“Spirit and Work: Finding Spirituality from 9 to 5”by Sally Boeckholt September 5, 2004
Earlier this summer, I attended a 10-day training in Chicago with the Industrial Areas Foundation, a training which focused on doing broad-based community organizing. Our church is involved in a local IAF project, with an organization called AMOS. Throughout my notes from that training are multiple examples of tension – between our private & public lives, between the dominant, market-based culture and the volunteer-citizen culture of church, between the world as it is and the world as we want it to be.
As I prepared to talk to you today, Denise Daniels called me about her project with the Home Connection. She had seen that my talk was to be on spirit and work and mentioned the tension between the profit-driven world and the world of service…a tension which I hadn’t even gotten to!
All our lives are divided. On one hand, we have the life of the spirit. Whether grounded in nature, God, our fellow humanity, or simply wonder at the unknowable around us, spirit is focused on love, wisdom, joy and prosperity. On the other hand, we have work, the earthly effort to support our lives. To recognize the tension between these two sides of our lives is to begin to find a way to reconcile it.
I work in the accounting office of a non-profit corporation. My job description is about reports and organization. The only abundance we concern ourselves with is the abundance (or lack) of funds to pay our employees.
How can the two connect? Do I hang the Seven Principles on my cubicle wall or light a chalice to start the day? Oh, wait, no flames allowed in the office – scratch that. For the amount of time I spend at work, it seems important to not have to leave the “me” that is spirit in nature outside the door.
So how do I bring my “walk” into work on Monday? I say “good morning”. I don’t gossip. I tell people “Thank you”, “I can do it”, and sometimes “I made a mistake.” I engage in 10 minute one-on-one conversations with co-workers in order to know them, and for them to know me. I pay attention to places where negative energy is taking over, to situations where a quiet, hopeful response might help a conflict.
This is spiritual work?? For me, yes. It is spiritual for me because it brings me into the present moment and it brings me into right relationship with my co-workers. These are concepts which embody the idea of Spirit for me.
What is spiritual for you? What part of you would like to seek fuller expression in your work? As you become aware of what practices could open your soul in your work, it is possible to pack them into your briefcase and take them there.
Another angle of “incorporating” spirit into the 9 to 5 is to expand the view of your job, to think about its value as a “part of the earth’s furthest dream.” This contemplation can help us to see our individual work as something more – not “just” a job. Yet how many times do we frame it that way? I’m “just” an accountant – I’m not inventing an AIDS vaccine. I’m “just” a teacher – I’m not creating world peace through my work in the Middle East. But we can expand our view. For example, if we can begin to see that being in peaceful relationship with co-workers is a part of world peace, then we are bringing spirit into our work. We begin to see ourselves as flutes through which the hours turn to music in concert with the other instruments in a world-wide orchestra at work in offices, factories and fields all over Earth.
Several weeks ago, Anne Boyer asked me if I would give the sermon on Labor Day Sunday. The request came at the end of a very long work day. I think my defenses were down…I said “yes”. I thought “I’ll speak about Spirit & Work, it being Labor Day week-end and all. I’ll grab a couple of books, do some research, and – voila! – the 15-minute sermon will emerge, tied up with a bow.”
Not exactly how it happened.
As I read, wrote and talked with friends about work and spirit, I recognized a growing agitation within me regarding my own efforts to engage in spirit-infused work. Although I had identified the ways I “did Spirit” at the office, and was able to see a bigger picture of my work in the wider world of my community, something was still missing.
It seems that some Cosmic serendipity may have been at play when I told Anne “yes”…
At 10-day training, one of my teachers asked me “Are you thinking about changing careers?” and I answered “I’m thinking about thinking about it.” He said that was a good answer. This conversation came back to me as I wrestled with my agitation and boredom.
Then, two weeks ago, I was working in the office here at church, finishing up some accounting task before leaving my position as church bookkeeper. It was late in the evening, after 9 o’clock. Moira Leu was here for her small group, and she stopped by to chat after it was over. I was at the end of my accounting rope. I was tired. I was cranky. My spiritual self was a thousand miles away. And you know what she said to me?
She said “Quit your job.”
Now, some of you may know that Moira did just this in May, so advice from her on the subject is worth listening to. She jumped without a net – no other job lined up, no plan for what the next chapter might be. Even with her husband Brad there to support her in the decision, I still thought she was pretty brave. In addition to Moira, two other friends have quit their jobs this summer – one to pursue a new career, the other to do some long-postponed self-care.
Talking with Moira reminded me of an article I’d recently read about Frances Moore Lappe, who dropped out of everything in her life – her job, her other commitments – because she wasn’t being filled by what she was doing. She spent the next six months mostly in the library, following her interests, reading and studying and writing on the subjects which intrigued her. Out of that period of “not working” came her book “Diet for a Small Planet”, which became a classic, and launched what became (and continues to be) Lappe’s life-long work for the cause of environmental sustainability.
When I left for home after talking to Moira, I was ready to give my two-week notice.
My daughter said “But only ½ of this year’s tuition’s been paid, Mom.”
Oh, yeah, well, that.
The next day I came into work. I didn’t give my notice. Dropping out for six months like Lappe did may not be possible. Money IS an object. Commitments made require attention. Again, tension.
I ready about Lappe in “Hope” magazine, and the topic of the article was not “How to Quit your Job and Become Spiritiually and Financially Successful.” The topic was fear. Yup, fear with a capital “F”. Because what stops us from doing what she did – from leaving jobs that don’t fulfill us – is fear. Fear that we will become financially bankrupt, fear that what we want to pursue is ridiculous, fear that we are not up to the challenge of work which is calling to us to be done.
Emerson said “Be careful what you set your heart on, for it will surely be yours.” I say “Oh, no.” Because that old buddy Fear shows up big and bad. It says that dreaming is for at night, not for in the light of day when the real world tells us that we gotta stick to that which we know will pay the rent. So, like the tension between our spiritual life and our working life, I was faced with the tension between wanting to know my heart’s desire and simultaneously being terrified at what that discovery would mean.
Because if I discovered that desire, if I named it, I would be bound to pursue it… and what it? What if? What if?
But
– the tension, like all tension, can serve
me. By recognizing my fears, I am already on
the way to conquering them.
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