Journal of Sacred Work

Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

A recurring theme has emerged like weeds in a garden, finding its way into scientific exploration, leadership development, healthcare, social change, and environmental protection: replace what is broken, create the better product, rethink the programming, reprogram the thinking,  refit the body, recharge the battery. Our very language exposes our beliefs that all is mere machinery and that with a little tweaking here or there we can expand the potential for a few more miles, a few more days, a few more turns on the dial. When we are slowed by a steep climb or a heavy load, we press harder and look for ways to control the results so they meet our desires. For some the inability to control turns into fear and anger, for others melancholy and sometimes despair sets in.

Decades ago we began to envision ourselves and our work as mechanistic – something controllable – and in the process we lost sight of spirit, passion, compassion, love, those qualities that no machine can ever possess. We put on the masks of doing-well, high-performance, quality-control, focused-output, and precise-efficiency all in the name of organizational commitment. And when those with whom we work fail to respond as we wish, the problem becomes their lack of motivation or sense of responsibility, or obstinacy, rebellion, laziness, or selfishness. We, when honest in self-reflection, so easily begin then to look to someone else or something else that can just fix those problems!

Scholar Margaret Wheatley asks the question “Are expectations of machinelike obedience and regularity even appropriate when working together?” It seems we have lost sight of our very humanity and the intricate, interwoven, connectedness that we are and must be in our human being-ness. We hear cries for change, justice, and even peace but somehow look to others to brings those things about, hoping they can occur with no cost to our selves.

We seem to be in denial of what is a real interconnectedness, believing that what happens to a child in a small hovel half a world away does not threaten me or my children. Our recent economic waves around the world suggest we are more interconnected than we perhaps want to admit. The homeless man we pass on the street is our brother, the quiet elder sitting in the waiting room is our mother, the hungry child looking through wide eyes captured in a moment’s snapshot is our child.

It takes great authenticity and integrity to live from the core and substance of spirit, passion, compassion, and love that makes us human, to live interconnected, woven together by Love. Fear holds us back, keeps us from speaking up or reaching out, but what is it we fear we might lose? What do we fear might happen (or not happen)? What keeps us from reaching across the table to make contact with a gentle touch? Why do we let silence grow into an icy gulf when one softly spoken word of concern would bridge the gap? It takes courage to love boldly; it takes perseverance to love broadly. Love connects us, but fear can break its strands. What keeps you connected to others through Love’s healing force?