Ennegram Again and Epiphany

Enneagram Retreat again and Epiphany

“The good news is we have a God... who remembers who we are, the person who knits us together in our mother’s womb, and who wants to help restore us to our authentic selves.”–Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile in The Road Back to You (IVP Books 2016), p. 23.

Our former rector at St. Mark’s, Danny Schieffler, once invited the staff to the retreat center for our diocese, Camp Mitchell, for a day to study the Enneagram with Presbyterian minister and therapist Rebecca Spooner. Usually, staff retreats are about planning sessions for the year or exercises, such as the Myers-Briggs personality inventory study, to see how we can better relate to each other.

Knowing someone else’s Enneagram number can be helpful. Still, the heart of the Enneagram is about personal growth, learning about the mask we have developed for survival, and finding our true self, the person God created us to be.

So, our rector gave us a day away from our usual work during a busy liturgical season for our own personal enrichment. I wish I had done that when I was in the medical field, letting those I worked with know how much I cared about their individual growth. Let this remain an example for all of us.

This was my third Enneagram study course. The well-known sin of my Enneagram number is pride, and it was front and center when I heard about the retreat. Of course, I already knew all this. But to my amazement, I learned much more. This is my second lesson I learned. Exposure to a spiritual tool such as the Enneagram is more awakening each time we go through this process.

We spent much time on the Enneagram during my spiritual direction study. More and more, I see why. This tool helps us know who we are, the mask we have developed that has become our persona, and what the world thinks we are to make our way in the world.

Rebecca reminded us of Richard Rohr’s famous definition of the Enneagram, “the coat and hat we put on to weather the storm.” This persona has helped us survive, but we are now searching for our true selves, the person God created us to be. Learning about our Enneagram number can lead us to find our relationship with God that this mask we have developed has blocked.

The Enneagram is not for everyone. Rebecca reminded us that it is only one tool in our spiritual toolbox. If it is helpful, stick with it. If not, there are so many other tools to connect us to God. But if we relate to it, there is more gold than we can imagine.

This ancient tool has been proven to be true over many centuries. Epiphany is a great season to learn more epiphanies about ourselves through the Enneagram, especially if we study it with other spiritual friends.

More about Dreams

More about Dreams

“If we go to that realm (the inner life or unconscious) consciously, it is by our inner work: our prayers, meditations, dreams work, ceremonies, and Active Imagination.

If we try to ignore the inner world, as most of us do, the unconscious will find its way into our lives through pathology: our psychosomatic symptoms, compulsions, depressions, and neuroses.”—Robert Johnson in Inner Work, Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth (Harper&Row 1989), p.11.

My spiritual director best helps me and others connect with God through dreams. Dreams are certainly one way that God, the dream maker, speaks to us. Studying our dreams is like learning a new language. It is the symbolic language of the unconscious. We connect to the unconscious with dreams, imagination, synchronicity, coincidences, or serendipity.

We study our dreams, learning about personal symbols specific to us. For me, the sea, water, and trees speak most often to me. However, there are also collective symbols that are universal, such as water representing the unconscious, light being our consciousness, a child being the creative part of us, animals representing instincts, vehicles representing energy or how we get along with a car representing our independent energy, and buses, planes, trains being collective energy.  

Dreams also speak in the language of mythology, fairytales, religious rituals, and music.

 Consider learning about dream work as a spiritual practice. Join a dream group. The gold in dreams is more easily and richly mined with the help of others. Two initial books to learn more about dream work are Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson and Natural Spirituality: A Handbook for Jungian Inner Work in Spiritual Community by Joyce Rockwood Hudson. Both are also excellent books to read together in a group.

If this spiritual discipline interests you, simply keep an electronic or old-fashioned notebook by your bed, write down your dreams as soon as you awaken, and see what happens!

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

 

 

C.S. Lewis: The Great Divorce

C. S. Lewis: Great Divorce

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done..”’—C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

The Great Divorce is Lewis’ classic study of the difference between living in heaven and living in hell. In hell, people become increasingly isolated and separated from each other until they lose all communication. Then, before the great distances develop, there is a bus stop where groups of people in hell can go to heaven on a tour bus ride to decide if they want to live there instead. Spoiler alert! Only one person stays in heaven. The rest return to their life in hell. It is a choice.

With each character, Lewis describes what keeps each of us in hell. My favorite is the bishop, whose intellect holds him in hell, as he must return to hell because he is scheduled to give a lecture he does not want to miss.

Other characters remain in hell because they cannot recognize joy. Others see all the difficulties in life as someone else’s fault. Some stay connected to their material goods, which means the most to them. Some find people “beneath them” in heaven. One sees heaven as a trick. An artist must return to hell to preserve his reputation.

The Great Divorce is an excellent study for a book group, especially in Lent, for people to share which characters they most identify with. Lewis hands us a mirror to see where we fail to recognize we are still controlling the show and living in hell and have forsaken the gifts of heaven on this earth.