Going Inward, Introverts, Extroverts

 Going Inward, Introverts, Extroverts

“ The world isn’t meant to work; but it does provide the arena for the advancement of individual consciousness.” Robert Johnson private conversation in John Sanford, Mystical Christianity, A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John, p. 301.

Those who have taken the inner journey can be changed, more aware of who we really are and who our neighbors are. I remember how  especially helpful it was for me to learn about extroversion and introversion in my workplace. Extroverts process their thoughts outside their head, talking out loud as they process. Introverts process inside and do not speak until they think they have something to say. I had a partner who I learned was an extrovert. When we were working on a difficult medical problem, he was talking and going over all possibilities while I said nothing. I always thought he was just so much smarter than myself because I never gave an opinion until I thought I knew the answer. I started to believe that I needed to study and work harder to come up to his standard. I began not to believe in my ability. A bright light bulb was turned on when I learned that the two of us just processed information trying to solve a problem very differently, one talking outside and the other talking inside to find an answer.

In spiritual direction, extroverts will usually talk more freely about their soul because they are processing outward. The difficulty is keeping them on tract about the spiritual journey rather than their emotional journey. Introverts have more difficulty sharing their spiritual journey as they are processing it inward. Directors may need to ask more specific questions about their journey. “ Where has God been in your life since we last met” is always a good starting place with both type of spiritual friends.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

David Whyte: Business of the Church

David Whyte: Business of the Church

“…wanting soul life without the dark, warming intelligence of personal doubt is like expecting an egg without the brooding heat of the mother hen.” David Whyte

I picked one of the poet,  David Whyte’s book, The Heart Aroused, to study at the Haden School for Spiritual Direction for two reasons. Whyte is the favorite author of the priest I worked with for five years who actually toured with him on sabbatical before our working together. I wanted to understand better the priest I was working with by reading something that was so meaningful to him. Whyte’s message speaks to the “business” of church just as it does to the corporate world, maybe even more so, for the business of the church is taking care of the soul. Whyte’s answer is finding and developing our creativity, which I see now that my priest tries so hard to do daily, and that I do as well. Secondly, my daughter has Whyte as a mentor in her masters creative writing program. My daughter is the essence of creativity, so I see even more clearly why I so admire her. Whyte reminds us that the day we get our desk cleared will never arrive. The empowered manager has an understanding of his own dark side. We must embrace failure as an essential part of the path of creation. We must treat life as a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be solved. We are called to say no to everything that does not nourish and entice our secret inner life out into the world.

Whyte is not only a poet, but a story teller. I identified with the story of Fionn being innocent and being in the right place at the right time when I did not always deserve it.

Whyte tells the story of Agamemnon and Cassandra as a total split in the internal soul-life of a person with the masculine and feminine turning their backs on one another.  Whyte tells the story of Coleridge’s restless ever-moving image of starlings as a perfect description of the shifting starling-like nature of the corporate workplace with shifting boundary lines between chaos and order.

The focalizer or one who focuses a team is a better term than manger. With an overwhelming situation, one might step back and ask for an image. Whyte’s advice when he is lost in the forest is “stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.” Trying to run complex companies by imperial command from top down is the most unnecessary burden carried by any manager. It is a lack of trust in the essentials of the system, people. The hierarchical system based on power from the top cannot plan for the wild efflorescence of impossible events we call daily life. 

Whyte asks us to deal with simple elements rather than the one complex system, think locally, act locally, intuit globally, let workers have a say in the hiring of team members, let behavior emerge from the bottom up, focus on emergent behavior instead of the final result, stop treating people as if they are animals about to stampede out of control unless you are  constantly riding the herd, educate them into everything you know and ask them to learn more than you know, let them experience your failures, and  do not form a flock.

Do you have more thoughts?

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Ash Wednesdsay

 Buechner: Lent

“In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year's income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year's days.” Frederick Buechner,  Originally published in Wishful Thinking, from Frederick Buechner Center, Frederick Buechner Quote of the Day.

We  begin our Lenten journey on this Ash Wednesday. It is a day to remember our mortality, "dust you are and to dust you shall return."  I think of my favorite aunt who had Alzheimer's for over ten years who died today on Ash Wednesday.

 I  watch the members of our parish receive the imposition of ashes. Some have cancer or are ill, and I know well they worry whether they will be present in this body at this church next Ash Wednesday.  Some  are filled with tears at the altar.  I wonder who will meet death face to face before next Easter.  Could it be even myself or a member of my family?

I travel in time back to the Cathedral School where I remember comments from the elementary students as we placed ashes on their foreheads. “Will it stay on? How do I look? You look funny.” Now a  beautiful young mother holding her three month old baby girl comes up to the altar.  Our priest puts the sign of the cross on the mother's forehead.  I do not want her to put the cross on this baby's head.   I watch as she asks the mother and then puts the black ashes on the tiny forehead.  The little girl does not cry out, but  I want to stand up and cry, "No, Don't do that!"   My life profession has been to  take care of small babies.  I do not want  to think of this  precious one  dying.  I will not permit it.  I still have no answers as  how to handle the death of a child. 

         Ash  Wednesday is a reminder of our immortality.   I still have difficulty with it.   There is  a huge part of me that lives as though I and others will live forever.  Easter tells me there is more than this life, resurrection,  what Barbara Crafton calls The AlsoLife,  but I  still cling to this present moment. 

I think again of my aunt.  In fact, I feel her presence.  A friend calls to tell me that a dear friend is having her first  baby today and has asked  for prayers.  I pray that the spirit of my aunt will be by the bed of my friend to guide and protect her and her unborn child. 

One friend dies, another is born.  We all carry the  blackened sign of the cross on our forehead. I return to the Cathedral School and  remember a sermon by Beth Maze, “creation is made from dust.”  

It is good that we have  these forty days to ponder all this.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com