Journal of Sacred Work

   A cartoon in a recent edition of The New Yorker magazine shows a man with an anxious look sitting in an armchair. His wife is instrucing him: "You should never engage in unsupervised introspection."

   In addition to pastors, psychiatrists and pyschologists, there is a whole new set of occupations springing up in America to offer help to each of us with our "introspection." Life coaches are now available to help us maximize our life experience. Spiritual guides are availabe to aid us in probing the depths of our spirituality. Combined with these are a growing army of fitness trainers to make us exercise, yoga teachers to help us increase our flexibility and our sense of calm, meditation trainers to help us nurture the center of our serenity, and integrative medicine practitioners who meld the best of eastern and western medicine.

   At long last, new versions of ancient healthcare practices have finally found a foothold in contemporary western civilization. In general, I think this is a good thing. Sure, it's possible to overdo anything. Sometimes, people who have spent a certain time working in these areas can even become self-righteous in passing judgment on others who, they believe, haven't yet "done their inner work."

   The fact is, many people avoid intense introspection because it's hard work and can lead any one of us to a set of very difficult questions – the central one being whether our life has any meaning or not. Yet, spiritual guides of one kind or another can be invaluable in helping us navigate our trickiest passages successfully.

   What counts is our willingness to ask ourselves these hard questions in an effort to ferret out our truth.

   Carole, a dear friend, shared with me what the opposite view can look like. A member of her Presbyterian church complained that Carole's husband was asking "too many questions about faith in church meetings." She said, "Carole, if your husband is going to keep raising so many provocative questions why doesn't he just go to a church where more people agree with him?"

   This woman doesn't want anybody disturbing her with inquiry. Clearly, she has a different idea about church than I do. She wants to be in settings where everyone agrees. 

   Perhaps, this is an understandable position for someone who either has a weak faith or a high desire for conformity and sameness. A church where everyone thinks the same thing may also be comfortable for someone who comes to church seeking complete harmony - a nice, tidy structure in the presence of as an escape from a personal life that may feel chaotic.

   As you may imagine, I prefer an environment where people are not only free to discuss different understandings of God but will challenge how faith is practiced. Those with solid faith welcome questions and discussion because the questions help them with their own introspective search. In other words, their hearts are open.

   The real choice for caregivers is to find ways to enrich their own beliefs through a balance of introspection and active expression of beliefs through work. In this way, we can be our own best spiritual guides to each other.

   In more than thirty years of advancing what I call "The Gospel of Loving Care" in hospitals and charities, I have found widely different understandings among caregivers about what Love means in their own work. Challenges from others have helped me enrich my own understandings of Love.

   The only way we make no progress in our personal spiritual journey is if we stop asking hard questions and accept easy answers.

   The caregiving milieu is a good a place as any for each of us to look into the mirror of our soul to ask ourselves: "What does my belief mean to me and how am I living Love today?"

   What do you think?

-Erie Chapman