sure sense of what’s important grows distorted when it becomes “I’m portant.” I’m portant says that that the quality of my life and of those around me is all about me—what I do, what I know, what I contribute. I’m portant is what happens when I lose connection with the source of life and instead believe everything hinges on the effort I make to be safe and worthy and loved.

“Portent” foreshadows what’s to come, and I think of “I’m portant” in that way, as if I’m the one determining what’s to come, as if I were in charge. When I’m trying to be the prime generator of my life, I lose touch with the greater reality. It’s like struggling to touch bottom when I could simply let the water hold me up. Or trading away my place in the magnificence of creation for a small world of my own making.

So I’m practicing creating some space between me and the day’s demands. I’m trying to discern the truly important priorities as opposed to the ego’s clamor of “I’m portant.” Pausing to enjoy the world helps me remember that a vast and powerful life force causes everything to unfold, including my life and work. I have a part to play, but I don’t have the job of making it happen by myself. In fact, when I act as if it’s all up to me—believing that I’m portant—I cut myself off from the flow of life that would carry me forward.

Of course, there’s the reality of everyday life to navigate. Showing up at work, getting kids to school, arriving for appointments on time is part of an orderly, responsible life. We can’t always sit on the porch. But making space within the calendars that drive us is part of a life well-lived.

We are more than our schedules and obligations. Every moment marked by the clock is also a moment that manifests what is timeless. There is a greater reality in which we live and move and have our being. In the moments when we can remember that, there is peace.

Those moments enjoying the lavender budding on new stalks, a wren hopping across the porch, and even the ubiquitous morning glory vines winding up in new places, feel a lot like vacation. I feel connected to a world that encompasses more than the current political climate, one that isn’t pitching me to buy anything.

But old patterns die hard. Part of me wants to focus on the weeds that need pulling. “I’m portant,” is the message when those weeds call to the self that is driven to be useful, to get things done, to make the place look good. Yes, there is a time for weeding. But that work can be held in a wider context, one that honors and appreciates the living, growing world.

I do better when I remember that I’m not so portant after all. My mind is clearer when I’m not trying so hard to think. My heart is more open when I bring awareness and compassion to my own limitations. I move through the world more graciously when I can relax and receive the sensory information all around.

Perhaps instead of portant, I can be present.

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Why I Work with the Enneagram

May 14th, 2019 | Click to Comment

When I began studying the Enneagram, it was to understand more about myself and others. The Enneagram is great for making sense of why we do what we do. But figuring out our type is only the beginning of what is possible. I continue working with the Enneagram because it offers a path toward transformation.

Diagram of the Enneagram

To briefly explain, the Enneagram (from the Greek ennea, meaning “nine”) names nine basic types of people, with nine different essential gifts and inherent challenges. We have access to all of these human traits, but our Enneagram type colors how we process our experience. Our type is the lens through which we view the world.

Understanding our Enneagram type makes possible a new level of self-awareness. Appreciating the basic human longings that motivate the nine Enneagram types naturally cultivates greater compassion for ourselves and others.

But it’s important to remember that our essential self has no Enneagram type. Our type is the coping mechanism we formulated long before we were conscious of what we were doing. Our type is the way we found to make our world ok when our essential well-being felt threatened. 

Our type structure helped us when we needed it. As life unfolds, the consciousness and self-awareness that makes us human also gives rise to a sense of self-doubt and disconnection. As we grow up, there comes a time when we lose our natural connection to the joy and vitality of being alive. Or to put it more poetically, we inevitably experience being expelled from the garden.

When that happens we work to overcome what we perceive as our shortcomings, and we do this in the nine basic ways named by the Enneagram. We reach for our strongest gift, believing it’s up to us to create or earn a sense of connection, safety, or worth.

Understanding our Enneagram type helps in those moments when those deeply ingrained automatic patterns show up. We begin to notice when habitual impulses try to take over, and we learn to pause. In the space created by that pause we can be more perceptive. We can consciously choose what to do. This is the path toward transcending our type structure and becoming free.  

In this way, noticing our type structure in action comes to serve as a bell of mindfulness. When we realize we’re being driven by old patterns, we can learn to respond differently. Instead of automatically following our habitual escape patterns, we cultivate the ability to stay present. In doing this we lay down new neural pathways and begin developing responses that we consciously and freely choose.

Working with our type patterns helps us to wake up. We learn to see more clearly and act more effectively. We experience how the divine life force sustains us. We learn to differentiate between our true self and our conditioned responses. We become less susceptible to toxic influences, whether in the form of external situations or internal patterns. Instead of relying on unconscious coping mechanisms we learn to be present to ourselves and to the situation as it is, and to act from a place of higher wisdom.

I haven’t mastered all of this, of course, but I’m grateful to be on the path. Working with the Enneagram has placed me into the flow of life in a way that brings a new level of beauty, meaning, and connection.

I’d love to serve as your companion as you make your own Enneagram journey. Write to me at susan@mildlymystical.com with your questions or to schedule an Enneagram typing interview. I’m happy to meet you at my office in Lexington, Kentucky or online via Zoom.

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Cynthia Bourgeault and Practicing Presence

April 25th, 2017 | Click to Comment

When Cynthia Bourgeault introduced the contemplative practice of centering prayer at the Festival of Faiths in Louisville last week, she spoke of different practices and traditions as being like colors of the rainbow. Each color is part of the one light, a unique and beautiful aspect that informs our understanding of the light.

I was eager to attend Bourgeault’s talks because her book, The Wisdom Jesus, has been so important in opening my reading of scripture. She is tiny, a package of concentrated energy. Calm and unassuming, with a delightful sense of humor, she bristles with life as she teaches.

Meditation is like putting a stick into the spokes of the monkey mind, she said. It’s all about noticing our thoughts, seeing our patterns of thinking, and letting them go.

Whether we call this practice meditation, centering prayer, or something else, it’s a practice of making ourselves available to a higher mind. It’s an intention to move beyond the machinations of our calculating ego.  As Bourgeault puts it, centering prayer is a practice of returning to God whenever we notice a thought arising. How does one let go of a thought? She demonstrated by standing onstage with her arms outstretched, holding a stick in one hand. She opened her hand and allowed the stick to fall to the floor. Just like that. Let go.

This inner action of letting go becomes the outer action of letting be, she told the audience. It’s hard to value this spiritual practice at first. What can it possibly accomplish? What’s the point when there are so many other things that need doing?

But in this practice of gently releasing the mind’s tyranny, we open ourselves to another way of perceiving. We practice another way of being. For a brief time we allow a higher wisdom to move through us, and slowly learn to permit that flow in more and more aspects of life. We get beyond how the ego thinks things should be, and learn to be present to what is.

Bourgeault describes this as putting the mind in the heart, yielding a new way of perceiving. She calls it the key to practicing compassion. This deep sense of compassion, beyond what she terms ego and activism and do-goodism, is putting on the mind of Christ. From this place true transformation happens.

As we practice this way of being, we place ourselves in the presence of God. As we get out of the way we allow God to flow through us. As we let go of our ego’s agenda we become available to the flow of our authentic life and experience our connection to others.

The energy in the room was palpable as Bourgeault led us in a silent session of centering prayer. I understood for the first time where the phrase “tugged at my heartstring” comes from as I experienced just such a tangible sensation.

Sitting in meditation it looks like nothing is happening. But there’s more to our lives than what meets the eye.

 

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Connecting with the Beauty of the World

July 18th, 2016 | Click to Comment

This week’s homework assignment for a class I’m teaching on creativity and spirituality is about connecting with the beauty of this world. It can be a stretch to manage that when news of the world’s violence is an assault on the psyche. The New York Times is talking about the need to limit our exposure to media; even the FBI is advocating taking deep breaths.

Daisies in Blue Glass

It may seem counter-intuitive to look for beauty in a time of such turmoil. But we need this life-affirming discipline now more than ever.

Beauty speaks to us of hope, of abundance, of a life force that endures. Beauty assures us, through an affirmation deeper than words, that being alive matters and that what we do has meaning. Acts of kindness, the grace of the natural world, and the perseverance of love and growth are places where I see the beautiful.

The Irish priest and poet, John O’Donohue, spoke of beauty as that in the presence of which we feel more alive. I’ve written more about this kind of beauty as a guiding value here, and you can hear a conversation between Krista Tippett and John O’Donohue here.

The world is worth paying attention to. The part of it right in front of us is as important as any other. Considering that it is the realm in which we have some influence, our immediate environment is most important of all.

There is every reason to focus on the work that is in front of us, and to take refreshment in the beauty that presents itself every day. To move through the day open to perceiving beauty is to live with an open heart. Our world needs more of that.

 

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Encountering the Tarot

June 23rd, 2016 | Click to Comment

I recently took part in a Tarot workshop called “Exploring the Tarot – A Tool for Insight and Contemplation,” led by Brian Relph. I expected it to be an interesting intellectual exercise. The images on the cards have spoken to people for hundreds of years, and I looked forward to delving into their symbolic meanings. But the workshop turned out to be an experience not primarily of the head, but of the heart.

This card has to do with juggling, keeping things in balance, and play

This card has to do with juggling, keeping things in balance, and play

 

The images came to life as they addressed the ongoing concerns of the workshop participants. We considered the feelings that arose from looking at a card in response to questions such as “What phase of life am I in now, and what awareness would be helpful to me?” or “What supports me in meeting this particular challenge?” Wisdom and insight emerged from considering how the energy and meaning of a card intersected with a particular aspect of life.

Having worked extensively with dreams, exploring images from the Tarot felt somewhat familiar to me. It was noticing that these images sometimes turn up in dream work that inspired me to learn more about the Tarot. These shared archetypal images represent universal patterns of human existence across time and throughout the world. We manifest these archetypes in our individual lives, but each of us lives them out in our own unique ways. The meaning of a dream element, like the meaning of a Tarot image, comes from the intersection of the universal and the particular.

There is ancient Judeo-Christian precedent for seeing dreams as messages from the divine. In both the Old and New Testament, dreams are a way of receiving heavenly insight and guidance. While it may not be common these days for Christians to work dreams as part of their spiritual life, it is part of our spiritual lineage. Tarot, however, is an unfamiliar tool in the Christian theological world view. We may believe that divine wisdom is available all the time through prayer, but if that wisdom arrives in an unfamiliar way it is often seen as suspect. It’s simpler and easier to reject the unfamiliar.

Yet people of faith find many different ways of becoming ever more aware of and attuned to the divine. We rely on the spiritual structures we put in place to encounter the help and guidance that are available to us all the time. Some look for insight conveyed through scripture or in worship. Some invoke the help and protection of the saints, carrying a St. Christopher medal when traveling, for example. Wisdom visits us through signs in the natural world, or a book that suddenly calls for attention, or the sudden resonance within a conversation.

Working with the Tarot is another way of paying attention. It’s not about fortune-telling. This misconception about (or misuse of) the Tarot as if it were for predicting events is similar to a common misunderstanding about the Old Testament prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah and others were not trying to foretell events that would occur hundreds of years into the future. They were speaking clearly and directly about Israel’s current situation. The prophets were able to do this because they were deeply connected to the wisdom of the divine, able to anticipate the outcome of Israel’s ongoing actions. Yet when later generations look back at their divinely inspired words for guidance, their insights are so keen they offer a lens for interpreting current-day experience and seem to anticipate future events.

In processing my experience of the Tarot with my spiritual director, he asked where I thought the wisdom was coming from, or what it was I encountered through working with the images. The best answer I have for the time being is that the archetypes depicted on the cards open the door to a wisdom that comes from deep within. Yet this insight originates beyond my individual experience; it taps into the universal experience that connects us all. It’s what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, or what is recognized in the greeting Namaste—the divine in me acknowledging the divine in you. It is the Source of all life, available in every moment, offering itself to us if we will just pay attention.

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The Better Part

January 29th, 2016 | Click to Comment

I have long wrestled with the story of Mary and Martha* in the gospel of Luke. In my reading, Martha is a worker; Mary is a listener. Martha is active; Mary is contemplative. As the two sisters host Jesus in their home, Martha is busy with the tasks of running a household while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet absorbing his teaching. Martha is angry about doing all the work herself, and insists that Jesus have Mary help out with the chores.

Mary and Martha with Jesus, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin

I understand Martha. It takes work to keep a household or anything else running smoothly. Martha wants to offer the finest hospitality to this amazing teacher. Perhaps she would have liked to sit and listen, but it takes work to provide a clean bed and a good meal.

Jesus responds by speaking kindly to her, noticing that she is worried by many things, and offering a different perspective. He points out that the work she thinks is necessary is actually distracting her from what is most important. Whatever standard Martha is trying to meet, it isn’t set by Jesus. He wants her to know that she is made for more than the treadmill she has put herself on. Jesus didn’t show up just to add to her chores.

I understand Mary. She is drawn to the wisdom of this new teacher and the power of his presence. She sets aside her normal activities, recognizing that this is no ordinary guest, and gives him her full attention. Yet following her heart means not living up to others’ expectations for what she should be doing. It’s not easy to disappoint Martha, who doesn’t share Mary’s priorities, and lets Mary know that she’s not doing her part.

Mary and Martha in stained glass, St. Patrick's, Dublin

I have long wished the story would show Jesus inviting Martha to sit down and listen, then have everyone pitch in with the chores.

We all have mundane tasks to do. But it’s important to recognize what merits setting them aside. Jesus refuses to send Mary back to her usual tasks just as she is beginning to hear his life-changing teaching. Mary has chosen the better part, he tells Martha. Jesus doesn’t want us doing more chores, he wants us to be transformed.

Mary and Martha both live inside me. There’s nothing wrong with Martha wanting to get the job done. The world is in need of a great deal of work. But the world needs Martha to lend her strength and skill to the most important tasks. In a world of “shoulds,” how to discern what truly is the better part is a question always before us. We need Mary and her ability to recognize what is genuinely life-giving.

Carl Jung offers an insight regarding his patients’ growth that applies to the tension between Mary and Martha:

All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble . . . They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This “outgrowing” proved on further investigation to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient’s horizon, and through this broadening of his or her outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge. (as quoted by Matthew Fox in Original Blessing)

We need both Mary and Martha, not in opposition but in a complementary partnership. We need a higher level of awareness that incorporates them both. I like to think of Martha spinning a cocoon, Mary yielding to the transformation that happens within it, and through the work of the Spirit, a new creation emerging into the world.

 

*The text of the story is brief, found in Luke 10:38-42. Here it is, in its entirety:

Now as they went on their way, [Jesus] entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

 

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Compassion, Hospitality, and Beauty

September 26th, 2015 | 2 Comments

At the Spiritual Directors International conference in Louisville this year, Krista Tippett spoke of beauty as a core moral value. She noted the connection of beauty and vitality, and described God as being present in beauty. She mentioned mathematicians who say that if an equation is not elegant and beautiful, it is likely not to be true.

 

UCC Washington, DC - Fountain

 

Influenced by the late John O’Donohue, she spoke of his distinction between beauty and glamour. O’Donohue taught that Beauty is that in the presence of which we feel more alive.

As a seminary student I came to love Vermeer’s “Woman Weighing Gold” aka “Woman Holding a Balance” because the print hung outside the office door of one of my professors. During my years in school, as I stood in the hallway waiting to talk with him I was given that rich image to contemplate.

Waiting brings particular attention to our surroundings. The places where we are required to wait speak clearly about the respite beauty can offer, or the grimness of its absence. The intentional creation of welcoming space is a sign of true hospitality. A thoughtfully chosen object or image can infuse a time of waiting with beauty and grace.

Individuals and organizations who understand hospitality find ways to offer nourishment for the soul in the arrangement of their physical space. In this quiet way, they make the world better. In his book, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, John O’Donohue says:

[beauty] calls us to feel, think, and act beautifully in the world:

to create and live a life that awakens the Beautiful.

The places where we wait are often filled with stress. We wait to be seen by the doctor, the government official, the interviewer. As we take in the space around us, we feel the presence of compassion. Or its absence. Unfortunately our culture has come to accept television screens as a way of offering hospitality in waiting areas. What a different environment we could create if those funds were spent on works by local artists. Yet far more spaces are arranged without any thought beyond offering a chair.

Where people have a choice about entering, spaces are generally more welcoming. Where people are required to show up, the setting is more likely to be utterly utilitarian, holding neither warmth nor tranquility. If, as John O’Donohue describes, we feel more alive in the presence of Beauty, then the palatable sense of beauty’s absence creates a space in which we die a little.

Buildings, and the spaces within them, are expensive. They require work and attention just to maintain. Given the investment already made in the physical facilities, why not use them well? Particularly when people are required to wait in a particular space, why not cultivate a peaceful environment that might carry through the entire workplace? Why not offer something beautiful to experience, granting a moment of tranquility in the midst of the day?

The UCC (United Church of Christ) in Washington, D.C. is an example of an intentionally hospitable space, not only for those who enter but for everyone who walks by. In the midst of a busy city, the walls of the church are made of glass so that passersby can see a small fountain inside. Simply to observe the flow of water across the stone disk and into the pool below is to feel a space opening in one’s psyche. What a gift, as well as an indication that this may be a rare place for the soul to thrive.

 

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What Happens When We Pray

August 11th, 2015 | 2 Comments

I’ve recently spent time wandering through some of Ireland’s ancient monastic sites, and I continue to think of those monasteries and the beautiful settings where they were built. The buildings are in ruins now, emptied by war and worldly powers. Yet for a time these sites were a refuge for books and learning, and a place where Christianity met Celtic culture in a way that strengthened both.

Who could have anticipated the value of these sanctuaries to the centuries that would follow? The books copied by the monks in their scriptoriums salvaged Western learning after the fall of the Roman empire. Today, the religious impulse that gave rise to them permeates the walls that remain standing.

Clonmacnoise Ruins, Ireland

The stone structures with roofs open to the sky are beautiful remnants, the outward form of an encounter with God. Even more, the sense of divine presence in places like Clonmacnoise and Glendalough invites the pilgrim to seek his or her own encounter with the Source.

I happen to also be reading an exploration of prayer by Ann Belford Ulanov and Barry Ulanov, called Primary Speech: A Psychology of Prayer. It’s an encouraging and inspiring description of what prayer can be. The divine intersection of my travels and of reading this book is something the Ulanovs would see as an answer to prayer, with God’s response often found in the small events of our lives.

In Primary Speech, Ann and Barry Ulanov offer insight into what happens when we bring our full selves to prayer—all our thoughts and feelings, our dreams and regrets, our best selves and our worst. Through prayer, whatever we bring to God is transformed. In bringing everything to prayer we open ourselves, and our lives, to being shaped by the divine—not in a way that denies our individuality but in a way that brings out the brilliance of the gems we were created to be. Prayer opens us to be healed and strengthened, our lives made larger and more joyful.

Primary Speech by Ann and Barry Ulanov

 

We can’t transform ourselves, but we can allow God to continue creating us. When we act on our deep impulse to pray, we experience the God who is always at work in our lives and who responds to our prayer in a variety of ways, which we will notice if we pay attention. Prayer opens a window to the stuffy room of our limited mind, and God is the fresh breeze that enters.

Paul Prather’s recent column on prayer in the Lexington Herald-Leader underscores this lesson for me. In his eloquently straightforward way, he says that even pastors are subject to forgetting to pray when life gets busy. But his recent recommitment to spend quiet time with God every day, even for just a few minutes, has brought him refreshment in the midst of a stressful life.

Prayer changes things. It changes me and it seems to affect the world around me. I’m a novice at prayer and may always be so, but beginner’s mind is not a bad thing. Who knows what might be possible?

 

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A Stealth Version of Lent

February 28th, 2015 | Click to Comment

The season of Lent slipped in quietly last week while folks around here were distracted by monumental snows and plummeting temperatures. Ash Wednesday was cancelled—the whole week was cancelled. Snow and ice along the streets are now the color of the ashes we didn’t wear. Surviving the weather felt like enough of a Lenten practice, and people joked about wanting to give up winter for Lent. This week the snow has melted enough to reveal the tips of daffodil fronds, but Easter still feels a long way away.

 

Maple Shadow and Robin on Snow 2015-02-28

 

But in spite of this stealth version of Lent, somehow a Lenten practice found me. Or rather, a constellation of practices both inner- and outer-directed. They balance each other. Some fill the well for me. Some are ways for me bring water to others.

I’ve been reading some excellent books, practicing meditation and doing “morning pages.” Complementing those inward disciplines are some outer commitments I’ve made. Through them I’ve been meeting some wonderful people, doing meaningful work at my church, and leading a group through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

I can’t take credit for arranging this rare balance; I’m simply grateful for it. Lately I’ve been trying to notice and respond to what life/God/the universe is putting in front of me, and what is arising within. “Synchronicity” is another way of describing this sense of things coming together. I think Paul refers to the same experience in Romans, when he talks about all things working together for good. Being open to the question of how God is working in and through my life seems to be leading to a place of balance and wholeness. At least for now.

There is much to be concerned about in the wider world. But in the midst of it all, my hope is to continue paying attention to the work that is mine to do.

What are you noticing these days?

 

 

 

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Pictures of What I Remember

June 27th, 2013 | 4 Comments

I’ve been waiting for pictures this week—something I haven’t done in a long time. The digital world has made images so immediate, it’s easy to forget what it’s like to anticipate them. But I wanted to be entirely present for my son’s wedding this past weekend in a way that is not possible behind the lens of a camera. Happy to be there amid so much love and celebration, I was glad to leave the photography of the wedding and reception to others. This photo is one of the last I took, on the way to the wedding with the bridal party.

In the meantime, my memories have been fluid, nebulous, undefined by the images that usually arrive almost instantaneously to anchor a special moment. Emotion colors the scenes I remember, like a gauzy filter on a lens or the highlighting of a face, a smile, the fringe of a dress, with a round, lightened spotlight in a crowded field of vision. A diminutive Swiss army knife pressed into duty for the tiny scissors embedded on its side. There will be no pictures of exactly what I remember, and those are the ones I want to catalog before the jpgs arrive, filling this space in my mind.

Daisies dropped gingerly up the aisle, strewn in a careful zigzag by a beautiful flower girl, who in her desire to do well was perfect. My daughter’s “I love you” to her brother as she walked with the bridesmaids, a handkerchief of my grandmother’s fluttering from the bride’s bouquet to the chancel step, my son’s eyes welling with emotion, hearing “let’s do this” as the beautiful couple held hands to face each other with excitement, strength, and humor. No hesitation. Tuesday night date night forever. They are so young, life presses hard, but they value what matters. The exchange of handkerchiefs as well as vows. Gathering as “part of something greater than all of us.” The joy of sunflowers.

A room transformed with wide blue ribbons the color of the Caribbean Sea, with delicate white branches and glimmering lights. A dance with my son, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” his saying “I’m happy” as he radiated joy enough to share, a hug that embraced all our life together. A jazz band calling couples to the dance floor, gaining momentum, carrying the young dancers, then driving them, faster and faster, not missing a beat, beads twirling, until the dance could almost transcend their bodies, as movement, rhythm rose into the air flying on outflung limbs, thrown from fingertips, everything left behind, nothing existent outside of this moment, nothing held back, everything lived.

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