Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People [1 ed.] 9781952901249, 9780989758147

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Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People James R. Dudley

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Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People James R. Dudley

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New International Version. © copyright 2019 North American Association of Christians in Social Work P.O. Box 121 Botsford, CT 06404-0121 ISBN 978-0-9897581-4-7

Dedication of the Book To Joanna, my loving wife who has always encouraged and supported me, Pat O’Neill, my beloved spiritual director and guide for over twenty years, and Andrew Kille, a special spiritual mentor who I will not forget.

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Acknowledgements I have numerous people to thank for helping me prepare for and complete this book. They include three groupings: spiritual mentors who are authors, spiritual mentors in my personal life, and some spiritual centers. Many of my spiritual mentors have taught me through their writing. Their valuable thoughts, insights, and wisdom have greatly facilitated my writing of the book and have significantly impacted my own spiritual development. The list of these mentors is too long to mention here so I am highlighting some of the most important authors alphabetically. They include William Barclay, Frederick Buechner, Martin Buber, Ed Canda, Anthony de Mello, Bill Dols, Jim Forest, Margaret Guenther, Kathryn Hermes, Martin Luther King, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Henri Nouwen, Joyce Rupp, William Shannon, Eckhart Tolle, Roger Walsh, Dallas Willard, and Sarah Young. Spiritual guides and directors whom I have had the great fortune of knowing and being nurtured by in preparation for and during the writing of the book include John Christ, Conrad Hoover, Pat O’Neill, and Stevens Heckscher Spiritual centers and their teaching staff have also informed and nurtured my writing in significant ways during important retreat experiences. They include the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., Wellspring Conference Center and Dayspring Silent Retreat Center in Germantown, MD, and the Oratory in Rock Hill, SC. The Lectionary study group, Reading Between the Lines, in Charlotte, NC has also been a major source of guidance. I am also extremely grateful to specific individuals and NACSW for their work in the final stages of preparing the book for publication with review, editing, and much support. I am deeply grateful to Rick Chamiec-Case for his loving encouragement and support, and his amazing patience and kindness. Without him, the book would not have been written. Lawrence Ressler reviewed early drafts of the book and provided immensely important conceptual and organizational assistance. David Fritz provided extensive copy-editing support, and Bob Alderink skillfully handled the book layout and designed the cover. v

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Book dedication

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Acknowledgements

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Part I: Introduction to the Spiritual Meditations

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Part II: Meditations about our Conversations with God 1. God in the Stillness

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He said, “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

2. Wrestling with God

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“And there was one (thought to be God) that wrestled with him until daybreak who seeing that he could not master him, struck him in the socket of his hip …” (Genesis 32: 23-32)

3. Conversions on a Continued Basis

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“Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” (Romans 7:21-24)

4. Prayer at the Center

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“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

5. Pray without Ceasing

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“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

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Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

6. Winding Down in Green Pastures

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“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23)

7. Life in our Breath

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“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” (Psalm 150:6)

8. Our Bodies are Ourselves

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“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

9. The Joy of Being Grateful

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“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” (Psalm 103:2)

10. Patience while Waiting

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“I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.” (Psalm 130:5)

11. Facing Darkness

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“If I say, ’Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” (Psalm 139:11-12)

12. Finding God in the Midst of Our Daily Lives

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“Where true charity and love dwell, God is there.” (Excerpt from the hymn, Christian Responsibility.)

13. Just Keep Asking

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“Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)

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Part III: Meditations about our Conversations with the People Whom We Help 14. Discovering Christ in Our Clients

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“… Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? … Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matt. 25:37-40)

15. Service is Our Gift

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“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 7-11)

16. Whom Do We Celebrate?

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“Be careful not to parade your good deeds before others to attract their notice; by doing so you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven. … your left hand must not know what your right is doing, your almsgiving must be secret.” (Matthew 6: 1, 3)

17. What’s Love Got to Do with It?

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“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

18. Finding God in People in Poverty

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“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

19. Discovering God in Our Words “… do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time, you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (Matthew 10: 19-20) ix

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20. Our Neighbors

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“’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39)

21. Overcoming Inclinations to Judge Others

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“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:37-38)  

22. Loving our Enemies and Adversaries

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“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 43-45)

23. The Miracle of Less Being More

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“Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was four thousand ...” (Matthew 15:36-38)

24. Can We See the Miracles?

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“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:6)

25. It’s All About Believing

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“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” (Hebrews 11: 1-3)

Bibliography of Additional Resources

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Appendix 1: Exploring Your Own Prayer Ritual

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PART I

Introduction to the Spiritual Meditations

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any people who help other people tend to neglect their own personal needs. And our personal needs often derive from the demands of our jobs. Jobrelated demands and stress can lead to overextending ourselves in attempts to help others and experiencing a loss of direction about who we are and what we hope to do. We can also lose some of the feelings of hope and joy that we had when we began our jobs. Our personal needs can remind us in so many ways that we need to take better care of ourselves mentally, physically, psychologically, and spiritually. The recent literature on self-care for helping professionals is a valuable resource to consider in addressing our personal and self-care needs (e.g. Collins, 2005; Cox & Steiner, 2013; Norcross & Guy, 2007; Skovholt & Trotter-Mathison, 2011.). When our personal needs are being met through self-care, we can be more effective in our work roles in several ways. For example, we can be more present with the people we help. With more self-awareness we can also head off tendencies to overextend ourselves. When our personal needs are being met, we can have a greater capacity to prevent and manage excessive and unproductive stress. And we can better manage any pessimistic thinking from seeping into and tainting our commitments. Self-care authors suggest balancing our empathy for clients with having a healthy distance from them. These authors also say that positive emotions deriving from our work can be important in helping us effectively cope with and reduce any stress (e.g. Pooler, Wolfer, & Freeman, 2014a & 2014b). Other 1

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suggestions include finding more self-acceptance in just doing the best we can and taking full advantage of our free time for pleasure and rest (e.g. Folkman, 2008). Also, the strengths perspective has contributed significantly to self-care by suggesting that we give more attention to the strengths of clients rather than dwelling predominantly on the clients’ problems (e.g. Saleebey, 2013). The strengths perspective can be used in immeasurable ways to promote self-care for both clients and the people who help them. One of our major strengths can become taking good care of ourselves. Our Spiritual Needs The focus of the book is on our spiritual needs. The book’s purpose is to encourage helping professionals to reflect more deeply on who we are spiritually and how our spiritual self can help us be more effective. Importantly, focusing on our spiritual needs and spirituality is an important way to address our personal self-care needs. The book highlights several ways of depending upon the resources of spirituality and religion, especially resources within Christianity. The book is also presented in ways that people with other religious affiliations or no affiliation can benefit as well. It is also important to remember that spirituality and religion are important aspects of social work practice according to the social work professional accreditation standards (CSWE, 2015). Twenty-five spiritual meditations are presented to help strengthen you as a helping person. An example can help illustrate how one of the spiritual meditations does this. This meditation is referred to as God in the stillness. This meditation calls us to develop a greater capacity to be still and present in the moment and seek a closer relationship with God. The Bible passage used for this meditation is Psalm 46, “Be still and know that I am God.” When we reflect on the meaning of this passage, we can realize that we need to stop what we are doing periodically and seek the comfort of just 2

Introduction

being with God. We can also use “be still” as a mantra to say over and over as a means of centering on it. This meditative theme suggests that by being still, we can be more in the present with ourselves, our clients, and God. The assumption is that we will then be able to rely more on God and less on ourselves. Stillness becomes a slowing down and listening quality that we develop that helps us go deeper to where God can intervene within us and in our helping role. Understanding Spirituality and Religion It is important that we understand what spirituality is and how spirituality and religion are different but also closely related (Dudley, 2016). Spirituality is an inner personal quality that everyone has regardless of whether they are religious. Everyone also has the potential of developing their spirituality. Religion, in contrast, is an entity external to us. It is usually evident in institutional forms, such as the Roman Catholic Church or the Southern Baptist Church. In addition, it is important to recognize that religious institutions offer numerous important ways for people to express their spirituality and that is an important focus in the book. Spirituality is a broad term that needs to be broken down and operationalized to be fully understood and appreciated in the context of the helping process. An overall definition of spirituality adopted by many in the social work profession is “a search for purpose and meaning in life, a sense of being connected with self, others, and the universe, and an ability to transcend our immediate experience to something larger known by many to be God or a Higher Power beyond human power” (Canda & Furman, 2010). The book focuses on how we can grow and further develop our spirituality. In this regard, it is appropriate that we mention the concept of spiritual disciplines (e.g., Foster, 1998; Whitney, 1991; Willard, 1988; Wolfer & Brandsen, 2015). People who follow spiritual disciplines are regularly 3

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committed to something deeper within us that has the potential of becoming a significant part of our spiritual core. Disciplines are essentially habits that we can develop in our daily lives. Spiritual disciplines are positive habits that help us become more centered in, and guided by, God. When we are interacting with others, such as our clients, awareness of these spiritual disciplines can be a source of inspiration, guidance, and direction that both help us and our helping role. The spiritual disciplines most evident in the 25 meditations of the book include service, discernment, prayer, meditation, simplicity, celebration, solitude, sacrifice, confession, submission, journaling, among others. Spirituality has an empowering role to play in the practice of helping people when the helping person is religious. Virtually every religious tradition offers a variety of resources and activities for strengthening and nurturing a person’s spirituality. These resources and activities include such things as worship, prayer, meditation, study, singing, liturgy, physical activities like yoga and dance, study groups and support groups, counseling, confession, and other forms. Perhaps when religion is not a factor, such as for people who are spiritual and not religious, strengthening their spirituality can still be important. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths were among the first Christian denominations to introduce spiritual practices in the forms of contemplation, discernment, consolation, and desolation. Many Protestant denominations have followed these traditions with the introduction of silent retreats, centering prayer and other listening prayers, spiritual direction, and other pursuits that emphasize the perspective that God is present everywhere, both within us and all around us. It is valuable to also remember that other religions in the Eastern World, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, have been practicing mindfulness, silence and solitude, yoga, and chanting prayers in their traditions for thousands of 4

Introduction

years. Furthermore, their spiritual practices are now readily available to Americans and particularly Christians. Thich That Hanh is a good example. This small, humble Vietnamese Buddhist monk who fled to the U.S. in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, has caught the attention of countless Americans, mostly Christians, with a meditative approach of mindfulness that also encourages people to embrace and strengthen their Christian faith. Purpose of Book Keeping all of this in mind, the purpose of the book is to reflect on and nurture our spiritual growth primarily based on Christian doctrine and practices. As already mentioned, twenty-five meditations are presented to strengthen us as helping people. The process of experiencing each meditation begins in the historical context of Jesus and a passage from the Bible that draws attention to one or more of the spiritual disciplines as its focus. For example, the 23rd Psalm is a passage that is used to help you focus on the importance of rest and solitude. Then each meditation brings us into our current world and our personal lives today. A theme that is evident in each Bible passage is discussed along with personal questions to ponder. The intent is to help you go deeper in reflecting on your life as you move as much as possible from your head to your heart. The book can be used as a daily devotional guide by focusing on one meditation each day or two. However, it is primarily designed so that you can take considerably more time with each meditation. Perhaps you may wish to focus on each of the meditations for several days or a week at a time. This extended time can be used to explore personal questions that are raised from each meditative theme. These questions may help readers delve more deeply into study, prayer, and reflection on what this theme means to them. Also, each meditation ends with a list of a few additional 5

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

resources that can be used if there is a desire to go further. As mentioned earlier, one way to approach these meditations is to work with them over and over. Questions are posed in each meditation to help you identify any barriers to grappling with a meditative theme, whatever they may be. Barriers can be such things as being distracted easily, taking on too much in your work, trying to do it alone, or being hesitant to make any possible changes in your usual way of doing things when new ideas may emerge. The repetitive work in these exercises is intended to take us deeper within ourselves where it can be experienced more fully and remain with us over time. In turn, it is hoped that these meditative themes will increasingly become dominant qualities that stay with you and grow as you grow your Christian identity. We can give these meditative themes ongoing attention in our prayer life by talking them over with God and asking for help in these special moments. Going deeper and being more heart-felt are so important. We need to move from our head to our heart and this can take an enormous amount of work. Mindfulness, a secular spiritual approach, can be a major aid in helping us do this. We can clear our mind of internal chatter and external distractions so that God can more freely work within us. Another tool is journaling. By journaling, we can be more conscious of what we have learned about ourselves, remember it, and apply it in our helping roles and settings. Journaling can be used for any of the exercises of each meditation. Journaling helps us write down what we are thinking and feeling in the moment and to identify the joys, insights, and personal challenges that may emerge. Writing them down helps clarify our thoughts and provides a record that we can refer to later. This allows for rehashing our thoughts, or recalling, reinforcing, and celebrating what we discovered at an earlier time. Journaling can take extra time and is most effectively done during our prayer time. The sacred passages that have been chosen are intended 6

Introduction

to nurture and inform us as helping people. Many of us were raised as Christians and have been informed by these sacred passages as children. One example is discovering Christ in the people that we assist, and another is being drawn to help people who are poor, a central focus of Jesus’ ministry. Such passages and their core principles may also have had a major influence over our decision to become helping people, especially social workers. They can be helpful in reminding us of some of our motives for choosing a social work career. Hopefully, they can also be helpful to us as we reclaim their importance in our helping roles today (e.g. Ressler, 1994). The 25 spiritual meditations presented in the book explore and develop many spiritual and religious needs. They include finding and trusting God in our life, the importance of regular prayer, embracing love, being grateful, believing in miracles, slowing down and taking time for rest and solitude, facing dark times, and strengthening our beliefs. These twenty-five spiritual meditations have been selected particularly to nurture and strengthen us as helping people. These meditations are organized around two general areas—conversations with God and conversations with the people we help. “Conversations” is a fitting term because the central aspect of a helping process is a conversation. Conversations with God, perhaps more commonly thought of as prayer and meditation, are most important, and several of the spiritual meditations touch on how we can enhance our relationship with God in prayer. Conversations with God can, in turn, have a profound influence on the second general area—conversations that we have with the people we help. Our conversations with God are intended to help us become more aware of the sacredness of our profession and the special opportunities that this sacredness presents for us to be able to help other people. You may wonder how I selected these sacred passages and meditative themes in particular? They are quite varied and have largely emerged from my own prayer life and in7

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spirations arising mostly at those times. This has been followed by my effort to explore each spiritual theme in more depth as I prayed and journaled about them. Otherwise, I must admit these selections are largely a mystery even to me. I have identified them one by one over a period of about two years. My usual prayer time includes reading a Bible passage selected from the weekly list of Lectionary readings that many denominations use. I usually spend time reflecting on this passage and some of the commentary that is available; then I delve more deeply into what the chosen passage may be saying to me. Out of this process of prayer, study, and journaling, I have ended up selecting these 25 spiritual reflections. I have often used Lectio Divina, an early Christian prayer form, for meditating on each Bible passage and seeking how God may be speaking to me through the passage. More information is provided on how to pray using Lectio Divina later in the book. All twenty-five spiritual meditations are intended to support your prayer life, hopefully making it more meaningful. Some of them have highlighted choosing to follow aspects of the ministry of Jesus. Others were selected because they seem helpful in informing our roles as helping people, and still others are intended to help us focus more deeply on the clients we are helping. All are intended to help us, directly and indirectly, become more effective in our helping roles. Additional Features A short list of “additional resources” of religious and secular readings is added at the end of each meditation in case you wish to go further in exploring a specific topic or theme. After exploring all the spiritual reflections, you may want to go back and explore a few topics of personal interest in more depth. Perhaps a topic like how you can work on being more comfortable with stillness during your 8

Introduction

prayer time, or perhaps to work more on your difficulties with patience. Both are spiritual meditations in the pages that follow. A complete bibliography is included at the end of the book so that you can track down any of the readings. Sometimes, the additional readings are other Bible passages that offer another perspective to consider. This list of additional resources is intended as only a beginning list to consider based on the author’s suggestions. In addition, a helpful guide is included in the Appendix titled “Exploring Your Own Prayer Ritual” in case you wish to devote more attention to your existing prayer and meditation rituals at this time or later. It offers one perspective on a prayer ritual and may or may not be helpful to you. It is an optional resource especially for readers who do not currently have a daily prayer ritual or routine to follow. Readers who do have a regular prayer ritual may also find this guide to be helpful if they want to consider ways to enhance their prayer lives. While this is a book for people who help other people, it may also, at times, have relevance for some of the people whom we help as well. However, there are some important caveats to mention if any of the material is considered for client use. Many of our clients may be faced with circumstances somewhat similar to what we experience. Also, many of our clients may need help in the spiritual realm in some way and we should be well-equipped to respond to these needs when they come up. However, we also need to remind ourselves that our clients’ needs and their readiness to explore these meditations are likely to be very different from how we might respond. Therefore, if anyone chooses to introduce any of the spiritual reflections and the exercises that accompany them with your clients, please be sure that they fully understand their original intent and that they have a choice to explore them or not. Finally, these spiritual meditations focus on issues that in many ways reflect ideals to pursue that will likely never be fully mastered in our lives. Being human beings, and 9

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busy people at that, we are likely to make progress and then forget and fall back as we strive to be the people whom God wants us to be. So please keep in mind that these are ideals that we strive for but may never fully achieve to our satisfaction. We spend our lives trying to internalize them to the extent that we can. I am a good example of this. I have great intentions, but I am not always conscious of these ideals. Not always taking them as seriously as I should, I remind myself of my many imperfections and limited capacity at any one time. Yet, I try not to be hard on myself for losing the way or forgetting to work on being the person God wants me to become. When I recall that I have forgotten the ideal path that I want to pursue, I get back up and try again with God’s help. May you find these spiritual meditations and the principles and ideals evident in them important to you in your helping roles.

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PART II

Spiritual Meditations About Our Conversations with God

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God in the Stillness He said, “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

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e can find God in stillness. “Be still and know that I am God” sounds wonderful! All we need to do is be still according to the Psalmist (46:10). However, most of us may have challenges to overcome before experiencing stillness. Hearing “be still” unfortunately may remind some of us of a reprimand from our parents as children. We had more to say than they wanted to hear. Or we talked back to our parents and the consequence was punishment of some kind. “Being still” as a positive message may seem unfamiliar to most of us as adults. Experiencing stillness may seem far out of reach when people need it the most. During a typical day, we may be too busy to even consider introducing a moment of quiet into our routine. At bedtime, we may have too many loose ends swirling around in our heads, or we are so exhausted that we cannot stay awake long enough to pray. Being still is probably a foreign experience to many people, with our tendencies being to mostly expect noise of some kind, stay busy, overschedule, rush through our day, 11

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

worry about what we should do tomorrow, try to ignore or push back inner and outer chatter, and perhaps try to find stillness outside of ourselves rather than within. Being still is also usually foreign to much of what a social worker’s work world is like, too. Our tasks are many— being observant of what our clients need, attempting to engage them and develop empathy with them, encouraging them to share what is on their minds and what they need, followed by helping them find solutions to their problems. And often, all of this is supposed to occur within a short time frame. We are also expected afterwards to recall and record all their important comments for accountability purposes. Stillness can be a desirable goal, but it must compete with these and other demands. Yet, if stillness finds a way into our routine, it can bring calmness to us and our clients. Further, it can help us remain in the present moment with both our clients and colleagues, a desirable place to be if we are to be effective. We need to have some perspective on this. Not all cultures are like ours. Being still can be a natural experience in much of the Eastern World. And among those who practice mindfulness in the United States and those who immigrate to the U.S. from countries with these and other traditions. Indeed, people with such a background will likely have a natural tendency to strive less to do and more to be. Virtually all of us will want stillness if it can bring us closer to God. However, the key question is: how are we to do this? In our prayer life, we will need to spend less time in our heads and more in our hearts. Being still is mostly a heart-felt experience. We must learn how to relax and free ourselves from noticeable distractions. We need to empty ourselves of our own thoughts and emotions so that God has our full attention. Still other challenges await us when we do try to experience stillness. When we attempt to bring more stillness into our prayer life, we are likely to be overwhelmed by internal distractions. The quieter we 12

God in the Stillness

become on the outside, the more noise we may experience on the inside. Internal chatter inevitably appears when we sit quietly, partially because of the unfamiliar void that is created within us. However, if we find that such chatter is interfering with our stillness, then we can follow some basic guidelines from the practice of mindfulness. We can just observe our chatter without engaging it. We can view it as a sensation that is external to us. We observe it, remain a passive spectator, and gently nudge it away and return to stillness. We can select and say to ourselves a sacred word that we choose, such as “Lord,” “Jesus,” “Love,” or “Peace” whenever the chatter re-emerges. Saying this word can bring our attention back to God’s stillness and away from the chatter. We gently repeat the sacred word over and over until the internal chatter disappears. Exercise: Please briefly assess what your experiences are with being overextended. Are you overscheduled, too busy, often exhausted, or preoccupied with things of the past or future? Are these problems for you? If so, spend some time recognizing how they may affect your life in a negative way. Next, take time now or when you are free to complete an exercise to be still in the moment! Begin by finding a place and time in your schedule that is free from interruptions. Possibly begin by lighting a candle or setting up an icon or other spiritual object in the space in front of you. The flames of the candle or possibly the eyes of Christ in the icon may be seeking to reach you and help you disengage from your interruptions. Continue with this exercise as long as it feels comfortable. Afterwards, reflect on what this experience was like and ponder some questions. What did this experience of being alone and still feel like? Was it relaxing and comforting? Or was it difficult to do and challenging to manage your internal chatter? Consider the comfort and awe that can 13

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be brought to your consciousness when you are still. No worries, no thoughts of any kind, just rest and relief in the moment with God. Nothing to do or expect. Nothing to accomplish. See if you can find a regular time and a quiet place to experience more stillness during the days immediately ahead. Additional Resources: 1 Kings 19:11-13; Cunningham & Egan, chapter 8, 1996; Hicks, 2009; Williams & Penman, 2012.

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Wrestling with God “And there was one (thought to be God) that wrestled with him until daybreak who seeing that he could not master him, struck him in the socket of his hip …” (Genesis 32: 23-32)

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o you ever find yourself wrestling with God? You may not have thought of the other party as God. You may have identified it as something going on within you, and God not being consciously identified. Maybe you experienced tension between two differing viewpoints that you have mulled over, and it is as real as if someone or something keeps doing battle within you. And it may occur in your sleep like it did with Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, the founder of Judaism. Jacob had tricked his father, Isaac, into giving him the family blessing and inheritance that was supposed to go to the oldest son, Esau. Jacob had also manipulated Esau into trading his rights as the first-born son for a warm meal when Esau was in a desperate moment of hunger. At the time of the dream with God, Jacob was preparing to return home to make peace with Esau. He had fled from home and been away for several years by this time. Jacob had to be worried about what Esau would do to him after all that he had done to Esau. Maybe during his wrestling match in his sleep, he was struggling with his conscience. How could he have done such harm to Esau? How could he betray his father, Isaac, into thinking he was Esau to obtain the family blessing? On the other hand, maybe he 15

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

was attempting to justify what he had done as being of God. He may have been trying to convince himself that he was deserving as the leader of a Jewish State that was emerging. Our internal struggles with God may not come close to being like Jacob’s. But many of us have, at times, struggled with and prayed about a decision that we had to make that was important to us and to God. We can view it as a process of discernment. It may have been so important that we found ourselves facing it in our sleep where God is sometimes most alive to us. Try to think of a real struggle that you have had or are having within yourself. If you have such a struggle, it might be worthwhile to ask in your prayers the name of the source of any struggles. If you don’t ask, you may never know whether God is somewhere in this tension wanting to speak to you. And you may also overlook a critical message that you need to consider. Maybe you could talk with this adversary in your prayers and find out what he or she wants of you. Maybe like Jacob, you could ask his or her name. You could ask it in several ways. Maybe ask “Are you God?” or “What do you want me to think about?” or “What am I to learn in this wrestling match going on inside?” Sometimes you may be trying to decide something. You may find yourself wanting to decide, as quickly as possible, what initially makes the most sense or is the easiest way to proceed. Possibly you want it resolved just to get it behind you. Maybe earlier in the day you took a strong position on something important to you and now you are not so sure. You are torn about what others might think. You might have made a fool of yourself. Decisions could be about whether to explore a new job or discuss an ethical issue with your boss. Or maybe you are wondering if you should bring up a controversial political issue with your spouse or a colleague. Or maybe you feel unsettled and anxious about spending too much money on yourself. Or unsettled about missing your support group 16

Wrestling with God

this week or a church service that was replaced by your choosing to sleep in. Whatever the issue going on inside, it may not seem to resolve itself. It returns in the middle of the night or at a time when something reminds you of it, or your conscience starts to question what you are doing. Let’s say you consider that God may be in this tension in some way. Maybe you realize it is your ego being confronted by God, calling you to go in a very different direction. Let’s call it wrestling with God like Jacob did. You take it seriously and do more than agonize about it. Maybe you decide to back off and pray about what is going on for a while. Or until you have a clearer sense of what to do. Maybe you end up considering that God wants you to try something new, to stretch beyond your comfort zone, to take a different path. One that is God’s path, not your own. Or doing something you never did before because God seems to be telling you that you will not be alone if you do this new thing that seems very scary or unsettling. Exercise: You may want to return to the story of Jacob wrestling with someone who seems to be God in Genesis 32. God sometimes comes to us, as happened to Jacob, in discomforting ways. Maybe a struggle that reflects love but in a most uncomfortable manner. What did God want from Jacob? Was the message that God wanted Jacob to be obedient and suspected Jacob wanted to go his own way on his terms? How do you identify with this battle? Think about any possible wrestling episode or an internal battle between two opposing views that you may be having and meditate on it for a while. Maybe spend time for a few days or a week on it and bring it up during your prayer time, journal on it, and keep asking God to give you new insights into whether there is a message for you to consider, a new way to go. Also, reflect on and journal about what is holding you back from changing or taking a different course. How 17

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

might your ego be discouraging you from doing something new. Maybe it feels better to keep doing what you always have done to avoid the unknown. Or maybe someone in your inner circle of friends is discouraging you from changing in this area of inner turmoil. What might be their motives for doing this? Most important, try to bring God into your inner battle seeking what God intends for you. Additional Resources: Cunningham & Egan, chapter 3, 1996; Wolff, 2003.

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Conversions on a Continued Basis “Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” (Romans 7:21-24)

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s St. Paul points out in the Book of Romans, we want to follow God, but we have little control over our lives to be able to do it. We try to do what is good, but we often end up doing the opposite – committing evil. Our nature is such that we want God in our lives, but we often fall short. Yet, our lives are essentially dependent upon God to help us. As difficult as it may seem, we can experience a conversion within us. We can follow God’s way rather than our own. This is likely to involve turning our lives around and going in an entirely different direction. I would like to suggest that being open to conversion can be viewed as the key factor to a spiritually enhanced life. Conversion is mostly familiar as a one-time, God-present moment that changes us in dramatic ways. It is typically, although not universally, an introductory exposure to a deeper life as a Christian. Conversion is a significant, often dramatic experience that impacts us in radical ways, abruptly changing our lives away from being self-centered to what might be thought of as the Divine. We commit ourselves to following Jesus, who wants a special, personal relationship with us. 19

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

The concept of conversion can be helpful in explaining how we can overcome our sins and find a new way to live each day, perhaps even from moment to moment. Conversion can become a continual process that sustains us in the daily rhythm of our lives. It consists of two major features, maintaining periodic prayer throughout our day and asking the conversion question, “Who do I follow at this moment, God or myself?” We may need to seek conversion each morning as we awaken from our sleep and begin a new day, as well as during the choice points in time that are likely to emerge during the day. In our challenging moments, we may come to a few, or many, small choice points in which we need to ask, Whom do I follow at this moment? “Myself” is our likely default option in which we are inclined to behave as we have habitually behaved in the past. Without conversion, we may be focused solely on ourselves and out of touch with the needs of others whom we encounter. We sometimes may feel anxious or perhaps deflated, and likely we can be preoccupied with how we are to get ourselves through the day ahead? We may be in a position that fits what St. Paul refers to when he says that “evil is right there with me.” If the word “evil” seems too strong, you may find it more helpful to think of your usual path as not necessarily bad but one that reflects the absence of sensing God’s presence in your everyday life. The other choice is to follow God. In this case, we choose to depend upon our God and not ourselves. How does this occur? By taking enough time to stop and be present with God in prayer. Our minds can shift from preoccupation with our day ahead to prayerful moments when we ask for relief from these questions, worries, and anxiety, and we can substitute inner peace. In these God-present moments, we are pointed in a new direction where we can begin to find inspiration, hope, and grace for the day. New meaning comes to our lives in prayer when we reestablish our focus on God who seeks to join us throughout 20

Conversions on a Continued Basis

the day ahead. We may not immediately feel this sense of peace and hope every time when we turn to prayer, but our most effective course in this case may be to persist in seeking a God-presence since God is always present to us. Jesus frequently reminds us of the importance of persistence in committing to prayer. This moment-to-moment experience of sensing God’s presence likely needs to be revisited throughout our day to help us avoid falling back into our worries, anxieties, personal preferences, and habitual behaviors. This prayerful experience is a time to become reconnected with the presence of our “Companion” who travels with us and fills us with greater peace and hopefulness. When we are not able to stop to pray during the day, we can find other ways to be in touch with God. We can, for example, facilitate these moments by whispering God’s name (e.g. Jesus, God, Lord, Hope, Spirit, Divine) to ourselves as needed, or by becoming aware of our breath and observing it as a holy experience. And maybe you have other ways that you have found to be effective in bringing God into your consciousness. Exercise: Please take some time now to explore how conversion has been important in your life up to the present time. Did you have a memorable event in your life when you experienced a conversion to Christ? If so, what was it like? Try to revisit that experience and get in touch with how you were feeling. What were some of the special thoughts and feelings that you had? Also, explore any insights that you had at that time that involved changing your life in some way. If you have not experienced a dramatic conversion that stands out for you, have you had less dramatic times when you realized that you wanted your life to be different and to grow in your Christian faith journey? Next, be conscious of what is going on in your life now. Do you often feel God’s presence with you as you face difficult challenges or issues 21

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

in the routine moments of each day? Reflect on your prayer life in this regard and how you may wish to strengthen it in specific ways. Then select three or four consecutive days and try to practice the notion of continual conversion. Start each morning with an initial prayer time. Along with talking to God, sit silently and seek to feel the presence of God. Ask God for what you may need at different times during the day ahead. Then during your day, become aware of times when you may not feel God’s presence. At these times, try to have a plan for how you can become more conscious of God’s presence. Also, be continually aware of some of the possible choice points that may come up during your day. Perhaps you will have times when you cross paths with someone with whom you feel some tension or conflict and you will want to explore the conversion question at these times. Particularly be aware of choice points in your encounters with clients and consider how you might respond differently if it seems to be something God wants. Try to move from moment to moment and decide whether conversion is needed. The key question is, “Am I following my own habitual and possibly self-serving way or a way that is more about service to God and to others with whom I meet?” At the end of each day, share your experiences with someone you trust if possible and reflect on how you may have felt and behaved differently, perhaps more God-centered. After completing this exercise, look back several days later to see if you are more likely than before to bring forth the conversion question in your daily experience. Additional Resources: Au, Chapter 5, 1989; Buechner, 1969; Cunningham & Egan, chapter 3, 1996; Fowler, 1995.

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Prayer at the Center “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

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esus prayed regularly. This is often reported in the four Gospels in different ways. The above passage is one of them and it is stirring to imagine Jesus getting up early before others arose and going off to pray by himself. Maybe you sometimes get up in the early morning to pray and can easily imagine Jesus praying with you. The larger context of this passage is that the night before, people were bringing their sick and demon-possessed people to him for healing. Mark says that the whole town gathered at the door, and he healed many and drove out many demons. Jesus must have been worn out after all that he had been doing, so he went off by himself to pray to his Father. Do you ever feel that you are helping so many people that you become completely exhausted and need to stop, rest, and pray for God’s comfort and help? The Gospels document several times that Jesus prayed. At one point, Jesus taught his followers to pray when he introduced the Lord’s Prayer, or the “Our Father.” While there are no reports of Jesus sharing different methods of praying, let’s explore what we do know about prayer methods from Christians through the ages. There are numerous ways to pray and many of us have probably used many of them. 23

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

Prayer can be divided into two broadly understood approaches–taking an active role in talking to God, and quietly listening intently for God to speak to us. Most people likely do both—talk to God and listen for God’s voice in their prayers. Yet, in the Western World, talking to God is a more familiar form. Prayers that are mostly talking to God could include intercessory prayers when we ask God to help someone else, thanksgiving prayers in which we express gratitude for what we have and are, petition prayers in which we ask and sometimes plead for something we need or want, confessions of wrongdoings when we seek God’s forgiveness, and adoration of God’s greatness (Guenther, 1998). Prayers can also be about listening for God’s voice and direction. They can be referred to as meditations to help distinguish them from talking prayers. These meditations are often about discerning where God is in our decision-making and other aspects of our lives. They include Centering Prayer that involves a totally silent time of prayer in which we attempt to empty ourselves of everything that is not of God. This is understood by some as a Christian version of Eastern Meditation. Lectio Divina (translated as “Divine reading”) is another, mostly listening, prayer form originating with Christians as early as the 4th Century. In Lectio Divina, we read the same sacred passage over and over, and in between readings, we pause and meditate on the passage. The prayer/meditation ends with a quiet resting time with God and an openness for God to speak to us in some aspect of the passage. Prayers can also take many other forms, such as involving dance, yoga poses, walking meditation, and other forms of physical movements as ways of experiencing a closer relationship to God. Also, there are ritual prayers that are well-known and used regularly in worship services among many Christian denominations. Prayers can also involve prayer beads, or icons of Jesus and other Biblical figures. It is also important to mention that these different prayer forms should not be considered mutually exclusive 24

Prayer at the Center

of each other; two or more of them can be combined, such as ritual prayers and prayer beads, or intercessory prayers followed by Centering Prayer. Christians’ prayers are helpful for many reasons—comfort, guidance, understanding, seeking changes, staying centered and focused, diminishing fears, as a ritual, to feel acceptance, for strength, seeking advice or hope, to seek God’s will, and for healing. Exercise: Several prayer forms are introduced in this section. Please take a quick inventory of the ones that you use often and others you may use only occasionally. How important are each of these prayer forms to your personal daily life? In what ways are they helpful? Not helpful? Also, identify any prayer forms that you have not used and whether some of them are unfamiliar to you. You may have been hesitant to use some specific prayer forms in the past and, if so, you may want to reconsider them moving forward. In addition, if you are more familiar with prayers that involve talking to God, you may want to seriously consider exploring some of the listening prayers. Likewise, if you have overlooked some of the talking prayers, try to bring them into your prayer times when appropriate. Also, it may be preferable to consider different prayer forms at different times in response to what is going on in your life. There are plenty of readings about the different prayer forms and several of these prayers are briefly described in the books listed as Additional Resources below. Prayers can also be an important topic to explore with your clients if they bring it up. If they mention their prayers as being an important resource, you may want to ask them to share what prayer means to them and how they pray. Also, how has their prayer life been beneficial to them and their family? You may also want to ask them to reflect on the different prayer forms that they have used and found helpful.

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Additional Resources: Au, Chapter 4, 1989; Bade and Cook, 2008; Brown, 2003; Dossey, 1994; Guenther, 1998; Hermes, 2001.

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Pray without Ceasing “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

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n the previous spiritual meditation, I suggested that we can pray in many ways. There is not a perfect way to do it and it depends upon what works best for you. Prayers can involve us in an active role of talking to God such as an intercessory prayer or thankfulness prayer. It can also involve us more passively in silent listening prayers such as Centering Prayer or Lectio Divina. You might want to review Meditation 4 above for more information about the range of prayer forms available. We are most likely to use many of these prayers during worship services that we attend and during our own personal prayer times. However, beyond these times, we may find it difficult to pray because of our busy schedules and a lack of privacy during most of our work hours. Praying continually or without ceasing may seem like an almost impossible practice as suggested by St. Paul to the people of the Church in Thessalonica. And it can be challenging for us today as well. If we prayed continually, we would not be able to do the hundreds of other things we do every day to survive. Like go to work, talk to others, sleep, eat, brush our teeth, and so many other things. So, let’s explore in more depth what praying without ceasing might mean to us. Maybe it is possible for a monk or nun in the Catholic or Orthodox Christian tradition to pray quite often, but 27

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

they have an advantage over the rest of us because their daily lives often revolve around prayer. That’s considered their job. Perhaps, a few of us who don’t work outside the home or have family nearby could pray continuously by silently repeating a mantra over and over. A mantra is a sacred word or phrase that we choose that we can whisper to ourselves over and over to help us gently nudge away any distractions to our prayers. A peasant pilgrim of the 19th Century is a classic example of this (Anonymous, n.d.). A wandering pilgrim known to be a serf in Russia was in search of God. This pilgrim wandered all over Russia looking for the answer to his question, but he was without success for years. Finally, he came upon a wise old religious sage, who gave him the answer he needed. The old sage advised him that he was to find God by rejecting all his own thoughts and only repeating continually what has since become the Jesus Prayer; he was to do this even during his sleep time. The Jesus Prayer is “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Or it can be shortened to “Lord Jesus Christ” as we breathe in, and “Have mercy on me” as we breathe out. This prayer is thought to be based on what the tax collector said in Luke 18:13 when he went up to the temple to pray. The pilgrim decided to follow the sage’s advice. At the end of the first day, the pilgrim recited this prayer 12,000 times. He continued to devote his life to doing this for months and then years until the prayer finally became a part of him and recited itself within him without any effort on the pilgrim’s part. Imagine saying a prayer so frequently that it prays itself within you. Most of us are not going to become monks or nuns; nor do we have enough free time to live like the wandering pilgrim. Then what can we do to experience more frequent prayer and a greater sense of the presence of God as we do it? Here are a few suggestions. Maybe we can become prayerful as we greet each day energized by our regular prayer ritual 28

Pray without Ceasing

in the morning. We can also carry with us an inspiration or sacred reading from our prayer time and remind ourselves of it from time to time during the day. We can also remind ourselves that God is present each moment of our day and we can even talk to our God in silence, saying such things as “Lord, I will follow you,” or “Help me to know what comes next.” or “Thank you for …, ” or “I love you.” And we can take rest periods for a few minutes each day and pray in silence at our office desk, during meetings, on the bus, or during lunch. We can briefly use Centering Prayer for three minutes rather than twenty and we can stop for a moment to pray for a client who is in the hospital about to have surgery. Obviously, there is no one way. And it really doesn’t matter so much how you do it if it works for you. Undoubtedly, St. Paul is challenging Christians living in the 21st Century to pray more often and to even make it a regular habit so we can feel God’s presence on a more continuous basis. How each person decides to do this is largely up to you. Imagine meeting with your clients while you are in this prayerful state. Possibly, your clients will be able to intuitively sense God in you as you respond to them with your assistance. Exercise: Does the notion of praying continually make sense to you? Or at least attempts to do this? What do you think? Maybe it does some days when you are more inspired and hopeful, and maybe it seems more like “pie in the sky” on other days. Journal some of your specific reactions to these and other questions about praying continually. Then propose a plan for praying more often for an entire day. Develop a flexible schedule and identify possible times and places to stop and deliberately pray in some way. Afterward, assess what the experience was like. Did your day feel different in any way? Did you feel more present with God? And did God seem to have more impact on 29

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

you as you carried out your job, interacted with others, and made decisions? You might also want to share your experience with a friend who also values an active prayer life. Additional Resources: Anonymous,(n.d.); Bloom, 1970; Keating, 2006; Rupp, 2007.

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Winding Down in Green Pastures “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23)

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e leads me to lie down and rest and to allow Him to restore my soul. That feels very comforting – to stop everything and rest and catch our breath. Are you on a fast pace during your work time, or maybe even other times as well? Perhaps you often feel you are on the go with few precious moments to stop and just rest. It is quite evident that the workplaces of most social workers are demanding more of us and maybe giving less. They may be adding to our workloads while neglecting to support us and convey appreciation for what we do. Perhaps also neglecting to adequately compensate us with a higher salary, medical insurance, personal leave, and enough money to put aside for retirement. Is this true for you? Or maybe you feel that you are adequately compensated but your workload and expectations of your employers continually grow without adequate regard for your human limitations. Further, you may be finding that many of your clients’ problems seem to be well beyond realistic solutions. Instead, perhaps you are finding that the most you can do for them is to focus, in the brief time that you have with them, on relieving their immediate needs and symptoms. 31

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

A friend recently shared with me that he consistently has high blood pressure and he seemed to be appropriately scared. In checking his blood pressure at that moment, we found it to be quite high. At that point, being aware of his score, he surprisingly said that he could “bring it down.” He sat down, rested, and concentrated on his breath for about 10 minutes. Once he rested, his blood pressure dropped to a normal range. It turns out that he was functioning at a high, frenzied state as his “normal” state because his life was consumed with constant pressure – supervising several employees in two programs, extensive travel for his job, and trying to be responsive to his wife and a new baby. How many of us too frequently have high blood pressure? It may be, for many, our default mode or state without our even realizing it. Rest comes only as an exception when we slow down, perhaps after work or when we crash in front of the TV after dinner and fall asleep. Consciously winding down at different times of our day is important to add to our daily routine. Perhaps it is wise to do it after meeting with a difficult client or an encounter with the boss or supervisor. Also, noon time over lunch is a good time for a rest break. Often, I hear that people eat on the run at their desks and they wait well beyond noon to do this. And they may also have the tendency to wolf down their salad or sandwich just before they head to their next appointment. Please don’t give up your lunch time for anything; use it to eat mindfully and rest! Also, try to avoid eating lunch over a meeting if you can. Meetings tend not to be a good time for digesting a sandwich. My suggestions are to plan lunch in a relaxed place, alone or with a friend. Also take a brief walk around the block at another point in your day. In other words, lie down somewhere “in green pastures” with your God and rest. There is a need for this Sabbath time regularly. How can we lie down in our green pastures? Well, first, we may need to find a “green pasture” nearby. I have been fortunate in this 32

Winding Down in Green Pastures

regard. For me it has often been a small wooded area at the edge of my workplace where walking paths are numerous, and a few benches are inviting. What are your green pastures? Of course, they don’t have to be green and they don’t have to be pastures. Once you find your green pasture, you may need help knowing how to rest. You might want to review the Meditations on “God in the stillness” and “Life in our breath” as resources. Ask God to help you. Talk to God and admit that you have difficulty just resting. Maybe you even need to ask God for approval to rest. Remind yourself that resting in green pastures with God can help you become more grounded in what God wants of you, your time and energy. Another suggestion is to check your heart beat before and after resting. See if the rest time does reduce your heart rate. It should be somewhere between 60 and 80 heart beats per minute. Exercise: Please regularly take an inventory of your need for periodic rest. Enhancing your rest times can become a special time to be alone and with God. For now, read the 23rd Psalm a few times. What verse or verses jump out for you as being important? Perhaps as a prayer, imagine yourself in a wooded area with a small bubbling stream passing along side of your path. Stop and experience it for a while. Listen to the sounds of the stream as it splashes by. In addition, open your other senses to nature all around you, possibly birds chirping or two young squirrels chasing each other up a tree, the shadow from an overhanging oak tree changing the reflection on the water, or a cool breeze passing by. You might even find a real wooded area nearby with a stream passing along the path. Or an open field with wild flowers and numerous little creatures flying overhead. If so, sit down on a blanket and rest there for a while, and even take a short nap if you can. Afterwards, reflect on this 33

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

resting time and consider how it may have changed how you are feeling. Also, check to see if it helped to dissolve some of your existing worries or preoccupations. Additional Resources: Collins, 2005; Cox & Steiner, 2013; Laidag, 2007; Merton, 1957; Skovholt & Trotter-Mathison, 2011.

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Life in our Breath “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” (Psalm 150:6)

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reathing. It is so natural to do, and it’s largely done for us; yet it is outside our awareness most of the time. Just drop everything for a moment and notice your breath. Watch the pattern of your breath—breathe in and breathe out. Notice that when you inhale, your stomach expands, and when you exhale, your stomach retracts. See if you can comfortably stay focused on your rhythm of breathing for a few minutes. You may discover that your mind has wandered away from your breath to random thoughts of what may have happened in the past or errands that need to be done. In a sense, your awareness of the present moment moved away from the present moment. Nevertheless, this brief effort to stop everything and just notice your breathing can be a restful moment to consider from time to time. Being attentive to our breathing can be a special way of finding inner peace and rest. Imagine that all we need to do to enjoy rest and inner peace is to stop what we are doing and concentrate on our breath. Yet, it is challenging because so many things can distract us internally and externally. The chosen Psalm for this meditation reminds us of our relationship to God through our breath and breathing. Think of God giving us life through our breath. Also, imagine God being closer to us than our breath. Breathing is our lifeline to God. This chosen Psalm poetically informs us that 35

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

we can praise God and God’s power and greatness over us through our breath. Try reading and reflecting on Psalm 150 while letting the pace and rhythm of your breathing move you through the Psalm. Thich Nhat Hanh, a contemporary Vietnamese Buddhist monk who works closely with many Christians, expands on these thoughts about the breath and God’s closeness by reminding us that life is right in front of us, in the flowers, the breeze of the air, in each particle of food we eat, as well as our breath. Our life vitally depends upon the breath; if it stops for several minutes, we will die. Fortunately, the breath doesn’t need us to function. In a mysterious way, it breathes itself. The breath serves other purposes as well. It can be a monitor for how we are feeling. Our breath could be short or drawn out, rapid or slow, shallow or deep. It can tell us if we are calm or anxious, peaceful or upset, scared or angry. When we stop everything else and just breathe, our breathing can become a monitor for how we are feeling; from there we can change what we are doing if we feel that what’s going on seems unpleasant or harmful. When we do concentrate on the present moment and the breath, we are also likely to discover all kinds of competing distractions. When there are few if any external distractions because we are in a quiet place praying, our inner distractions seem to multiply. It is quite challenging for most of us just to sit down and follow the rhythm of the breath. You may feel you are wasting your time doing this as your mind pleads with you to give your attention to other things. In my case, sometimes I can sit quietly and fairly quickly move into a deeper state of rest and meditation for a while. But much more often I begin my prayer by being aware that I am restless or anxious or otherwise uncomfortable. I usually need to begin my prayer and meditation times calming down and resting with a devotional book, a spiritual reading, or a sacred passage that helps me focus. From there I can often settle into a quiet state. 36

Life in our Breath

Mindfulness authors point out that virtually everyone experiences inner chatter or wanders from the present moment over and over. That’s the nature of the mind. It will likely never change. Some of these authors also remind us that a major purpose of mindful meditation is to observe when the mind wanders from the present moment to a distracting thought. When this occurs, we learn to simply observe and not fight it, viewing it as a passing sensation that is not us or our reality. We learn to gently let it dissolve so we can return to the breath and the present moment. Over time, we become increasingly aware that this meditative exercise is preparing us to know how and when we are not in the moment so that we can return to be there. Being present in the moment or the “now” is what we want to strive for. Mindful meditation can be quite useful to introduce to your clients as well. It has been very useful in agency settings, helping clients overcome addictions. Addictions are an overpowering and persistent form of distraction seeking to overpower us with their harmful appeal. Clients with depression and anxiety disorders are also finding mindfulness to be a valuable source of relief and hope in the moment. Guidelines on how to successfully meditate concentrating on our breath are available in several mindfulness texts. Try to have brief mindfulness meditations each day that can begin with 10 minutes and gradually increase as you become more comfortable doing them. Journaling about your experiences is also helpful, describing your daily experiences, your difficult moments, and the breakthroughs, such as increasing your comfort in meditating in this way and assessing other kinds of progress. After committing to this practice for a while, also explore how this daily exercise possibly changes how you feel toward others, your work demands, relationships, and comfort with who you are inside.

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Exercise: This breathing exercise takes about ten minutes. Find a quiet and comfortable location where you can be alone. Put everything that you are doing aside and just spend this time doing nothing else. Sit in a comfortable position upright in a comfortable chair with your feet on the floor and your hands resting on your lap. Close your eyes so that you won’t be distracted. Concentrate only on your breath. Just observe the breath going in and out in a normal pattern. If chatter comes up in your consciousness, become aware of it, but don’t hold onto it. Just observe it as a sensation that comes and goes. If the chatter continues, as it usually will, select a sacred word or mantra that is special to you (e.g. Jesus, love, hope) and silently say your sacred word to gently nudge the chatter away when it comes. Then return to the breath and concentrate on breathing in and out. Journal about this experience afterwards, including sharing what the silence was like. What chatter emerged, how easy or difficult was it was to nudge it away, and how did you feel after the exercise? You can also try another breathing exercise. Breathe in, breathe out. Take deep breaths and just breathe, beginning with a count of four in and five out. Next, five breaths in and six breaths out … until you reach 10 breaths in and 11out. Afterward, focus on how that felt. Do you feel any relief, a temporary reduction in your stress or anxiety? This is a form of pyramid breathing that gradually helps you to breathe more fully. Most of us normally only breathe in the upper one-third of our lungs. Additional Resources: Acts 2; de Mello, 1978; Nhat Hanh, 2013; Walsh, Chapters 20 & 21, 1999; Williams & Penman, 2012.

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Our Bodies are Ourselves “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

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any of us can easily and unintentionally exploit or harm our bodies. The list of ways this can happen is almost endless. We overeat or excessively restrict what we eat. We overexert ourselves in exercising and sports, or we avoid exercising altogether. We go overboard in making our bodies appear exceptionally strong (usually men) or we do extreme things to beautify our appearance (usually women). We misuse our bodies to satisfy a sexual pleasure or to do the same for someone else. Growing numbers in our society today are overweight or obese. Many also become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Overall, any of these possibilities and others can eventually lead to our physical decline and possible early death. Of course, the people we help can also suffer from any of these circumstances. Our clients can also suffer from hunger and food insecurity, another means of depriving our bodies. In these instances, the larger community is mostly at fault rather than the people who are hungry. Neglecting to seek medical care as needed and not partaking in preventive initiatives like vaccines and health check-ups are other examples of furthering harm to our bodies. Unfortunately, our clients often do not have adequate medical insurance, 39

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and this can be a major obstacle to taking care of their bodies. Having neither adequate medical insurance nor enough personal savings to pay for the treatment of physical illnesses and other disorders forces many people to ignore these needs. In time, their physical circumstances are likely to worsen and become chronic problems that bring greater hardships that are more difficult to treat and cure. I first discovered the passage in 1 Corinthians several years ago and it helped me realize how significant the connections are between my body, my spiritual journey, and my relationship to God. By overlooking, neglecting, or harming myself, I may be overlooking God as well as other people who are close to me and dependent on me, such as my spouse and children. I began to see more clearly that I had to pay more attention to my body as something of God in me. Even though our body is essentially ours alone to primarily care for when we become adults, we are still accountable to God for taking care of ourselves. Imagine your body, as St. Paul does, as God’s Temple. In that Temple we live our lives with God and for God. While St. Paul’s message in this passage seems to refer specifically to sexual immorality, it also seems to have direct relevance to the many other ways that we abuse our bodies, such as those mentioned above. I recall an earlier time in my life when I was frequently ill with a cold, flu, or another bug that was going around. I was aware of the frequency of what was happening, but I didn’t take it seriously enough to stop and consider the larger context of why it was happening to me. At one point, I ran across Psalm 127, remembering this Psalm as one of my Mom’s favorite passages and realizing that it spoke to me at that time. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder’s labor is in vain.” Among other things, I journaled, “If God does not lead me in what I am doing, I may be wasting my time. I thought I was doing God’s work, but I was actually doing “my” work and failing miserably. 40

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I was not in close touch with God in prayer at that time, seeking God’s guidance and strength. In all honesty, I didn’t think I needed to be. I was just exerting all the energy I could manage, and yet I was often finding that I could barely keep myself together. Then I remember another later day during my first several months on a new job when I became keenly aware that I was sick. I journaled, “I’m really sick today.” My body finally said “ENOUGH.” Something had to be done. Those times and others like them became a major turning point in my life for putting my prayer ritual in the center. Exercise: How aware are you of your body? How might you be inadvertently mistreating it as you rush through your daily work schedule and perhaps overlook your physical needs? Please review again all the ways mentioned above that people can harm themselves and identify any tendencies that you may have or lean towards. During your prayer ritual, please periodically add a body scan to it. A body scan involves focusing on each part of our body for a moment, starting at the top of your head and ending with your feet and toes. This can be an effective way of becoming more aware of your body and the location of any pain or tension in specific places. If you find any such tension, try to care for it as soon as possible. Most of us have a specific location, such as our neck, shoulders, stomach, or forehead where pain usually shows up when we are experiencing stress or conflict in our lives. Example of a Body Scan: Leung and associates (2009) suggest an exercise called a body scan. This is an exercise that a client can do as well. Sit in a relaxed position, close your eyes, and concentrate on your breathing. Once you are relaxed, follow the rhythm of your breathing and begin paying attention to the various parts of your body. First, totally focus on your head and notice any pain or discomfort there. If pain is present there, breathe healing energy into this area. Next, scan the neck and focus on whether there is 41

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any pain. Next moving through your body, follow the same steps of stopping, noticing, and breathing healing energy into that body part. The upper chest, the left arm and hand, right arm and hand, the stomach, until you reach your feet and toes. Afterward, you can reflect on what you experienced, including exploring any underlying meaning associated with any pain or discomfort, such as possible concerns or worries. Additional Resources: Leung, Chan, Ng, & Lee, 2009; Williams & Penman, 2012.

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The Joy of Being Grateful “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” .

(Psalm 103:2)

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orget not all His benefits. That may seem easy to do. Many of us have numerous blessings in our lives, and yet we tend to forget them or take them for granted. My mother was a great model for me of being grateful. When she was a child, her family lived on a small farm and had very little materially in their lives, but they had each other. My mother became more acutely aware of this when she and my father started their own family. She would often say to us as children that we had so much to be thankful for. Often this followed an incident in which one of us made an insensitive remark about something we didn’t have. Like complaining about something on our dinner plate or not having any privacy in our small home or complaining that we were one of the last families on our South Chicago street to get a TV. Looking back, I also realize that I did not have nearly as much materially and socially as a child until I became a parent and later a grandparent. But we always had a home with a roof over our heads and enough food to keep us from going hungry. And we always had each other and, most of the time, our health. My mother never forgot this. Nor have I, perhaps because I also had much less as a child than as an adult. Does this intergenerational cycle resonate with yours? Or how was your childhood different, and what did you learn about gratitude from growing up? 43

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I recall another story about gratitude. I still remember an incident many years ago involving a man who I met on a silent church retreat in Maryland. He shared with me during one of the breaks that his wife was dying of cancer. Then later I heard him singing to himself passages of Psalm 103 over and over: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, all that is within me praise his name; bless the Lord, O my soul, forget not all his benefits; bless the Lord, O my soul, bless his holy name.” At first, his behavior seemed odd to me as his wife was dying and he could have been angry at God, if anything. But I soon realized that he was trusting in the Lord and was deeply grateful for all that he did have, including his wife, in his life. A common theme is evident in both stories. When we become aware of having less, or lose something important that we formerly had, this can be very humbling to us and may leave us feeling more vulnerable and grateful. Being grateful usually involves more than just a passing remark like “thank you” and then moving on. It often deserves embellishing this sacred time and thanking God in prayer. Expressing gratitude deserves taking time and having a prayerful spirit to reflect on what just occurred. Gratitude prayers seem to be abundantly popular in many circles today. They remind us to continually be grateful for what we do have. It is so easy to forget and to take what we have for granted. Or even to expect more, which can be problematic. Repetitive prayers can be helpful in moments when we are not thinking about being grateful or are casually feeling deserving of what we have. The Jesus Prayer is an example. It is easy to memorize and recite over and over to ourselves. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This prayer reminds us of all that we have that we have not really earned or deserve. GOOGLE “gratitude prayers” to see some of the many ways that people pray with a grateful heart. Then perhaps select one of the suggestions and try to incorporate it into your prayer life. 44

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Many suggest that the morning is a great time to focus on gratitude prayers, thanking God for what we do have. It can start your day off in a special way and help you prepare to have a God-centered day within yourself and with the people you encounter. Another key time to pray for what we are grateful is at night just before drifting off to sleep. I recommend this time for gratitude prayers because bedtime can become a vulnerable time, a time to obsess on anxious thoughts, insensitive remarks that someone made, or fears about something that could happen. I try to have gratitude prayers as often as possible at night just before going off to sleep, partially because it helps me overcome any troubling thoughts or feelings that can easily keep me awake. During these evening prayers, I try to reflect on my entire day beginning with the first thing that happened in the morning for which I could be grateful. Many times, I end up falling asleep before I can complete my prayers because I have so much to mention. And my gratefulness list has gotten longer and longer. The more that I have done it, the more heightened my awareness has become of the amazing things that can happen, and have happened, in my life, large and small. I urge you to try it as well, particularly if you have difficulty drifting off to sleep at night. There are so many things for which I am grateful. A smile from a stranger, a kind word shared by someone, appreciation for a family member or friend in my life, my usual breakfast of coffee and cooked oatmeal, a job or task for which I have received a note of appreciation, a car that works and gets me where I need to go, the rain and snow--however inconvenient they may be-- the stars glowing at night, a safe place to live, a free time to relax and do nothing, a capacity to come up with new ideas and new ways to think about someone or something challenging, a feeling of hope coming over me at any time, and exhilarating experiences of joy that sometimes mysteriously appear. 45

Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People

My list and yours can go on and on. And these are things that you and I are telling God for which we are grateful. I believe that God gave them to us, whether we deserved them or not. Usually not. God is the source and we may have to really work at being the humble recipient. Being grateful and saying gratitude prayers, in a somewhat ironic way, can help us when things are not going so well in our lives or when they are downright awful. A loss through death of a loved one, being diagnosed with a terminal or chronic disease, a major setback in our job or becoming unemployed, a serious car accident, an eviction or foreclosure from where we live. At these times, we are likely to pray for relief from whatever has happened to us. But why is a gratitude prayer so important or relevant when things are going bad? I can only wonder when I am in this state. But I do believe that these prayers of gratitude remind us, sometimes in unimaginable ways, that we are dependent on God for everything. Such a prayer can humble us to recall this and seek a closer connection and greater trust in our God. We want to remember and celebrate our enduring dependence on God. Exercise: There are so many ways for us to become more fully grateful for all that we have. Inserting gratitude prayers of one form or another into our lives can help us to do this. Otherwise, we can so easily forget or take what we have for granted or even take full credit for it. Several suggestions have been shared in this meditation for enhancing our efforts to express our thankfulness for all that we have. Here is one more suggestion perhaps as a way of becoming more involved in it. Sit in a chair and just look around you when you have a moment. You can be alone or with others, busy in an activity or inactive. Who or what can you identify for which you can be thankful? Then close this exercise by expressing thanks to God for each person, object, memory, or anything else that emerges using all your senses. 46

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Additional Resources: 1 Thessalonians 5:18; Pooler, Wolfer, & Freeman, 2014a; Pooler, Wolfer, & Freeman, 2014b; Steindl-Rast, 1984.

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Patience While Waiting “I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.” (Psalm 130:5)

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ost of us have been told by someone to be patient at some point in our lives. You, like I, may have been scolded as children (or adults) that just because we want or need something doesn’t mean that it will suddenly appear on a silver platter; we must wait. Waiting can be difficult, especially if we are not equipped to deal with it. Patience is something we need, and it is something that many of us are short of and need to develop. This is especially true if we have had a life with privileges. What can we learn by receiving what we want, but only after struggling and waiting over a long period? For example, waiting to buy our own home; finding a loving, compatible partner; the birth a child; discovering a church where we feel we belong; or joining a group of people with whom we immediately feel spiritually compatible. Waiting does bring potential rewards in both the outcomes that we may receive, and in the insights to be gained while we cope with waiting. Both the Old and New Testaments make several references to patience and waiting. One selected in Colossians 3:12 refers to patience as working when it is coupled with compassion, kindness, humility, and gentleness. We all need patience as we wait for God to be more present in our lives, but to sustain our patience we may also need to develop 49

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these other qualities—compassion, kindness, humility, and gentleness. We need to learn to be patient without holding a grudge or getting angry toward others. We also need to learn not to feel privileged, pity for ourselves, or self-righteous. Learning how to be more patient can give us a greater capacity to wait upon the Lord and become more God-centered. This takes work and needs help from our prayers, studies, and other people. Patience can be a survival tool. It is a spiritual quality that I urge all of us to develop. If we do, we may learn something new about ourselves in these difficult times of waiting, and we may end up working on improving some aspect of ourselves based on what we have learned. So, what is patience? To many, patience is being willing to wait and accepting the reality of our current circumstances until that time. It challenges us to be content with ourselves and our circumstances. Most important, patience is called for if we have faith that our God will always respond to our call for help, but in God’s own time and way. What do you tend to be patient or impatient about? These could be important questions to reflect on. Being patient can lead to something important, like finally landing a new job that you have worked hard to obtain. Or helping a homeless client finally have a breakthrough in settling into an independent living residence. For many of us, patience can be vital to have when we become sick. We may end up feeling defenseless against a persistent illness that continues for weeks as we run out of options for doing something about it. Patience can be an ongoing challenge in such circumstances, as it was in the past for me. What was I to do when I came down with a bad case of the flu that decided to stay in me for weeks? Surprisingly, it took me a while before I realized that I needed to ask God to help me. When we are not feeling well, our capacity to pray can be weakened. I finally tried to openly talk to God about my setback, asking for relief from my cough, aching, and weakness. By the way, 50

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I found that praying out loud is most helpful to me when I do not feel well. Several days later I did start to feel better! It was wonderful to just get in touch with glimpses of feeling normal again, a true blessing for which I am very grateful. And as I reflect on this experience, I realize how much I still need to work on strengthening my capacity for patient and waiting on the Lord. Becoming ill or temporarily disabled can be a true blessing that not only tests our patience but also slows us down and reminds us that we are not alone on our journey. We’re reminded again and again that we cannot do it all by ourselves. As Psalm 130:5 reminds us, we always have a steady companion right there with us as our whole being waits on the Lord in whom hope comes. Some of our clients’ circumstances of waiting are likely to be much more serious than ours. So many people, as we know from our clients, are asked to be patient around things that can be in the realm of their own survival, like getting the electricity turned back on or getting help with paying expensive medical bills. Or it could mean being patient while waiting a few hours for a healthy meal at a soup kitchen or waiting for a bed with clean sheets and blankets at a homeless center. Some things like a disability, an anxiety disorder, or diminished mobility from aging can challenge our patience like nothing else. Or a chronic disease like cancer or Parkinson’s that just gets worse and slowly but surely takes over our life. Or a young child who has a genetic heart problem and can never experience the joys of normal childhood. Instead she must periodically face one surgical procedure after another with all that they entail. Being patience is not a choice in such circumstances. It is something that can be learned, and a client’s faith can be the key source for how they can learn to cope with their circumstances. Patience is also necessary to have in a marriage as we learn to embrace and love the other person in their moodiness and troubles as well as in the enjoyable times. Patience is needed 51

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in raising a child who needs to make his own mistakes and challenges us to be better parents. Patience is also an essential quality to have as a social worker. We need to listen to our clients as they struggle to take their next step forward after two steps backward—on their time table, not ours. Patience is needed in every walk of life, for us as helping people, supervisors, teachers, and a host of other positions in agencies, church work, our communities, and beyond. Exercise: What part does patience, or a lack of it, play in your life? Do you often find yourself struggling to develop more patience? What are the circumstances that test your patience the most? How does patience affect your faith journey and your efforts to discern God’s presence in your life? How have you found patience as a spiritual quality that helps you succeed in your helping role with others? As an exercise, search for passages in the Bible that include the term patience. Select one and work with it in your prayer time using Lectio Divina. This prayer form involves slowly reading the passage out loud to yourself followed by a quiet time of five to 10 minutes to meditate on how God may be speaking to you through this passage. Repeat this pattern (read the passage and then meditate on it) three times and then draw the prayer to a close by reflecting on what meaning the passage may have for you and how God may have spoken to you. Return to this passage on a later day and meditate on it again if you find this to be helpful. As another exercise, consider the Colossians passage. St. Paul suggests that compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience are all important qualities for us to have. How might patience become easier for you if you also concentrate on developing one or more of these other qualities? Write down on a a piece of paper these four qualities and for each one write down a specific action you can take to further 52

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develop that quality in you. For example, for compassion you might identify being more attentive or listening more. Additional Resources: Colossians 3:12; Ecclesiastes 3: 1-15, 22; Habakkuk 2: 1-3; James 1:2-12; Psalm 102; Ryan, 2013; Souchester, 2015; The Serenity Prayer, AAWS, 1952.

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Facing Darkness “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.’” (Psalm 139:11-12)

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umerous Old and New Testament passages have taught us that light is good, and darkness is bad. The Gospel of John, for example, warns, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19), and another from the Gospel of John states, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Few passages can be found encouraging us to embrace the darkness. The passage chosen for this meditation may be an exception depending on how it is interpreted. The Psalmist points out that darkness can be light to God. Today, our culture places little if any value on being in the dark. The more places we can have light and brightness in the light, the better. This seems true metaphorically as well as literally; we mostly desire to be surrounded by light and to run away from darkness. Darkness seems, at least to many, to be synonymous with being lost, empty, in deep pain, depressed, or even dying. It can also signify that God is absent or at least that we sense this absence. If you are, or I am experiencing darkness, it may be a time when we have lost our way, feel directionless, lack inspiration, and feel isolated from those we 55

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love. We may feel needy and dependent, fearful, and lacking in control over our lives. Perhaps, most importantly, we are likely to be feeling unconnected to God. Do you ever find yourself in darkness in any of these or other ways? In these instances, have you also felt that you have lost your way with God in your life? If so, take a few minutes and try to feel what it was like to be in darkness. What should we do if we personally feel darkness within or around us? I suggest that we don’t run away from it or be in denial about it. Face your darkness! While we may not sense that we have any answers or a prescription for overcoming it, we need to trust that God is always present and this is a time to wait, listen, persist in praying, and anticipate that God will respond … in God’s time and God’s way. Being in the darkness may be a place of importance to be if we truly wish to give ourselves to God. St. John of the Cross (2003), a sixteenth century Christian monk, is most well-known for his book, The Dark Night of the Soul, begun during his eleven-month stay in a monastery prison. Here he survived on little more than bread and water and the only light that he saw was from a slit in the prison wall. Unlike many other Christians, John experienced the darkness more as a blessing than as a punishment. It was a love story involving both pain and joy and, most important, seeking a most elusive lover of all. John’s search for God led his soul into darkness, where he came to realize that God could not be explained or grasped. God, he came to believe, could only be encountered as that which eclipses (or overshadows) the reality of all other things. He thought that descriptions of God by other people and beliefs defining God may be more of an obstacle to experiencing the real thing. St. Augustine, a Fourth Century Saint in the Catholic, Eastern, and Anglican Churches, had views similar to John of the Cross; he wrote that if you understand who God is, then what you understand is not God (e.g. Lowery, 2009). 56

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Both men held the view that all the definitions and explanations of God get in God’s way. To John, the dark night is God’s best gift to us in becoming liberated; it is about freeing us of our ideas about God. Barbara Brown Taylor (2014), a contemporary minister, also teaches that darkness can be a friend. She distinguishes the darkness that our soul sometimes experiences from clinical depression, a form of mental illness. The latter needs a different response – seeking mental health treatment and possibly anti-depressant medications. Taylor shares the numerous ways in which she seeks out darkness, including, for example, temporarily blinding herself as an exercise in developing empathy with people having visual impairments. Another for Taylor is observing the wonders of the stars in the universe and following them in their constellations through the night. In other words, she seeks out and welcomes the darkness before her. Darkness can stop us in our tracks so that we can reconsider how we may have left God behind or outside our daily lives. With this darkness, we may have a means for finding God in new ways, a new prayer form, a new church, new rituals, new friends on the faith journey, or a new sense of experiencing God. But the process may be long and demand that we mostly take more time to wait, be patient, and empty ourselves so that God can come in. A portion of a well-known prayer of Thomas Merton (p. 79, 1957), a Christian monk, speaks volumes to this discussion. You may want to add it to your recited prayers. It is “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything 57

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apart from that desire. And I know if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” Exercise: What is your experience with darkness? Are you afraid of it? Or do you tolerate or accept it if it ever overtakes you? Maybe you have just experienced it because you feel you have no choice. The darkness may have won you over. If any of these things have happened, reflect on darkness as an opportunity in your life. Maybe darkness has found us in a quiet room or moments by ourselves with the lights off. Or a walk in the dark and marveling about the stars above us. Or stopping our rush through life and deciding to just “be” for a while, to put everything aside and be still. Possibly, the darkness can be a place where we can hear from God in new ways, sense God, and come to terms with the reality of our complete dependency upon God. A possible chant that we can say over and over is, “I am weak, but You are strong.” Perhaps our darkness experiences, whether they be in actual darkness or in our circumstances that feel dark, will bring us to surrender, inner peace, and our roots in hope. What more could we desire? Additional Resources: Buechner, 1969; Hermes, 2010; Merton, 1957; St. John of the Cross, 2003; Taylor, 2014.

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Finding God in the Midst of Our Daily Lives “Where true charity and love dwell, God is there.” Excerpts from the hymn, Where true charity and love dwell (The Episcopal Church (1985).

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o you sometimes, or often, feel depleted and lacking a sense of God’s presence as your day comes to an end? Or possibly feel no awareness of God in your life that day even though you know in your head that God was with you? It is worth wondering what happened when we have a depleted, exhausting, or perhaps unfulfilling day. Nothing went well, or at least that was the perception at the time it happened. Even our interactions with people we usually enjoy did not seem to have any spark or feel satisfying. Whenever this is the case, we should ask ourselves: why is it happening? And what can we do about it? One likely possibility is that we were too busy or too preoccupied with what we wanted to accomplish and not aware enough of God’s presence in our life. No one has ever seen God, but we know through faith that God exists. Even more than knowing, most of us are deeply dependent upon God to get us through each day. So, this might be the perfect time to ask how God is manifested in your and my life. Where, when, and how can we see God each day? A few possibilities for me are finding God in my prayers, being touched or inspired by a scripture passage or 59

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another spiritual writing, hearing God in the caring words of others or in the connections I experience with someone, and in unexpected happenings that mysteriously occur in my life that bring joy. Maybe we experience God in a walk through the woods or a view from a mountain top or in hearing special music. God can be revealed in so many ways. We sometimes forget that God is manifested in the large and the small, the obvious and hidden, often the subtle and nuanced, in what we can see with our eyes and what we can only imagine. This is a good time to consider the passage chosen for this meditation. “Where true charity and love dwell, God is there.” Reflect for a few minutes on what this hymnal verse might mean to you? Then take some time to identify where and how you have experienced God’s presence and insert it in this hymnal verse. For example, “when I am caring for someone, God is there.” Then possibly say it over and over to yourself as a prayer in the moment. St. Ignatius of Loyola who lived during the period 1491-1556 was the founder of the Jesuit religious order (e.g. Bergan & Schwan, 1991; O’Brien, 2011). He was also well known for his Spiritual Exercises and one especially, the Examen. These exercises were intended to help people go deeply into their interior and discern the presence of God, and also, to discern between good and evil spirits. St. Ignatius wants us to consider these good and evil spirits in the context of the consolations and desolations in our daily lives. St. Ignatius recommended that we periodically examine, often in retrospect, consoling moments when we receive clues as to where the Spirit may be present in our daily lives as well as when we may need to make changes to become closer to this Spirit. Times of consolation can be times we feel energized, drawn more deeply into community, and able to look beyond our experience to take in the joys and sorrows of others. St. Ignatius also asks us to reflect on when we experi60

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ence times of desolation each day, when we turn away from hope, get caught in a cycle of negative emotions, or feel drained of energy. One spiritual leader, Hermes, (2010) described this process of examination this way – it is a simple exercise occurring at the end of our day when we ask: when did I give and receive the most love this day, and when did I give and receive the least love? I invite you to explore with me St. Ignatius’ Examen in a personal way. I’ll start by sharing a couple of ways in which I have experienced the Examen in my prayers. For example, I have discovered desolation in my frequent tendencies to be too busy and to take on more than I can realistically handle. This has been a pattern for me most of my adult life as I tend to be an overachiever and a perfectionist, and a strong competitor as well. I am aware that these qualities among others have helped me to succeed in my professional life. However, there have been serious drawbacks for me personally. I tend to push myself too hard and it has been costly to my health and sometimes my relationships. Even more important, I do not feel consoled by God when this happens. I might enjoy the glory of an accomplishment for a short time, but then I am determined to return to another challenge. There is not much, if any, consolation that comes when I experience these tendencies. I think my sin is in subtly trying to take the place of God and ending up simply being self-serving. In other words, when I am in this state, I can forget to feel God’s presence and guidance in my life. The good news is that this has become an area in which I have grown considerably— with God’s help. Slowing down is a key part of the change. Slowing down and being in the present moment is a special time of consolation for me, helping me walk through my day feeling God as part of my life. It is truly consoling and helps me to be more fully open to the needs of other people, especially those I am with. The Examen and my other commitments to prayer have opened for me a better way, a 61

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God-centered and other-centered way. I am succeeding in slowing myself down, discouraging my mind from planning so much for the future or worrying about it, having less at stake in the outcomes I pursue, and consciously choosing to partner with God rather than assuming I am doing it alone. Exercise: Now I hope you will take your turn. Take some time to give special thought to using St. Ignatius’ Examen as part of your prayer life. First, find a time to search more earnestly for where God is in your daily activities and how you want God to be a larger part of who you are. Prayerfully look for the consolations and desolations in your daily life and how they can help or hinder you in pursuing a more God-centered and other-centered life. For several days, at the end of your day, I encourage you to prayerfully reflect on your relationships, activities, and “random” or unexpected happenings occurring in the past day. When did you feel joy and gratitude stirring within you, and from where did you think it came? Also, reflect on what experiences you had that felt upsetting, self-serving, boring, or depressing where you felt God’s absence. What happened during these desolating experiences? After each time that you complete this exercise, journal about what you learned. After using this exercise for several days, take some time to discover any patterns in your daily life pertaining to consolations and desolations. What does this help you to conclude about next steps in your journey? While we cannot turn around and relive the day that is behind us, all is not lost. We can learn from each day and approach the next day with more insights, greater awareness, humility, and a determination to find God even more in our lives. Additional Reflections: Bergan & Schwan, 1991; Hermes, 2010; Merton, 1961; O’Brien, 2011.

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Just Keep Asking “Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)

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ust ask and it will be given to you. It seems too easy to expect God to answer us based on what Jesus said in Matthew 7. Just ask! It may even seem like a pipe dream or a near impossibility to some. So why waste our time even trying. Or we can try to ask, half-heartedly and with little persistent effort, and sure enough we will find that it doesn’t seem to work. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy; we think it won’t work and therefore it doesn’t. Yet, this passage is one of my favorites. It is so powerful when we fully consider it. And the visuals are great. All we have to do is ask God. Straight out ask if we need something. When we ask, it will be given to us. If we search for what we need, we will find it. And by knocking on the door, it will open up to an answer. Searching, in particular, may remind us of a research investigation that we could conduct to help us find what we need. We might want to consider at least three questions in this search. First, what are we searching for and do we have a clear understanding of what it is? We may be searching for an answer to an important question that provides new direction for our life. Or maybe we are searching for a new apartment, home, or even city for our next move. Second, since God is our source of help, what are the varied ways in which God might communicate with us. God can com63

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municate in many different ways, such as through words or actions of other people, a sacred passage, a deeper inner sense, etc. Third, and this is most important, how will we participate with God in finding out the answer. Our participation seems essential if we truly want God to help us. Our participation might take the form of a combination of efforts like prayers, patient waiting, and other means of discerning God’s signs. Being told by Jesus that we are to ask suggests that we don’t have all the answers. Maybe we think we can find the answers to all our problems on our own, or at least most of them. Surely, some of us think that our daily challenges and problems are something that we can or should work out on our own. However, this may be our problem, thinking we don’t need God’s help and direction in our everyday lives. But if we get into the habit of asking, we may find answers that come to us. Maybe the answers are in front of us, but we miss them because we are not attentive enough to what they might be, or we don’t wait long enough for them to appear. We may be expecting the answers in some obvious form like a human voice when they may be quite subtle and easy to overlook. Furthermore, they may be altogether different from what we anticipated. If we don’t stay in a search mode, the search may be for naught. Have you had these experiences of thinking that you can the find answers to your problems on your own or you don’t really hear a satisfactory response when you ask? This happens to me often enough and when it does, I find that I need to stop everything else that I am doing and start listening and discerning God’s answer. Stopping and just giving myself to my prayer ritual does work. How does it do this? Sometimes the answers to me can be to take my prayers and ritual more seriously. And to reflect more deeply on what is happening, and what has been happening since I began asking. Maybe someone shared some helpful words with me that I need to return to and reflect on in prayer as being 64

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potentially important. Maybe I wasn’t fully listening to the people I was with or didn’t really consider their words as a message of God speaking through them. God’s answers to my questions do not usually come quickly or quick enough for the time that I want to wait. I usually have to wait and sit on my questions for a good while. And the answers may ultimately come as a deeper sense of what I am to do or not do, or an insight may appear within, or an emerging calm comes over me, indicating everything is okay. I am beginning to accept answers over a longer time and often in unusual and unexpected ways. Even more importantly, I am slowing down and learning to wait for the answers rather than rushing ahead with my own answers. My Community Food Security Project, for example, will soon be at a standstill because I will no longer have a student to help me run the project. So, what do I do? I am waiting on God’s answer even though I will have a hard time accepting that the project may end. It will be especially difficult to accept the project’s ending at a time when it is having significant breakthroughs in helping some people. Waiting is difficult, but sometimes we have no choice! In closing, I suggest that we try harder at asking God for answers to our questions or needs and to do this on a regular basis. This will likely involve praying more often and praying with higher expectations that God does provide us with answers. My prayers call for me to allow more time to have God in my daily life, partially for seeking God’s responses to the large and small questions of importance to me. What about your prayers? Exercise: What does the Matthew 7 passage mean to you? Perhaps you may want to read it several times with silent moments between each reading for any thoughts or feelings to come. How much do you depend upon God for the answers to your questions? How does it usually turn out when you 65

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do ask? How do God’s answers seem to be revealed to you and how important are they in terms of what you end up doing? How difficult is it for you to receive clear answers from God and what might you change or add to your conversations with God that may help you become more aware of God’s immediate presence? Additional Resources: Au, chapter 5, 1989; O’Brien, 2011.

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PART III

Spiritual Meditations about Our Conversations with the People Whom We Help

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Discovering Christ in Our Clients “… Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” … “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matt. 25:37-40)

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his passage is a stark reminder of the importance of forgotten people – people who are poor, those who are mentally ill, chronically sick, or disabled, people of color generally, undocumented immigrants, disenfranchised people, victims of violence, families attempting to survive in war zones, and people in prison. Jesus spent most of his time with such people in his ministry. They were the poor, widows, lepers, handicapped, diseased, tax collectors, prisoners, demon-possessed, and prostitutes. Evidence of this is revealed in numerous passages of the Gospels. Who are the people today to whom Jesus is likely to want us to give our utmost attention? They could be peo67

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ple who are struggling every day worrying about their next meal or having a safe and comfortable place to sleep that night. And the unemployed who have been denied a job because of racial discrimination or deprivations from their past. Also, people who have serious medical problems and do not have access to decent medical care. And those shunned and ignored because of a mental disability and the stigma that accompanies it, or those pushed aside and overlooked because they are perceived as unimportant or undesirable. Most people in our society who are financially well off are not likely to see such people in their daily routines unless they pass them on the street. For example, a homeless person begging for money at an intersection or an older woman curled up on a city bench. In some contrast, most social workers and other helping professionals have quite different experiences. These are the people that they see regularly as their clients. I sat across from a very frail old man while I was interviewing people about food insecurity in their lives as part of a community study. I was interviewing an unemployed woman beside me and was startled as I heard this elderly man speaking with a stutter and a slightly shrilled voice. He was sitting by himself across the same table. I became aware of my hesitation and discomfort about reaching out to him. He was looking away from all of us and it would have been easy for me to look away as well, move to another table, and interview someone else. Yet, something within nudged me to reach out to greet him and begin a conversation. At that moment, everyone turned their eyes toward us to see what would happen. I asked him if he was willing to participate in our food insecurity study and he responded willingly. This frail gentleman spoke, albeit with a stutter and a high-pitched voice, of his daily concern to find food and the struggles he was experiencing just getting to places like this church that serves 68

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meals for the poor. As he spoke, I quickly became aware that he was a very sweet man with much wisdom and heartfilled love. We turned out to have a very special exchange as I was getting more and more acquainted with him as part of our study. I knew that Christ was unmistakably in him. There was no doubt in my heart about this. He was a very special fellow human being with whom I had the privilege of getting acquainted. I shifted my thoughts to marveling about what this frail gentleman was teaching me. Jesus frequently reminds us that these are the people to whom he reached out the most. His time was spent listening to them and offering support, healing, and release from their sins. He also inspired, empowered, and loved them, and even gave a few of them life after they died. I thought to myself, what a special opportunity we have to meet and serve these folks, just like Jesus did. Additionally, we can see Jesus in their troubled eyes, their sadness, anger, fears, peace, and joy. That’s essentially what the above passage suggests to me; we can experience the face of Jesus in each of them. This passage reminds us that Jesus is always with us and we can get glimpses of him every time we see our clients. This can be an empowering way to think about our practice and our clients—greeting them and interacting with them as if we are interacting with Jesus. And this expanded way of viewing the people we help can profoundly change our relationships with them. Instead of just seeing them as people with serious problems, we see Jesus and we are inspired to affirm and love them. Exercise: Take some time now to reflect on recent experiences that you have had with your clients. Become aware of two or three of your clients that easily come to your consciousness. Spend some time reflecting on why you have identified them. What do you recall about what happened when you 69

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met with them? What touched you? Was it something that they said or did? Or how they looked? Or maybe how they responded to you or to something that you said to them? Now select one of these clients that seems especially memorable. Imagine this person in a session with you. Possibly imagine sitting across from them face to face. Now imagine Jesus being there as well. Possibly you imagine Jesus as a third person or maybe Jesus comes through in ways that resemble this person. Maybe you can even sense Jesus and the client being one person. Maybe you imagine the client’s eyes or words as those of Jesus. Or maybe the client’s frown gradually becomes Jesus’ smile. After you have meditated for a while, ask yourself how easy or difficult it was to see Jesus in your client’s face, personality, behaviors, and story? If it is easy, imagine that this person is Jesus and share your gratitude to him for being together. Spend some time meditating in this moment ... feeling a special bond with this person and receiving their appreciation in return. If it is difficult to image the person as Jesus, concentrate again on the person. Look beyond their limitations or perhaps undesirable characteristics to what may be special about them or their strengths. Identify what these special qualities are. Pray for a few minutes asking God to help you embrace them and feel love for them as you anticipate the next time you will see them. Additional Resources: Au, Chapter 7, 1989; Luke 4: 18-19; Matthew 4:23-25; Poe, 2012.

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Service is Our Gift “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. … To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 7-11)

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his passage from St. Paul is familiar to many of us. I recall as a young teenager reading it and feeling some comfort and hope from it. The passage reminded me that maybe I had gifts, even though I did not know of them. My gifts did not seem to be evident to me at that age, while some of my peers seemed to know and express their gifts, or at least that is what I perceived. My peers became leaders of clubs and stars in sports that I was not ready to try. Some seemed to enjoy the writings of literary giants like C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare, and Ernest Hemingway, but not me at that time. Others seemed to enjoy being the life of the party during social gatherings, but that wasn’t me either. I recall being shy and quiet most of the time in large 71

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groups. Frankly I wasn’t too sure of myself, except that I enjoyed having fun and talking more intimately with my friends in smaller gatherings. I did not know what I was good at during these early years, and service to others was not yet on my radar screen. But opportunities to explore my gifts were ahead for me as I prepared for college and needed to declare a major at the university that I would be attending. The churches where many of us attended while growing up introduced numerous opportunities for volunteer service that we could explore. Many of us as teenagers had the opportunity to serve as camp leaders, tutors, mentors, assistants in feeding homeless people, and working with young people from different neighborhoods, races, and cultures. And these opportunities stood out as gratifying for me as they may have for you. For me it was often a comfortable experience unlike any other. Many of us who volunteered discovered that we could do something well that was a service to others and it was also very rewarding in that it touched the lives of other people. But as I went on to college and beyond, these messages of service to others were overshadowed by other messages – making a “decent” salary, gaining higher social status, and finding a job that offers advancement and later career upgrades. Deciding to become a social worker as opposed to an engineer, computer scientist, or a business major can be a difficult one for many. The temptation to desire more for ourselves or perhaps to be perceived by many as doing “more important work” can be a significant challenge to address. In this regard, are these issues for you? Do you value the service aspects of your job more than the material benefits provided by your employer? What could perhaps threaten your call to service? Could working with challenging clients or frustration with minimal client gains be obstacles to satisfaction for you? Such challenges may imply that we will need to do some deeper soul-searching along with prayer when perceiving that our services may not be appreciated enough by others. 72

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The first, and perhaps most important, ethical principle of social workers is “service to others.” Our primary goal, according to the Code, is “to help people in need and to address social problems” (NASW Code of Ethics, 2018). Serving others obviously fits well with a social work or human service career because our primary work assignments involve direct service to people—for example, helping small children in groups or in a play therapy setting, mediating between family members having communication problems, assisting people with a mental illness find and adjust to a new job.  Being able to provide services to others who are disadvantaged or have special needs is clearly a gift, a God-given gift that some people have. When we think about it, serving others is what Jesus spent most of his life doing. He comforted people, counseled them, inspired, taught, confronted and healed them. Yet our gifts do not stop at identifying service in general, as you well know. Identifying the gift of serving others is just the first step. How do we want to serve and who do we feel most called to serve? What kinds of service do we want to offer to people who need assistance? Some have a gift of the Spirit to serve children. Others feel most comfortable with teenagers or older adults or couples. And our gifts are also determined by a myriad of other factors, like whether the people whom we wish to help are facing poverty, hunger, homelessness, a disability, domestic violence, immigration issues, prison, or chronic illness. Do you have a specific desire to help people of color, or someone confronted with discrimination or disenfranchisement? One of the advantages of being a social worker with either a BSW or MSW degree is that it qualifies you to serve any of these groups and others, and it is likely that you may want to work with one population now and another population later in your career. As the chosen passage for this meditation indicates, our gifts come from the Spirit. This means that we are doing 73

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our jobs in companionship with God. We really cannot do it alone without God’s help. This reality becomes evident especially when service to others raises important self-care issues. We sometimes need to seek guidance from a supervisor or more experienced colleague on issues around taking care of ourselves. We may also need to be served at times by someone else. For example, we may need to obtain counseling for ourselves or explore whether we are unduly neglecting our personal needs including the basic needs for rest and relaxation. Also, earned vacations and medical leave time that come with our jobs are intended to be used, sometimes in response to the excessive demands imposed by our job. All this can help us explore, among other things, the importance of setting helpful boundaries or limits on what we do with clients or how much we can give of ourselves emotionally. Most important, nurturing our spiritual well-being should continually be a high priority. Our gifts come from God who gives them specifically to us. Thus, we need to find regular times of prayer to nurture this relationship and ensure that it remains active and central to us. Exercise: What are your gifts of the Spirit? Is service to others what you feel most called to do? And in what specific areas of service are you currently called? Do you need to spend more time in prayer and/or seek the services of an experienced colleague to help you with this? What are your experiences of serving others like? Do you feel gratified when you help people? Try to identify two or three examples of when gratification was evident in your service role. What is it specifically that gratifies you? In addition, what do you think could interfere with your desire to serve? What prevents you from giving your full attention to your clients when you are with them? For example, do you need more time between each client session 74

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to renew yourself or to just rest? Are your expectations of yourself unrealistically high and maybe your expectations for your clients are as well? How can you enhance your service role so that it is more fulfilling to you both professionally and personally? In responding to the last question, try to consider your professional and personal needs separately. It may turn out that one of these areas is fine while the other is not. As experienced social workers know, serving others can be demanding and, at times, overwhelming. Frequently, exhausting yourself in service to others may, over time, for example, lead to compassion fatigue or secondary traumatic stress, deriving from the clients’ dire circumstances. Serving others has its natural limits and it is important to know what your limits, in particular, are. Additional Resources: Hugen, 2016; NASW, 2018; Poe, 2012.

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Who Do We Celebrate? “Be careful not to parade your good deeds before others to attract their notice; by doing so you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven. … your left hand must not know what your right is doing, your almsgiving must be secret.” (Matthew 6: 1, 3)

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his passage in Matthew is a small segment of the Sermon on the Mount that is covered in three full chapters (Matt. 5-7). Jesus is teaching the people who are coming to him how to find God’s Kingdom. His sermons vary from blessing the poor in spirit, to learning how to pray, to loving our enemies. Here in this passage he challenges the motives of those who are helping the poor and downtrodden. He asks, who are you doing it for, the people in need or yourself? He adds, “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” So, when we succeed in helping a family, it is appropriate to celebrate this achievement. But in this passage Jesus may be asking our motive. Did we celebrate because of what we did or what the client did, especially when it is shared with others? The larger context of this passage is a conver77

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sation Jesus is having about the religious leaders of his time. He senses that these leaders are really about announcing the good that they are doing when helping the needy. They want to be celebrated. In this case, Jesus is suggesting that they did it to win people’s admiration, not to celebrate those that were helped. We all have our egos and it is normal to feel some pride in our successes with clients. But we should be asking what our primary intent is in helping? Is it to benefit our clients or to serve our own purposes. Are we subconsciously bragging about ourselves? We may need to periodically ask why we are helping? We might ask, what’s wrong with taking some of the credit for what happens to our clients? After all, we often might feel ignored or underappreciated by our supervisor or employer and mentioning our part in their success can remind them of our value. But I think Jesus is talking about our primary reason for doing what we are doing. And do we eventually get our reward by lifting up our clients’ accomplishments and playing down our part in the helping process. Or at least not letting our pride get in the way of why we are helping in the first place. We can broaden this topic to discussing not only the clients’ successes but also how we generally present ourselves to others. For example, how do we introduce ourselves to our clients? We want to tell them about our agency’s services and the specific ways we can help them. But we may also need to keep our part and role in the introductions within balance so that we can emphasize what the services can do for the clients, how they can be strengthened, perhaps be awakened to what the underlying problem is, and even transformed beyond it. Since much is at stake in what the people we help do and what happens to them, how can we bring greater value to them? We all have special qualities and we need to be aware of our own special qualities or strengths that maximize our role and presence. Yet our clients have special 78

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qualities as well and those qualities are often hidden from them and others with whom they interact. Possibly one of our most important roles is to identify and affirm the clients’ strengths, both those openly evident and the hidden and undeveloped ones. Our own reward may be to feel compassion and great joy in them and their successes, as well as feeling the privilege of being a part of the clients’ growth and transformation. Martin Buber, a prominent Jewish theologian, told the story of a rabbi in Russia who was thrown in jail because he was accused of betraying his political opponents. When confronted by his jailer with the question of accounting for where he was in his life, the rabbi’s response was brilliant. He replied that we all will have God seeking an answer to this question or a spiritual accounting at some point. He profoundly added that this accounting was “not of our careers but of our compassion, not of our wealth but our wisdom, not of our gains but our gifts, not of our physical fitness but the fitness of our souls (Buber & Kaufmann, 1971).” This rabbi responded like we may need to respond as social workers. How should I evaluate myself? How did I do? Maybe this is what we need to be reflecting on when introducing ourselves to our clients and later when our clients make some headway in their lives and we have been a part in it. Was I compassionate enough with my clients? How much of my wisdom was evident? What gifts did I receive from God to make me an effective helper, and how fit is my soul or spiritual being? Exercise: While taking into account that we should have some pride and confidence in our ability to help our clients, how can we also be open and grateful for what has been contributed by God and others that enhances the helping process for our clients? What are some of the ways that you help 79

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clients succeed that you hesitate to take credit for? What are your gifts that make you effective? What are all the origins of your capacity to be compassionate and wise? Did they come from you or from somewhere else or both? How much did God lead you into choosing social work and conducting yourself as a social worker? Select a colleague, preferably in your agency or work setting, and present an introduction to this staff person that you might give to a client that clearly explains what the agency can do to help them but also emphasizes the client’s importance. Additional Resources: Buber & Kaufmann, 1971; Matthew 20:16; NASW Code of Ethics, 2018; Saleebey, 2013.

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What’s Love Got to Do with It? “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

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hat does love have to do with helping others? Love seems so pure and abstract that it is usually left out of discussions about helping clients and the roles that we play in this. After all, when we explain what we are doing to help our clients, we do not say we are trying to love them. We usually explain the specific roles and actions that we are taking to help them? Possibly we feel that love is something beyond our daily interaction with others, including our clients and colleagues. Nevertheless, we need to at least try to make connections between love and what we do. First, love is something that is difficult to convey or do, whether it be with a good friend, our parents, our neighbors, our pastor, fellow church members, our boss, or especially our clients or the people we try to help. If we refer to what we do as loving our client, for example, we can quickly be criticized for doing something that crosses the boundaries between being professional and unprofessional. The NASW Code of Ethics (2018) states that we are to practice in an ethical way, and one ethical standard is to avoid engaging in a dual or multiple relationship with our clients, especially when there 81

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is a risk of exploitation or potential harm to the clients. Dual relationships occur in the most problematic ways when we, for example, relate to a client as a friend or romantic partner along with being a client. So, ethical considerations seem to complicate any reference to loving our client. The Bible helps us to clarify that love can take different forms. While it refers to some of the different types of love, it does not use the contemporary terms that we use in describing the different types of love today. “Eros,” or physical love, not being thought of as love in the Bible, often comes to mind when we talk about love. Sex and sexuality are concepts that are a central aspect of such love in a marriage. A sexual relationship can be a deeply meaningful way to experience oneness between two people. It is also clearly stated in the NASW Code that this is not an acceptable practice to share with a client under any circumstances. The Bible does talk about love taking the form of deep affection that parents have for their children. Also, the Bible discusses “philia” love that can be evident in a friendship that is close and strong but not sexual. Finally, “agape” love is described as the ultimate type of love that is deeply spiritual and selfless. We strive to experience this type of love with God and our spouse, but we are always falling short because of our limitations as human beings. The 1st Corinthians passage that was selected to introduce this spiritual meditation describes some of the qualities of love, and I would like for us to think of some of these qualities as important to have and express in our helping relationships. For example, we want to be as kind as we can be to our clients, and patience is one of the ways we can do this. We try to be as client-centered in our empathy as possible and to be fully in the present moment in our consciousness as we meet with our client. We should strive to be with no one else in thought or consciousness during this sacred time. We try to avoid dishonoring our clients in all ways. We 82

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readily affirm who they are as a human being and a child of God. We help them to find the truth in their lives, however painful it may be, so they can face and overcome their problems head-on. And we want to protect them from harm to the extent that we can, trust them, and forever hope the best for them in the future. So, we are to love our clients. That’s what we do, or at least one way we can express this. We should not be afraid to claim that we are loving them. But we can also be easily misunderstood in this claim as the above discussion about different types of love explains. We need to be cautious in how we express this and to whom we express it to avoid being misunderstood. In conclusion, we need to remember that we are to help our clients with their spiritual issues; this is a social work accreditation standard. Spirituality is manifested in many forms, with love being a central one. We are to help clients enhance their love for other people in their lives and love their God more fully. Hopefully, love is a goal of most people in their relationships, and the client’s spirituality offers many ways to more fully experience this love. For example, we may be helping them engage in concepts like forgiveness, transcendence, gratitude, other-centeredness, and fulfillment in their relationships to others. Therefore, we help the people whom we serve by ultimately loving them! We should also remember that virtually all religions claim love as a core aspect of their beliefs. Exercise: What are your reactions to this discussion about love in our work with our clients? In what ways can you agree with this stance and add more to it? How are you perhaps reluctant to view your work as loving your clients? Also, how are you challenged to incorporate love into your practice? How might you describe the role of love in your helping relationships, perhaps in a more articulate and comfortable way for you than is stated above? 83

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Please reflect on 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and all the ways that St. Paul describes what love is about. Select what you currently think may be three of the most meaningful expressions of love in this passage that are relevant to your approach to helping people. What are some of the possible difficulties in applying these expressions of love. How can you enhance these expressions of love in your work? How can you bring up love as a topic in your work with your clients, particularly as it may relate to the clients’ relationships with their family members, friends, other supports, and neighbors? How might it be appropriately discussed as an aspect of your relationships to your clients and theirs to you without confusing them or complicating what your relationship is to each other? Finally, if clients wish to refer to love as an important aspect of their lives as Christians, how can this be encouraged by you as well? Additional Resources: Brady, 2015; Fromm, 2006; Matthew 22:36-40.

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Finding God in People in Poverty “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

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s Christians, we have been taught that people living in poverty are important members of God’s world. Poverty is mentioned over 2000 times in the Bible (American Bible Society, 1995), and frequently raised by Jesus as a focus of his ministry. Reflecting on Jesus’ ministry, it was largely about healing and caring for people who suffered from physical, economic, and mental problems. Jesus preached in Matthew 25:40 that “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” According to this passage, God appears to us in the people struggling with poverty and other challenging infirmities. This seems to be a real benefit of being a social worker because most of us are often actively involved in helping people who are poor. In contrast, most people in society tend not to have meaningful contact with them. Perhaps this is because they are perceived as less desirable and the antithesis of what most people think of as a success story or the American dream. Ironically as the Matthew passage suggests, avoiding people who are poor denies us the experience of being in the presence of Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew, the Bible passage selected for this meditation is one of the Beatitudes expounded on by Jesus as, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Gospel of Luke reported Jesus saying 85

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something somewhat similar, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20).” Luke’s version refers to the “poor,” most likely the economically poor, while Matthew adds other dimensions to poverty when he refers to “the poor in spirit.” The poor, to Matthew, seem to go well beyond those with economic hardships to also include the widows, orphans, lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, and other marginal people of Jesus’ time. Today, the poor in spirit likely refer to people who are economically impoverished, mentally ill, those with chronic diseases, the neglected and lonely, people who are physically disabled, developmentally disabled, homeless, drug and alcohol addicted, offenders of the law, people with depression, anxiety disorders, and many others. Essentially, the “poor in spirit” seem to make up most of the clients whom social workers help in today’s world. Social workers learn very early in our jobs and social work training that we are to serve people who are poor. The poor stand out as our priority among all the people whom we serve. This may be somewhat unique as we also discover that other helping professions are not as likely to have such a commitment. The NASW Code of Ethics reminds us that the “primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty (author’s italics added)” (NASW Code, 2018). The NASW Code goes on to say in its Preamble, “Fundamental to social work is attention to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living (author’s italics added).” As we did above in the Beatitudes passage, let us consider who the poor are that are highlighted in the Preamble of the Code. They likely include people with incomes so low that they cannot afford adequate housing. Nor will their incomes likely afford them three regular, healthy meals a day. And, they will have a limited ability 86

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to buy decent clothes, have the uninterrupted comforts of heating and air conditioning where they live, or have access to necessary housing repairs, transportation, medication, health insurance and health care. Nor will they likely have enough money saved to attend college or a specialized trade school, a private pension for their retirement years, and the list goes on and on. As social workers, we had our historical beginnings on the streets of our large American cities. We welcomed new immigrants into settlement houses, befriended the poor as friendly visitors of Charity Organization Societies, and fought for the civil rights of the disadvantaged and disenfranchised. All this occurred because these early social work pioneers were usually Christians who instinctively knew that this was the Christian thing to do. Accordingly, we are called to serve the poor because we are both Christians and social workers. While making this commitment can be an important first step, our commitment can easily remain only an intellectual one. We need to move beyond only an intellectual commitment to one that has deeply rooted spiritual and religious roots. We may need to take further steps to reach out to people who are poor and befriend them. After seeking opportunities to become acquainted with the people we serve, what more can we do? Hopefully, we can go deeper in these relationships when opportunities are available. Going deeper can mean giving something significant to the other person as well as receiving something significant in return. What can we give to our clients who are poor? Likely, compassion and considerable support, counseling assistance, connections to needed resources, access to educational opportunities, and advocacy. Hopefully, we can also communicate hope and love to them. And what are we likely to receive in return without expecting it? We can experience a deeper awareness of each person who is suffering, their multiple hardships, their fears, sorrows, disappointments, and joys. At these times, 87

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love and appreciation may also be subtly passed back to us for our presence, our sensitivity to their needs, and our genuine efforts to help. Some clients may also teach us how to be more generous as they live with so little but often freely share what little they have with others. They also may teach us courage, resilience, and greater faith in response to overwhelming hardships. Ultimately, they may remind us of the living presence of Christ. Possibly they can help us move away from our self-centered tendencies and more toward God and others where deeper love resides. And this experience may help us become mysteriously rejuvenated with surges of creativity, hope, and joy that we can share with them and others. Each of us has our stories to tell about how we have become close to someone who is poor or poor in spirit. One of my recent personal stories relates to hunger and food insecurity. I have always had difficulty accepting that the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, permits its people to go hungry. Viewing a documentary by “60 Minutes” called Hard Times Generation (2012) many years ago touched me deeply. It involved interviews with children whose parents had been laid off from their jobs during a severe recession hitting Orlando. Every time I have returned to watch this video I have found myself uncontrollably weeping because it feels so sad to me. It was deeply saddening to hear the children tell the CBS interviewer of their difficulties, like trying to concentrate on their homework while their stomachs ached from hunger and going to bed at night hungry and not being able to sleep. This and other exposures to hunger have led me to join a food policy council in my county a few years ago and to initiate a long-term hunger relief effort. In brief, a committee of professional, church, and community folks and I have been charged with coming up with ways to help a local community develop services for hungry and food insecure people that are well beyond just giving out limited emer88

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gency food. Free meals, food banks, and food pantries are already available in this community, but they often impose restrictions, and they clearly foster dependency. Exercise: Can you share a personal story in which you have had a deeply satisfying relationship with someone who is economically poor or poor in spirit? If not, maybe you can identify a relationship that did not turn out so well but still has possibilities for the future. Then reflect on what this experience has meant to you? What were some of the most important things that you gave this person and what were some of the most memorable things that you received in return? In what ways were you able to communicate hope and love toward them? And did you experience the presence of Christ in this experience in any way? If so, how would you describe it? Also did your relationship with this person instill in you any special feelings of joy that perhaps empowered your response? How did you experience Christ flowing through you? Additional Resources: American Bible Society, 1995; Au, Chapter 7, 1989; Barber & Zelter, 2014; Luke 4: 18-19; NASW Code of Ethics, 2018; Poe, 2012.

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Discovering God in Our Words “… do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time, you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (Matthew 10: 19-20)

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an you imagine God speaking through you and guiding your conversations with clients and colleagues? That’s how Jesus sent the disciples out to begin their ministry. They were told not to worry about what they were to say or how to say it. The words would come from the Holy Spirit. I would like to suggest that we be open to the possibility that God can speak through us and our conversations as well. We can encourage the possibility for this to happen by creating space for it in our lives and by having a conscious awareness that it is possible. Space in time can be added to our preparation for client interviews and meetings with colleagues. This space can be used to pray about what can happen in your interviews or you may want to have a silent meditation. Space can also be added in conversations with clients. Often, we may feel that we need to fill up silence when it happens, but we might want to hold back some to encourage reflection by both parties and to allow our clients to take greater charge of the exchange. Also, we want to slow down the exchange so that the Holy Spirit has a chance to join the conversation. Several things can get in our way of finding God in our words, particularly if we do not create this space and open91

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ness to silence. For example, sometimes, we may overprepare for a session with a client because we want to say the “right thing” when we may not know what to say. This tendency may be particularly evident when circumstances are new or challenging. I suggest that you be prepared but that you also be open to the possibility that more can possibly happen at times when we consider God is present and can guide us especially in challenging moments. As we prepare for our interviews, we may also be distracted by other things that are happening to us. Because our culture emphasizes staying busy, we may find ourselves filled with interruptions and electronic distractions, like checking our cell phones. Or we may be worrying about a later appointment or plans for the evening. We might be outwardly present, but the chatter inside us may be moving us from one irrelevant thought to another either related to the past or the future. It is hard to be present in the moment and to fully be in the now with a client. Mindfulness exercises can be helpful in slowing us down, managing our internal chatter, and bringing us into the here and now from wherever we were. See the exercises under Meditation 1: “God in the Stillness,” and Meditation 7: “Life in our Breath” for more attention to mindfulness. Along with dealing with over-preparedness and inner and outer distractions, how can we create space for God to speak to us and to our conversations with clients and colleagues? It would be a good idea to consider that God may have something to say. We may want to rely on God for what to say whenever we are about to face any important session with a client or an exchange with colleagues. Perhaps, we can take a few minutes alone in prayer beforehand to reflect on the people and situations we will meet. We can ask God how we may be able to best serve our client’s needs and bring a mutually satisfying resolution to their problem at hand. We may want to ask, “Lord, I am at 92

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a loss for knowing what to do. Please help me to feel your presence and perhaps provide me with your words.” Andrew Bein (2008), a social work educator, has an unusual social work approach that can be considered as another source here. He suggests that we emphasize an attitude of openheartedness and being in the present when working with clients. He recommends trusting the present moment with clients with all its uncertainties rather than depending too much on practice theories and techniques. He goes on to suggest that we let go of the helping process and let it take its own course, wherever the Spirit leads it. He adds that we can focus on the breath to facilitate calmness and mindfulness about what we do. Exercise: Find another helping person to work with on this exercise. Sit down in a relaxed position and face each other at a comfortable distance. Close your eyes for a few moments and get quiet and centered inside. If there are distracting thoughts, just become aware of them and gently nudge them away. Repeat to yourself a sacred word or mantra that calms you if distractions arise. Now just simply look at the other person for a few minutes. Just look into each other’s eyes in gratitude for who you are. Try to imagine that you are communicating with each other’s soul—soul to soul. If you feel a bit self-conscious, just close your eyes for a minute or so and then, when you are ready, open them and continue. Do this for five or ten minutes or until it may become uncomfortable. Afterward, share what happened with your partner for a few minutes. Was there any sense of God being present during this exercise? If so, can you describe what that felt like and whether it may have had an influence on your relationship with each other? If, after the silence, you decided to have a verbal exchange with each other, do you think the silent time may have had an influence on how each of you 93

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participated in the verbal exchange? Maybe you will decide beforehand to have a topic to discuss following the silence. If so, consider how the silence influenced your exchange in this instance. What happened in the verbal exchange that may have been special? Additional Resources: Bein, 2008; de Mello, 1978; Psalm 46:10; Psalm 150:6; Williams & Penman, 2012.

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20 Our Neighbors

“’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39)

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his passage is probably very familiar to you and possibly one you recall discussing numerous times in your life –in Sunday School as a child, in family discussions, a sermon that you remember, various adult discussions, and maybe other times. In this passage, Jesus left “my neighbor” vague, perhaps for good reasons. Maybe he wanted each of us to figure this out for ourselves. Yet, that could get some of us off the hook easily. “Neighbors” to many of us could mostly mean people we get along with where we live, or those we know at work, or our family members or friends. But we all know that can leave out so many others beyond the ones who quickly come to mind. When we look deeper into the meaning of these words and their New Testament context, we may get a broader glimpse of what Jesus meant by neighbor. He was in an intense conversation with the religious leaders who were challenging his teachings. One of these religious leaders tested him with a question, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” The answer Jesus gave was so astonishing that they never asked him a question again. His response was that everything in the law and the prophets hang on two commandments: Love the Lord your God and 95

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love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, these two commandments say it all. The first one is the greatest and the second one is like unto it. Now that could mean that the test of being a truly faithful Christian is to both love God and all our neighbors with all our hearts. Loving our God is perhaps the most important thing we are to do! What a challenge this is as it leads us to ask other questions, like how do we do it? How often? In what ways? Let’s look at the second commandment that offers some clues and opportunities related to the first. By working harder at loving others, we may naturally be expressing love for our God that much more. Ultimately then, loving other people may be a visible form of loving God. So, back to who our neighbor is. I guess we should start with those who are immediately around us in our neighborhoods and work settings, the person living next door who we don’t know, our work associates with whom we don’t get along and, of course, our friends whom we need and can help us with this question. John Wesley, a prominent Protestant theologian who founded the Methodist Church, put it this way – our neighbor is “not only thy friend, thy kinsman, or thy acquaintance; not only the virtuous, the friendly, him that loves thee, that prevents or returns thy kindness; but every child of man, every human creature, every soul which God hath made; not excepting him whom thou never hast seen in the flesh, whom thou knowest not, either by face or name; not excepting him whom thou knowest to be evil and unthankful, him that still despitefully uses and persecutes thee; Him thou shalt love as thyself … (Wesley, J., and Russie, A. (1831).)”. I think Wesley is saying that our neighbors include those we love, like, are indifferent to, ignore, overlook, dislike and hate. Those we know, those with whom we have an acquaintance, and those who are strangers. Those nearby and far away. People we feel comfortable with and those we don’t. Those with similar and different personal 96

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characteristics and beliefs than ours. In other words, virtually everyone! Let’s admit that loving our neighbors is a lifelong challenge that we will face until the end of our lives on earth. We can only do it with God’s help, and we can begin by taking one step at a time! Our times of prayer and meditation are important ways to prepare. This is an opportune time to talk to God about the people who annoy us or those we wish to avoid for some reason. God can help us overcome our limitations and help us grow into a more God-centered life. We can find the motivation and inspiration by remembering that this was one of the two most important commandments that Jesus gave us. It deserves our highest level of attention. Exercise: Please begin this exercise by identifying in your prayers some of the people whom you have difficulty loving. Then identify one or two people who quickly come to mind that you don’t seem to understand, that their words often irritate you, or those with whom you currently don’t get along. It may be a client with whom you want to minimize contact and you may even dread seeing. Or it could be a challenging colleague at your work setting or in your personal life. Maybe, it is someone of a different religion, race, or ethnicity that you do not know much about. Or someone’s personality turns you off. Now, begin praying in silence about the people whom you have identified, seeking God’s help in trying harder to be neighborly to them. If they are different from you, consider how these differences may influence your views of them. Also, pray for finding new ways to reach out to love them. Read materials on how to communicate with difficult people if this is an issue. If their personality irritates you, reflect on why this touches a painful nerve for you. Does this person remind you of someone from your past, maybe even 97

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tracing back to childhood? Perhaps your family upbringing or current social media has influenced how you feel. If their religion, ethnicity, or race is different from yours, try to become more informed about them by reading helpful literature about people like them. When you are ready, slowly reach out to one of these neighbors, indicating in some way your wish to become closer to them. Also, seriously consider making a change in yourself that may advance your capacity to be more open. For example, if you are aware of any stereotypes that you hold, work on addressing and overcoming them. If you tend to avoid being in places where you are a minority by race, gender, religion, or ethnicity, consciously choose to participate in such a group when you are invited. It is important to add here that there are obviously real challenges to loving some people, and we are likely to need to take breaks from our efforts. We may also need to set limits on what we are willing to accept. For example, if our personal boundaries are violated by such a person in any way or if we feel personally devalued by them, proceed with caution and only if you feel safe and can protect your own well-being. In such instances, you may want to consult a trusted colleague or friend before proceeding and you may need to discontinue this effort if the other party refuses to cooperate. Also, don’t forget to continually monitor and care for yourself. Above all, do not harm yourselves in these pursuits and don’t forget to seek God as your active partner throughout. Additional Resources: Brinkman & Kirschner, 2012; Cunningham & Egan, Chapter 9, 1996; Vanderwoerd, 2012.

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Overcoming Inclinations to Judge Others “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:37-38)

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t can be so easy to judge others. We often do it even when we are not aware of it. It seems to come naturally to many of us if we do not recognize it and consciously decide to stop it. Such behavior can be rationalized as a means of venting our feelings about someone or just helping us feel better. Judging others can have varied motivations. For example, when we are faced with a problem that affects us, it is easy to project fault onto someone else. Or we may overreact to the comments of others about us. We may ask, “Why did they say that about me?” Or “Who do they think they are doing that?” Also, judging often comes when we feel competitive. “Why did they get the award (or special attention) and not me? I deserve it more.” Or “I am more attractive than she is.” Often our personal differences can also be a significant motivation. “He is white and that’s why he has more privileges: no wonder he has this position.” Or “She is African American and gets preferential treatment unavailable to me. 99

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That’s not fair.” Men can resent women and women can resent men for numerous things. Christians can resent and be resented by Moslems; older and younger people can resent each other. It can go on and on. Often these judgments occur because of our personal biases and lack of understanding of people from different backgrounds. Overall, we can use all kinds of rationalizations for judging. If someone else does it, why can’t we do it, too? Our minds can persist indefinitely with such thoughts. Judgmental thoughts can pose serious problems for the one who judges, as well as impact our relationships with others. These thoughts can overtake us as a persistent barrage of unproductive and distracting internal chatter. It can also demean others and project unfair criticism onto them. We often do it to affirm ourselves; but that seldom helps us, either. Generally, judging comes because we are feeling insecure or incomplete. We may not even be aware that our thoughts and words are judgmental; nevertheless, they can bring us down emotionally and spiritually. Generally, nothing good seems to come to anyone from judging others. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructed his followers to love, of all people, their enemies. He went on to instruct them on how to do this with, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” These powerful words were also given to me by my parents as a young child; this was my special Bible verse to live by. And I am still working on this issue many years later – “Jim, do not judge.” What can we do about our judgmental thoughts and remarks? How can we work on not judging others? It could be a lifelong battle for some of us, but we can do it as a therapeutic process. Most importantly, God’s help is essential. When we are about to judge someone, the first thing we need to do is become aware that our thoughts may have judgment in them or have judgmental motives. Yet, another obstacle is that our judgmental thoughts can be subconscious, 100

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and we may need help from God and other people to bring them to the surface. This suggests to me a need for special conversations with God and feedback from others on what we are saying. By just recognizing that it is not fair or kind to judge others is a big first step in overcoming this problem. God becomes important in this process because we may not be able to do it on our own. Yet, once we become fully aware, the next step can be to intercept our judgmental thoughts before they become words expressed to others. Then we can work on replacing them with kinder and loving words. Jesus goes on to say, “Give, and it will be given to you. … For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” This seems to tell us that we can find positive alternatives to our judgments and share them with others; the result will likely be returned to us in similar ways. If we reach out and embrace the people whom we have judged in the past, gracefilled good can be returned to us. A good question to ask ourselves is, Where is my heart in all of this? Why do I have these thoughts? Do they come from a place that is embarrassing, selfish, or unloving? With God’s help, we can reframe our thoughts and emotions into sacred expressions of appreciation and love for these others. They are children of God as much as we are. To do this, we will need to think differently about the people whom we tend to judge. Maybe they have been faced with a troubling past or a difficult set of circumstances. We may know very little or nothing about them. If we have resented them before, our new enlightened vision of them may include attempting to discover their personal strengths and gifts, and their accomplishments. What we may have perceived in them before as an uncaring and self-centered person can be transformed into appreciation. In all of this, we will also want to be gentle with ourselves as we struggle to let go of our bad habits and replace them with the new. Our thoughts can be so powerful that they create the world we see around us. Imagine what the world would look 101

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like if it is defined by our judgments rather than our gratitude. We must think differently. Acceptance, appreciation, caring, loving, openness, healing, hope, and goodness need to replace complaining, criticizing, judging, blaming, being impatient, and feeling despair. If we have the former set of qualities instilled in our thoughts, we will likely receive them in return. If we have the latter set, we will likely receive them as well. Jesus can transform us from having negative thoughts to having positive ones if we want to change. Exercise: If judging is one of the things you tend to do, try to identify the types of people and circumstances that you are likely to judge or those about which you may have judgmental thoughts. Then, explore if this possibly happens because of some of your own insecurities. Or maybe you have prejudices against other racial or religious groups or the other gender. When you do judge someone, also reflect on how it affects them and you? Since this is a huge set of tasks, please include God in your prayers and deliberations about it; also, share your thoughts with a close friend if this can help. Also, think about what your thought patterns are like? What words come to mind for you that can be unproductive and judging, and what words are accepting and affirming? Some thoughts and words we use can be unproductive and others productive. Unproductive thoughts and words could be complaining, criticizing, judging, blaming, and holding onto old ways of thinking. God-affirming thoughts and words in contrast could be accepting, caring, loving, and appreciating. Perhaps, both you and I can write our own personal prayers asking God to relieve us of the specific judgmental and uncomplimentary thoughts and words that we have and to instill in us affirming and loving ones that we can embrace. Additional Resources: Hermes, 2010; Saleebey, 2013.

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Loving our Enemies and Adversaries “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 43-45)

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oving our enemies. That is a difficult passage to reconcile, especially at a time when there are so many people we could call our enemies. Or at least we have been taught that they are our enemies until we meet them and interact with them face-to-face. At this specific time in human civilization, our enemies, among others, include North Koreans and especially their leader, Kim Jong Un. As you know, Kim Jong Un has been threatening to launch a nuclear bomb at the mainland of the United States. Our response may be: how could he even think about obliterating millions of innocent people? Rewinding to an earlier period near the end of World War II, the United States dropped a hydrogen bomb on Hiroshima and a few days later dropped a second one on Nagasaki, two major cities in Japan with populations in the hundreds of thousands. Never had this happened before, and the devastation and loss in human life was an atrocity beyond human comprehension. Fortunately, we Americans did not experience it personally. We were told by President Truman that there was no other recourse for stopping Japan than to commit this unthinkable act. 103

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President Obama (New York Times, 2016) was the first U. S. President since Truman to visit the city of Hiroshima. His speech was touching and provides clues for how we can love our “enemy.” He said in part, “Science allows us to communicate across the seas and fly above the clouds, to cure disease and understand the cosmos, but those same discoveries can be turned into ever more efficient killing machines. That is why we come to this place. We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry. We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow.” He concluded his remarks with: “Those who died, they are like us. Ordinary people understand this, I think. They do not want more war. They would rather that the wonder of science be focused on improving life and not eliminating it. When the choices made by nations, when the choices made by leaders, reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done. The world was forever changed here, but today the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child. That is a future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening.” Our moral awakening. That seems to be what loving our enemy is all about. The 2018 Winter Olympics, possibly by chance or perhaps by divine design, chose Pyeongchang, South Korea as their site. This has somehow led the North and South Korean governments to join together to compete as one team under a new, jointly designed flag. This may be the end of the miracle that happened at Pyeongchang, or it may be just the beginning in resolving this tragic worldwide nuclear conflict before us. 104

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During these Olympics, I happened to see a photo of a North Korean women’s delegation singing their hearts out for their National Anthem on the front page of the local paper. I took a long time to just gaze into their faces. They were joyous. They were proud. They were peaceful. They were the faces of “our” young people, the young people of the world. You could hardly respond in any way but to feel love for them. So, one lesson of Hiroshima and Pyeongchang is to look into the faces of our enemies or adversaries. What do we see? Can we see ourselves in them? Can we find love for them that can be drawn from the well that brings love to those we love most intimately? Another aspect of our moral awakening beyond striving to see ourselves in our enemies is to reach out to them with love and in ways that defy what our culture may teach in the realm of retaliation. In social work, when we face a situation between warring people, it is a time to help them make peace. We refer to the importance of both sides listening to the other side, as difficult as that is. And we could ask each person to repeat back what the previous person said before they speak their mind. We seek to find common ground whatever it is. This approach also works in international crises. We refer to it as diplomacy or finding a solution that treats both sides with fairness and dignity. Another touching story about loving our enemy comes from memories of my participation in a National Council of Churches-sponsored peace pilgrimage to the former Soviet Union in the 1980s. A purpose of that exchange was to engage in face-to-face conversations with our “enemies” (government officials, church leaders, and common folks) and learn to love them. We learned enough Russian to engage in very simple personal conversations with Russian citizens about their love of their families and ours. We found that they were in many ways like us – people who belonged to a family, had jobs, and attended a church. They wanted to live happily and with adequate material resources as we do. 105

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One of the stories that many Russians told was from their past experiences of World War II with their enemy, Nazi Germany. They wanted us to know that they suffered horrible torment and misery from their enemy and they never wanted that to happen again. They told us a tearful story during World War II of Russians gathering in their town square after they had pushed the Nazis back from their latest assault on their homeland. The Russian officials of the town decided to parade captured German soldiers who had survived that attack around the square. The German soldiers already appeared on the last leg of their very existence. They were bone thin from malnourishment, wore filthy, ragged clothes, and obviously suffered from hunger. The local citizens, who had also experienced this horrific war and in many cases felt just as bad as these soldiers responded as expected. They jeered these captives and ridiculed them, spit upon them, and kicked and pushed them to the ground. That was instinctively the thing to do toward an enemy that had attacked and killed their people. But then, out of nowhere, an old widow who had lost her husband in that war pushed herself through the crowd to where the German soldiers were and pulled out several loaves of bread, broke them into pieces, and started handing them to the Germans. The captured soldiers began flocking around her like animals seeking a small piece of her bread and stuffing it in their mouths. Before long, other local citizens pulled out what little food they had in their possession and began feeding them too. . This widow remembered what loving your enemy is all about. And what she did was totally counter to what we are expected to do to our enemies. And this is our lesson as well. We are to do what may seem contrary to our customary way of treating the people whom we hate or hate us. With God’s help and lots of time, we can learn to love those who persecute us and attempt to treat them as we would want them to treat us, as God’s children. There is no other way before us if we are all to survive. 106

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Exercise: Think about your enemies, and if “enemies” is too strong a word, your adversaries. Identify one or more people close by or far away that you have learned to hate or at least to resent and try to avoid. Now find pictures of them, or if you can see them in real life take time to look at them without staring. What do you see? Think about them being God’s children. Perhaps, this may be easy, or it may be hard to fathom. But when it comes down to the basics, they are us and we are them. The last thing God would want us to do is destroy or even hurt them. We are to learn to love them and thank God for their presence in our lives. That’s not usually easy, but it is what we are to do as Christians. The alternative can be unthinkable or at least contrary to what we believe. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Violence solves no social problems; it merely creates new and more complicated ones” (King, 1957). Additional Resources: Brinkman & Kirschner, 2012; Forest, 1987; King, 1957.

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The Miracle of Less Being More “Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was four thousand ...” (Matthew 15:36-38)

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e live in a society where most of us live quite comfortably and some of us even live extravagantly. Most Americans have more income, possessions, comforts, and opportunities than the vast majority in the entire world. Yet, ironically, most of us still have the tendency to want even more. More money, a newer or second home, a different partner, a fancier car, a change in furniture, more vacation time, or more exotic vacations. More, more, more. We even spend a fair amount of time and energy being preoccupied with “more” rather than simply enjoying what we have. Further, some are obsessed with finding ways to hold onto and protect what we have rather than sharing it with others. Some people I know, for example, will turn their entire lives upside down to avoid paying state income taxes where they currently live and move to a state that doesn’t have a state income tax. Wanting more seems to be deeply ingrained in the psyche of a growing number of Americans. It is probably a tendency that is impossible to stop or even slow down without God’s help. Are these tendencies familiar in any way to you person109

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ally? Perhaps you have some aspects of this tendency but not others? Many among us, students and recent graduates included, can honestly say that they hardly have enough. Maybe you are early in your career or you have enormous student loans or some bad financial times when you could barely pay your bills. Yet, we may still have considerably more than the people whom we help. Depending on our current financial situation, a most important question for many of us to consider is, when do we have enough and how do we know it? Further, if we have more than we need, are we preoccupied with wanting even more? Perhaps, at some point we may even have to consider when we are outright greedy? As social workers, we know from our clients that large numbers of Americans do not live in material comfort. We know that many are poor, struggling, and without adequate food, decent housing, and access to needed health care. We also know, from our experiences working with clients, that many also face what seems like insurmountable barriers to obtaining a good paying job. Some even lack enough money to buy the basics needed just to survive. They may be unemployed or hold two or more part-time, low-paying jobs. Or they may be homeless, discriminated against, or older and frail, disabled, or undocumented immigrants. Yet, what seems amazing is that so many of the poor, struggling, and downtrodden seem be more grateful for what they have than those of us who have substantially more. They may also be filled with more joy and happiness. You may see this common tendency among many of your clients and in lower income communities. They somehow learn how to cope with their material limitations despite what they don’t have; even more amazing, many are inclined to share what they have with others with little or no hesitation. They may share their limited food supply, offer their sofa to someone for an overnight stay, drive people to medical appointments and much more. They also model in many ways the life of Jesus. Many are, in fact, devoutly religious. 110

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A memorable example of this was demonstrated for me when the minister of an African American Church (AME Zion) held an emergency meeting following the church’s worship service. A crisis had occurred, and five children known to the community living around the church had lost their mother through a long, painful illness and ultimate death. These children no longer had a home or any known relatives to take care of them. Those who attended this church meeting were asked if anyone could take these children in to live with them, possibly permanently. In a surprising response to onlookers from the outside, three unrelated families, without any obvious hesitation, volunteered to provide these children their home. They didn’t say that they would think about it and get back with their responses; they volunteered there on the spot. I think we have so much we can learn from many of our clients and others like these church members. Perhaps, they teach us by modeling what giving is all about as they share in their personal stories of struggle, sacrifice, and putting others ahead of themselves. Are you usually content with what you have? If so, what do you think explains your contentment? Are there times that you dwell on wanting more than you need? If so, from where do you think these desires come? As you seek more when you may not need it, does it usually bring more contentment to you in the short and long run or more discontentment? In some cases, for example, it is common for many of us to feel bored with our furnishings and material living arrangements after a while even when they may have been quite expensive when purchased and viewed by many as extravagant. If any of these situations seem familiar to you, is boredom an issue and where do you think this boredom comes from? It might make sense to ask ourselves if we really need that extra coat or another pair of new shoes. Or the latest I-phone or a larger, flat TV screen? If these and related situations are familiar to any of us, maybe we should be asking God to help us wrestle with what’s going on. 111

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Exercise: So, what can we do? How easy would it be for us to follow the lead of saintly people such as those described above? Perhaps there may be the rare individuals among us who give away all but what they need. Probably more of us can do this in an incremental way. Maybe we can give away some of what we earn to a special cause like housing for homeless people or perhaps financially invest in a child or family in dire circumstances. Perhaps, we can contribute a small amount to such a project in the beginning and consider gradually increasing it as we are able. Also, it may be even more fulfilling to us to consider trying to have some mutually agreeable personal contacts with the people we help, both to get to know them and to share ourselves more deeply. An amazing result of such an effort, in the experience of many people, is having a deeper feeling of joy and peace, and not feeling regret for what they did. Many such people further report that they miraculously feel like they now have more money in their possession, not less! This reminds us of the story of the Loaves and Fishes in which Jesus blessed the seven loaves and the fish and they miraculously ended up feeding thousands upon thousands who gathered to hear Jesus preach (Matthew 15: 36-38). Jesus also reminds us that less is more in other ways; for example, that it is better to give than receive (Acts 20:35); and where our treasure is, there we will also find our heart (Matthew 6:21). Please consider trying some of the above ideas if you have not already done so. In your prayer time, ask God to help you explore what seems right for you to do. Also, discover for yourself if you find more joy and peace by giving some of your money and possessions away. Besides giving away some of our money, it may be valuable for us to explore living more simply. We can clear out some of the material clutter and the hectic scheduling in our lives, so that we can focus more on what really matters—living 112

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more fully in the here and now with gratitude for what we are and have. Also, developing greater compassion for all our human family, both near and far, and devoting more of ourselves to protect our planet Earth. Additional Resources: Acts 20:35; Andrews & Urbanska, 2009; Eller, 1973; Matthew 6:21; Matthew 15:36-38.

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Can We See the Miracles? “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:6)

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o you often wonder whether miracles are real? Have you ever experienced one that you could not explain even when you tried? Like a person appearing unexpectedly out of nowhere to help you when you desperately needed help. Or a strange, unexplained signal to change your plans and then to find out later that it prevented some danger or led you to a place where you really needed to be? Or it could be almost anything unexpected and unexplained that happened and adds meaning to your life. When you ponder whether a possible miracle occurs in your life, my suggestion is to just keep wondering if it is a miracle. Don’t try to forget it or explain it away. Just thank God that it happened and keep wondering and wondering until you have given it all the attention that it deserves. Let’s look at the most important miracle for Christians – the resurrection of Jesus. I wonder how seriously we take this miraculous event in our own lives today. Do we really believe that Jesus died on a cross or a tree and then came back to life three days later? Our Western world may discourage us from believing this with its emphasis on requiring scientific proof and “facts” alone. Yet, Christianity would not even exist today without Christ’s Resurrection, a miracle that we celebrate at least once a year during Easter. This miracle is so important that some denominations 115

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spend several weeks in preparation, beginning with the Season of Lent when we are to focus on cleansing ourselves of our many sins. In today’s world, this entire Holy Season clearly deserves our time and attention to help us comprehend more deeply the amazing miracle that occurred. The miracle of the Resurrection can motivate us to recognize other smaller miracles that may happen as often as every day. Consider these incidents as examples. A tall awesome tree that began merely as a seed planted in the soil. Or multi-colored flowers and edible vegetables that originated as small seeds. Probably one of the most amazing miracles is the birth of a baby that distinctly resembles its parents and miraculously adds another human being to a family of two to become three. And what about these incidents? A warring wife and husband later lovingly embracing each other after asking each other for forgiveness and a new start. Or a young, defiant boy continually getting into trouble while he was young and later maturing into a caring, happy young adult once help was given to him. Miracles can be a smile from a stranger. A worshipful moment of grace during a church service. A drink of cold water after a lengthy period of being without. Seeing your wife or husband at the end of a day. Waking to the existence of a new day. Seeing daylight emerging in the dawn. Stars glittering all around us in the sky at night. Relief from a nagging tooth ache. Breathing. A hopeful insight surfacing from within. The appearance of a rainbow. You. Me. The list goes on and on. How often we are so busy that we overlook such happenings or just push them aside or take them for granted. Most of us need to slow down and be more present in each moment to contemplate what happens to us. Also, we can regularly reflect on what happened to us during each day just before we go to sleep. We can also pray about possible miracles that occurred and examine and remember them in our journaling. Most importantly, the examination of possi116

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ble miracles can help us consider how God may be speaking to us and acting in our lives. I must admit that I have only begun to seriously do this in recent years, and I wonder how much I may have missed in my earlier years. There is so much that we do not know about our lives and our world, even in this advanced, post-modern period. Even while new discoveries and revelations emerge all the time. We are not able to explain so many things about us and what happens to us. We may need to frequently remind ourselves that we are dependent on a God who is always present, protects us, and is ultimately in control. With faith, we don’t need to continually try to find out or know everything. Our faith pulls us in a different direction toward acceptance and trust. In addition, we should consider what miracles may mean to our clients. Do some of your clients believe in miracles, and if so, how important are they to their lives? Possibly, our clients can teach us some things about accepting life as a mystery and placing more emphasis on trusting God. If a client with breast cancer, for example, chooses to believe in miracles and the power of prayer to heal her, how can we respond in the most helpful way to her? We don’t want to forget that advancements in medical technology to cure cancer are miracles in themselves. But we also want to recognize the limitations of technology and the many unknowns about the body and cancer that we cannot control? As helping people, we can join our clients in supporting their wishes for miracles when this is important to them and appropriate. On another topic, we also believe in evidence-based practice and the importance of documented evidence that interventions are effective in helping clients. Yet, we can also have a broader awareness that documented, empirical evidence of an intervention’s effectiveness is likely not all that explains what can happen to our clients. Miracles and other unexplained and unknown phenomena may also play a role. 117

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Exercise: What about the possibility of miracles in your life? Do you believe in miracles? What might be some of your reservations? Is it possible that miracles are one way that God can speak to you? If your reservations are important to you, are there ways that you can consider unexplainable happenings in your life by looking for alternative explanations? If they are not forthcoming, then try spending some time reflecting on such a happening and pray about it. Ask God whether it has meaning for your life. See where this exploration takes you. If possible, try to come up with a list of possible miracles that have happened in your life. Recognize that they can be small or large. They can be common, but taken for granted, like being able to breathe; or they could be quite unusual, rare, and extraordinary. How might God be present to you in these unexplainable events? Additional Resources: Alexander, 2012; John 5:1-8; John 20:1-29; Luke 9:10-17; 37-43; Matthew 4:23-25; Metaxas, 2014.

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It’s All About Believing “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”  (Hebrews 11: 1-3)

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aith in God is so important to what we choose to do with our lives. God has a plan for us, and we are to follow it. St. Paul, in the assigned passage for this meditation, reminds his followers what ancient religious leaders accomplished through a God who was not visible to them. These “ancients” included Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Gideon, David, Samuel, and others. Paul is also reminding us that, with faith, we can do so much more, even though God is invisible to us. Our faith in God is not something that we need to prove. It is something we believe. No one has ever seen God. Nor has anyone “proven” without a doubt that God exists or doesn’t exist. We have faith that God exists, and that God is present among us. Anne Lamott (2017) suggests that the opposite of faith is not doubt—it is certainty. She goes on to say that certainty is missing the point entirely. “Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be. Faith also means reaching deeply within.” Certainty is not a productive word when considering God’s existence. The disciple Thomas was known as the Doubting Thomas because he would not believe that Jesus appeared 119

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in resurrected form during one of his early resurrection appearances; Thomas happened to be missing from this event (John 20:19-31). After hearing about Jesus’ appearance, Thomas remarked that unless he saw Jesus and could place his hand in his wound occurring during the crucifixion, he would not believe in his resurrection. In other words, to Thomas, seeing had to precede believing. Like Thomas, we have also not visually seen the resurrected Christ. But unlike Thomas, we don’t have a choice. Believing must precede our seeing. Believing Christ died and was resurrected for us is based on what has been reported in the New Testament. It is also based on our faith and faith is the most powerful ally that we have in our spiritual journey. What’s even more important is this: the more that we believe, the more that we can see God at work within us and among us, even if God is not visible to us in physical form. If faith and believing in God comes first, a follow-up question becomes very important. How do we come to believe? I would like to suggest that we discover God and Christ by using our hearts more than our minds. Further, I suggest that we are strengthening what we believe when we are regularly practicing many of the spiritual practices described in this book as well as others that people may choose. I suggest that we strengthen our beliefs when we study and meditate on the scriptures and the ministry of Jesus and his disciples. We enhance what we believe by being humble, by being last and not first, and by accepting our weaknesses so that we can rely more on God’s strength; also, by loving the least of our fellow humans not just our family and friends, Believing awakens us to know that we are not to live solely for ourselves; instead, we recognize ourselves as followers of God. We believe that by slowing down our lives, we can spend more time in prayer and meditation, and perhaps somehow pray continually, as suggested by Paul. We 120

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believe when we wait for God to lead us rather than choosing to go it alone. And by believing, we learn to recognize God in the numerous miracles that become evident in each of our lives. We believe by continually trying to empty ourselves of pride, self-centeredness, being judgmental, and other ego-driven tendencies; in turn, we try to fill ourselves back up with God-centered activities. We believe when we try to remember to be grateful for all that we have even when things are not going so well in our lives. And we come to discover the holy and sacred that often appear in the ordinary. Our believing in God is by no means static. Believing grows as we grow in our spiritual disciplines and spiritual lives. Similarly, our beliefs wane when we neglect to practice our spiritual disciplines. Our beliefs are not to be taken for granted, especially in this post-Christian era and the self-absorbed culture in which we live. We grow in our beliefs by continually growing, moment by moment, in our spiritual disciplines that enrich our lives and give us the capacity to discern what God wants for us. Exercise: What is your reaction to the position suggested in this meditation that believing in God usually comes before seeing what God has in store for us? How do you see God in your daily life, and how much does it depend upon what you believe? What are your most important beliefs that influence how you live your life? How are they reflected in what you believe about God and Christ? How strong are they? Do they sometimes wane? Are your beliefs nurtured by your spiritual disciplines and practices? Which of these disciplines have the most influence in your life currently? Which ones do you want to strengthen? Think in terms of many of the spiritual disciplines and practices covered in the book pertaining to conversations with God, such as: 121

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• Taking time to rest and be in solitude, • Seeking God in the stillness, • Praying and meditating regularly, • Continually self-examining whether you are following God’s way, • Caring for yourself, including your body, • Being grateful and patient, • Looking for God’s face and words in your life, and • Being open to miracles and other ways that God communicates with us. Also, please reflect on and consider working on enhancing the spiritual disciplines and practices that strengthen your helping role and conversations with the people who you help, such as: • Seeking to discover Christ in your work and in the faces of the people you help, • Making deeper commitments to service as your central means of helping others, • Committing to work with people who are poor, • Loving all your neighbors near and far, • Seeking God’s guidance in your conversations with those you help, and • Loving and celebrating the people who you help. Additional Resources: 1 Peter 1:7-9; Hagerty, 2009; John 20:19-31; Lamott, 2017; Matthew 21:21-22.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (1952). Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 40th printing 2004. AAWS, Inc. p. 41. Retrieved 10/14/2018 from https://www.amazon.com/ Twelve-Steps-Traditions-Alcoholics/dp/0916856011/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539511777&sr=1-1&keywords=twelve+steps+and+twelve+traditions Alexander, E. (2012). Proof of heaven: A neurosurgeon’s journey into the afterlife. New York: Simon and Schuster. American Bible Society. (1995). The poverty justice Bible. Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society. Andrews, C., & Urbanska, W. (2009). Less is more: Embracing simplicity for a healthy planet, a caring community and lasting happiness. BC, Canada: New Society Publishers. Anonymous. (n.d.). The way of a pilgrim and the pilgrim continues his way. Translated by R. M. French. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Au, Wilkie. (1989). Chapter 4: Open-heart prayer and the Divine, 85-113. Chapter 5: Is God the telling influence in my life, 11440. Chapter 7: Blessed are the poor: Enrichment on the midst of privation, 168-90. In A. Wilkie: By way of the heart: Toward a holistic Christian spirituality. New York: Paulist Press. Bade, M. K. & Cook, S. W. (2008). Functions of Christian prayer in the coping process. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47(1), 123–133. Barber, W. J. & Zelter, B. (2014). Forward together: A moral message for the nation. Atlanta: Chalice Press. Bein, A. W. (2008). The Zen of helping: Spiritual principles for mindful and open-hearted practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Bergan, J. S., & Schwan, M. (1991). Praying with Ignatius of Loyola. Winona, MN: Saint Mary’s Press. Bloom, A. (1970). Beginning to pray. Ramsey, NY: Paulist Press. Brady, V. B. (2015). Christian Love. Washington, D. C.: Georgetown University Press. Brinkman, R., & Kirschner, R. (2012). Dealing with people you can’t stand: How to bring out the best in people at their worst. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw Hill. 123

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Brown, P. D. (2003). Paths to prayers: Finding your own way to the presence of God. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Buber, M., & Kaufmann, W. (1971). I and Thou. New York: Touchstone. Buechner, F. (1969). The hungering dark. New York: HarperCollins. Buechner, F. (1992). Listening to your life. Daily meditations with Frederick Buechner. New York: HarperCollins. Canda, E. R., & Furman, L. D. (2010). Spiritual diversity in social work practice. 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Collins, W. L. (2005). Embracing spirituality as an element of professional self-care. Social Work & Christianity: Journal of the North American Association of Christians in Social Work, 32(3), 263–274. Cox, K., & Steiner, S. (2013). Self-care and social work: A guide for practitioners, supervisors, and administrators. Washington, DC: NASW Press. CSWE (Council on Social Work Education) (2015). 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards for Baccalaureate and Masters’ Social Work Programs. Educational Policy Approved by the CSWE Board of Directors on March 20, 2015; Accreditation Standards approved by the CSWE Commission on Accreditation on June 11, 2015. Alexandria, VA: Author. Cunningham, L. S., & Egan, K. J. (1996). Christian spirituality: Themes from the tradition. Chapter 3: The spiritual journey, 47-65. Chapter 8: Solitude in community, 143-162. Chapter 9: Friendship. New York: Paulist Press. De Mello, A. (1978). Sadhana, a way to God: Christian Exercises in Eastern form. New York: Doubleday. Dossey, L. (1994). Healing words: The power of prayer and the practice of medicine. New York: HarperCollins. Dudley, J. R. (2016). Spirituality matters in social work: Connecting spirituality, religion, and practice. New York: Routledge. Eller, V. (1973). The simple life: The Christian stance toward possessions. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Figley, C. R. (1995). Compassion fatigue: Toward a new understanding of the costs of caring. In B. H. Stamm (Ed.), Secondary traumatic stress: Self-care issues for clinicians, researchers and educators. Baltimore: Sidran Press, 3–28. 124

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Forest, J. (1987). Making friends of enemies: Reflections on the teachings of Jesus. New York: Crossroad Foster, R. J. (1998). Celebration of discipline: The path to spiritual growth. New York: HarperCollins. Fowler, J. W. (1995). Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. New York: HarperCollins. Fromm, E. (2006). The art of loving. New York: HarperCollins Publisher. Guenther, M. (1998). The practice of prayer. Boston: Cowley Publications. Hagerty, B. B. (2009). Fingerprints from God: The search for the science of spirituality. New York: Riverhead Books. 60 Minutes. (2012). Hard times generation – homeless kids 60 minutes You-Tube, Nov. 28, 2012. Retrieved from GOOGLE at “60 Minutes hard times generation.” Hermes, K. J. (2001). Beginning contemplative prayer: Out of chaos into quiet. Ann Arbor, MI: Charis Books. Hermes, K. J. (2010). Holding onto Hope: The journey beyond darkness. Boston: Pauline Books. Hick, S. F. (2009). Mindfulness and social work. Chicago: Lyceum Books. Hugen, B. (2016). Calling: A spiritual model for social work practice. In T. L. Scales & M. S. Kelly (Eds.), Christianity and social work: Readings on the integration of Christian faith and social work practice, 5th ed. Botsford, CT: North American Association of Christians in Social Work. King, M. L. (1957). Nonviolence and racial justice. In C. Carson, S. Carson, A. Clay, V. Shadron, and K. Taylor, Eds.), The papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957-December 1958. Keating, T. (2006). Open mind, open heart. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Laidag, J. (2007). Recognizing the hazards, 35–63. In J. Norcross & J. Guy. Leaving it at the office: A guide to psychotherapist self-care. New York: Guilford Press. Lamott, A. (2017). Hallelujah anyway: Rediscovering mercy. New York: Riverhead Books. Leung, P. P., Chan, C. L., Ng, S., & Lee, M. (2009). Towards body-mindspirit integration: East meets West. Clinical Social Work Journal, 37, 303–311. Linn, D. (1999). Altars: Bringing sacred shrines into your everyday life. New York: Ballantine Wellspring. 125

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Lowery, B. (2009). The confessions of St Augustine - his journey out and back, to finding God in himself. Based on a talk on “The Confessions of St Augustine” at Clare Priory, England. Retrieved on 11/2/2018 from http://www.op.org/sites/www. op.org/files/public/documents/fichier/st_augustine_-_his_ journey.pdf Merton, T. (1957). Thoughts in solitude. New York: Farar, Straus, & Giroux. Merton, T. (1961). New seeds of contemplation. New York: New Directions Books. Metaxas, E. (2014). Miracles: What they are, why they happen, and how they can change your life. New York: Dutton. NASW (National Association of Social Workers) (2018). Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. Washington, DC: National Association of Social Workers. Approved by the 1996 NASW Delegate Assembly and revised by the 2017 NASW Delegate Assembly. Available online at https://socialwork.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ NASW-Code-of-Ethics2017.pdf New York Times. (2016). “At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on Friday, President Obama called for a nuclear moral revolution.” 5/27/16. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/ live/president-obama-hiroshima-japan/ Nhat Hanh, T. (2013). Work: How to find joy and meaning in each hour of the day. Berkley CA: Parallax Press. Norcross, J. C., & Guy, J. D. (2007). Leaving it at the office: A guide to psychotherapist self-care. New York: Guilford Press. O’Brien, K. (2011). The Ignatian adventure: Experiencing the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius in daily life. Chicago: Loyola Press. Poe, M. A. (2012). Chapter 1: Good news for the poor: Christian influences on social welfare, 9-22. In T. L. Scales & M. S. Kelly (Eds.), Christianity and social work: Readings on the integration of Christian faith and social work practice. 4th ed. Botsford, CT: North American Association of Christians in Social Work. Pooler, D. K., Wolfer, T., & Freeman, M. (2014a). Finding joy in social work: Interpersonal sources. Families in Society, 95(1), 34–42. Pooler, D. K., Wolfer, T., & Freeman, M. (2014b). Finding joy in social work II: Intrapersonal sources. Social Work, 59(3), 213–221. 126

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Ressler, L. E. (1994). Hearts strangely warmed: Reflections on Biblical passages relevant to social work. Botsford, CT: North American Association of Christians in Social Work. Rupp, J. (2007). Prayer. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Ryan, M. J. (2013). The Power of patience: How this old-fashioned virtue can improve your life. San Francisco: Conari Press. Saleebey, D. (2013). The strengths perspective in social work practice. 6th edition. Boston: Pearson. Sheridan, M. (2012). Spiritual activism: Grounding ourselves in the spirit. Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, 31, 193–208. Skovholt, T. M., & Trotter-Mathison, M. (2011). The resilient practitioner: Burnout prevention and self-care strategies for counselors, therapists, teachers, and health professionals. New York: Routledge. Souchester, G. (2015). How to be more patient: An essential guide to replacing impatience with patience. Miafn L.L.C. St. John of the Cross. (2003). Dark night of the soul. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. Steindl-Rast, D. (1984). Gratefulness, the heart of prayer: An approach to life in fullness. Ramsey: NJ: Paulist Press. Taylor, B. B. (2014). Learning to walk in the dark. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. The Episcopal Church. (1985). Where true charity and love dwell, p. 606 (A Church hymn). New York: The Church Pension Fund. Vanderwoerd, J. R. (2012). Chapter 13: Social welfare in a diverse society: Loving the neighbor you don’t know, 215-234. In T. L. Scales & M. S. Kelly (Eds.), Christianity and social work: Readings on the integration of Christian faith and social work practice. 4th ed. Botsford, CT: North American Association of Christians in Social Work. Walsh, R. (1999). Essential spirituality: The 7 central practices to awaken heart and mind. Chapter 20: Develop a peaceful mind, 154-67. Chapter 21: The higher reaches of concentration and calm, 168-71. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Wesley, J., and Russie, A. (1831). Sermon VII “The Way to the Kingdom” p. 179-188. The Essential Works of John Wesley: Selected Sermons, Essays, and Other Writings. Uhrichsville, Ohio: Barbour, 2011. Retrieved from https://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-7The-Way-to-the-Kingdom 127

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Willard, D. (1988). The spirit of the disciplines: Understanding how God changes lives. New York: HarperCollins. Williams, M. & Penman, D. (2012). Mindfulness: An eight-week plan for finding peace in a frantic world. New York: Rodale. Whitney, D. S. (1991). Spiritual disciplines for the Christian life. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress. Wolfer, T. A., & Brandsen, C. (Eds.) (2015). Virtues and character in social work practice. Botsford, CT: North American Association of Christians in Social Work. Wolff, P. (2003). Discernment: The art of choosing well. Liguori, MO: Liguori/Triumph.

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Appendix 1

EXPLORING YOUR OWN PRAYER RITUAL It seems that for us to change on the outside, we also need to commit to inner work. Sheridan (2012) made this suggestion in a study on the spirituality of macro social workers. According to Sheridan, the inner work and outer work that we do need to be consistent with each other if we are to be truly authentic and effective. This section is intended especially for readers who do not currently have a daily prayer ritual or routine to follow. Readers who do have a regular prayer ritual may also find it helpful if they want to consider ways to enhance their prayer lives. Based in part on Sheridan (2012) and Dudley (2016), several steps are suggested for developing a regular prayer ritual. First, find a regular time for your prayer ritual. Regularity is very important for developing a meaningful ritual upon which you can depend . This time should not conflict with other regular activities such as family times, time with friends, or work-related activities. Also, it should be a comfortable time for you to get the most out of this experience. It may involve, for example, getting up a half hour earlier if you are a morning person. The afternoon or evening may be better if you are more alert at these times. The amount of time for your ritual may vary but it should, in time, become long enough to be valuable to you. Silent times in prayer may be challenging to do at first and may need to begin for short periods such as 10 minutes. They can then be increased as comfort with silence becomes more natural. These shorter silent times can be combined with more time on Bible study or other religious readings. Second, find a location for your prayer ritual that is 129

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comfortable for you, away from noises, traffic, and interruptions. A corner of a room that is usually not used or a spare bedroom may work best. Or a back porch or maybe even walking around your neighborhood or in the woods may work. Sometimes a place at your work site may work. However, you may have the potential of periodic interruptions that require you to respond, or you may have a lack of comfort praying with other workers mingling nearby. A quiet time outside your office, such as a walk or sitting at a park bench during lunch are possibilities. A place where you can always go is preferred so that you can view this as a special place for your spiritual practice. Being away from noise created by others in your home or apartment and away from areas that are heavily trafficked, such as a dining room or TV area, are also important. However, just because you will want to minimize noise, does not mean that noise will never happen. Sometimes, it may be necessary to learn to manage noise and ignore it as much as possible. As a third consideration, plan to have an altar at your prayer location. An altar is intended only for you and should be created to bring a quiet, prayerful ambiance to your ritual practice (e.g., Linn, 1999). Your altar could have a candle to light or incense. Or an Orthodox icon or an inspiring painting. It could also have photos, possibly of family members, close friends, or other loved ones. Religious symbols will likely be very important, such as a cross, prayer beads, and a Bible. Whatever is most meaningful to you spiritually should be considered for your altar. Your altar, like mine, can always be changed to keep it fresh and inspiring. If the location of your prayer ritual is also used for other activities, it can always be taken down when it is not used. Another important step is to decide on activities, or how you will spend your prayer time. Choose activities that work best for you and can vary if needed. I spend more time in silent prayer when I am in a comfortable, centered mood, for example, but when I am more unsettled and preoccupied, I 130

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may focus more on a Bible passage or a spiritual reading. You may choose to read scriptural passages, devotions, or readings about a specific saint or prophet, or you may just want to have intercessory prayer or try Centering Prayer on any one day. Some may want to have enough room in their space for yoga poses, singing, or a walking meditation if that helps calm and center you. Overall, my experience has been that having many activities available rather than one is best to allow you to be responsive to the varying needs that you may have each time you begin your ritual. Also, try not to let boredom or sleepiness set in. If it does, take a closer look at why this may be happening. For example, occasionally I realize that I am short on sleep and I need to take a short nap or just rest in my time with God. Conversely, the goal, if there is one, is to develop a meaningful practice that you look forward to when the time comes each day. Anticipation of my morning ritual helps me more than anything else to get up on time, so my ritual does not have to be shortened because I am rushed. By the way, one indication that your prayer ritual is working is that you will feel something is missing in your day when you have not done it as your desire for it grows over time. It is inevitable that there will be times when you will miss your prayer time. You may be away from home, forget, be very sick, or have a required work assignment that conflicts with your ritual time. This is normal and all you need to do is be aware that you missed it and get back to your schedule as quickly as you can. However, when beginning a new spiritual practice, anticipate some ups and downs. While you are meditating, you may find yourself thinking about what you have to do that day, and this may compel you to stop meditating abruptly. That’s why it is important to start small. You may want to start by sitting for 10 or 15 minutes at a time in silence. No need to add to your silent time until you feel you are becoming more comfortable with it. It is wise to not impose high expectations. Just practice 131

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sitting silently or reading a sacred passage. Notice how you are feeling while you are sitting. Stay in touch with your breathing. Maybe you are beginning to feel relaxed and relieved to just sit and have no expectations. Sitting and not having an assignment can be very restful if you are used to always being on the go. Just take in this restful time as a gift from God and enjoy it. Along with a regular daily spiritual time, it can be helpful to occasionally have longer experiences of spiritual practice or retreats to replenish your body, mind, and spirit from fatigue. Retreats are popular ways to do this. Instead of taking 10 to 30 minutes for your practice, retreats can offer a half-day, an entire day, or a weekend if you can afford to get away. You may be able to do this every month or maybe only once a year. If you have a car, you may be able to travel from your area to the mountains, a wooded area, or a lake or ocean shore point. If you do not have the financial resources to go away, try to find a quiet, welcoming place nearby, like a chapel or the sanctuary of a church open to the public for personal prayers. In my experience, many churches are not open during the week or on Saturdays for someone to wander in and pray. But I have found a few churches that are open and one that has become a special place for my retreats. Alternative places can be a nearby park, an empty classroom or other unused room, or a public garden. Use your imagination in searching out possible respite places you can visit that will help you to settle in and be still for a retreat. Your activities during a retreat can be similar to your daily prayer ritual; you just have the benefit of doing them for longer periods of time. Whatever you can do to unwind, relax, and transcend your busy life should be your focus. Take a few sacred books or devotions with you. Also take some items that make up your altar so that you can easily set up an altar wherever you are. Seriously consider taking and using a journal too, so that you can write down things that happen to you that are important. They may be new 132

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insights about your daily routine, nagging pain from a difficult relationship, or spiritual matters of some sort, such as sensing what it feels like to experience this practice. Or possibly you will want to journal about pressing difficulties that you have been tending to ignore and insights about ways you can more deeply discover or face them and minimize their impact in the future. Of course, actively involve God in all these special moments. Imagine that you end up personally working and reflecting on all or most of the 25 spiritual disciplines and practices in the book over a long period of time, with perhaps one or two at a time. My hope is that you will feel God’s presence and that you will have a more God-centered daily life as a result. I am wishing you great success. Please be kind to yourself as you proceed. Remember that we are always imperfect and usually move two steps forward and then fall back one step. If you fall back too far or too soon, try to recognize that this is happening and take time to figure out what went wrong. It may be time to reevaluate your daily prayer life. The central role of your prayers may be left out of your schedule and sometimes forgotten, or your prayer time may need to be enhanced with new prayer forms or a change in times? Protect and periodically evaluate your prayer life as a central part of your life and your overall spiritual journey. We have good days and bad ones. But we can always be reassured that God is with us no matter what happens to us. References: Dudley, J. R. (2018). Spirituality matters in social work: Connecting spirituality, religion, and practice. New York: Routledge. Linn, D. (1999). Altars: Bringing sacred shrines into your everyday life. New York: Ballantine Wellspring. Sheridan, M. (2012). Spiritual activism: Grounding ourselves in the spirit. Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, 31, 193–208.

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Spiritual Meditations for People Who Help Other People The 25 spiritual meditations in this book are designed to nurture and strengthen people who devote their lives to helping other people. These meditations focus on several ways that we can enhance our relationship with God. Finding God in times of stillness, experimenting with different forms of prayer, and growing our patience and gratitude are examples. The meditations also focus on our relationships with the people we help. These meditations help us view our clients and our services as sacred territory, urge us to celebrate our clients, help us love our adversaries, and encourage more openness to miracles. James R. Dudley is a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the School of Social Work. His writing and research have focused on religious and non-religious spiritual assessments, the spirituality of hospice workers, preparing students for spiritually-sensitive practice, and exploring ways to create spiritually-sensitive human service organizations. He has also taught numerous courses on spirituality and social work. He has conducted extensive work in churches in both Philadelphia and Charlotte on topics such as developing spiritual disciplines, male spirituality, the process of spiritual discernment, and Bible study. He has training as a spiritual director.

NACSW’s mission is to equip its members to integrate Christian faith and professional social work practice. For more information: NACSW, PO Box 121, Botsford, CT 06404-0121 Telephone/Fax: (203) 270-8780 Website: www.nacsw.org Email: [email protected]

ISBN 978-0-9897581-4-7