In Service

A few weeks ago when Pope Francis was in the United States, he said, "Live authentically in a concrete commitment to our neighbor."  The following Sunday our pastor's sermon was on the duty to serve our fellow humans.

This week the scripture once again pointed to service, but this time to service to God.  You might easily summarize the text with President John Kennedy's famous quotation, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," except substituting "God" for "country."

In his remarks, our pastor ran through a litany of things that we ask God for: to get the job we want, to get in the university we want, to get the promotion we want, to have the romance we want, to have or recover health, to receive an important reward, to bring rain, to have the rains stop...you get the gist.  I have heard God referred to as the great carhop in the sky that we constantly turn to in order to bring us something we want.

Without doubt some of us do pray, "God show me where you need me," or "Allow me to be of service." And, often that comes with a caveat.  When I was spiritual coach to executives in the 1990s, one woman tearfully said how she wanted to be of service, but wasn't getting guidance.  As we talked, she clarified, God wanted her to do something up north, and she couldn't stand to be cold. Really?  "Oh, God, please use me between 9 and 4 on weekdays and only in places that aren't too hot or cold or wet or dry."  I am not sure that is how the prayer to be of service goes.

When doing the spiritual coaching, I used to remind clients that when they prayed, they needed to listen at least as much as talk, but most of us who do pray tend to talk a lot more than listen.  When we do listen, it is with filters about what we find acceptable to hear.

Spiritual listening is like a muscle, which must be worked regularly to become strong.  I am finding that in my own life.  In the 1990s when I had my own business and more or less controlled my schedule, my spiritual listening muscles were strong.  I regularly received very clear and precise guidance from whatever it is out there that I call God.  I was quite comfortable with totally changing course on a speech right in the middle of it, calling someone I didn't know for a conversation, and even moving across the nation to a place where I knew no one and didn't have work.  Things always worked out.

As those of you who follow this blog know, I am in a 4-1/2 month stint in a different job, raising money for 20,000 charities in an annual giving campaign.  I love being of service.  I am one of a group of loaned executives working with groups of managers with whom we brainstorm, track progress, share ideas, and even cheer-lead as they run their individual campaigns.  I love it.  I truly feel like I am serving--I am serving the agency campaign managers, and I am serving the charities who will do service with the money we raise.

The more normal work schedule I now have allows me to do some other things as well.  I have done some things at my church on week nights, and last week I volunteered at a theater, which I used to serve.  But I need to give more of myself.  My listening muscles have grown flabby from lack of use, or maybe I stopped getting messages because I was so regularly finding myself needing to ignore them. (Neither my boss nor my clients would have taken well to me not showing up for an event I was leading because I'd been called to write that day.) I truly don't know if I stopped getting them because I didn't follow, or if I got so good at ignoring them that I no longer hear them.

This morning in church I noticed a line in our "prayers for the people" that I have missed before.  I truly don't remember it, but I think I was listening differently this morning, "Free us from lack of vision, and from inertia of will and spirit."  Ouch!  I am not sure, but I think "inertia of will and spirit" may be the result of flabby listening muscles. It took me a few weeks to physically recover myself from the long hours of my regular job.  I am now entering a stage of spiritual recovery in which I intend to recover my listening muscles.

Winston Churchill once said, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."  Whether I follow Pope Francis's encouragement to "Live authentically in a concrete commitment to our neighbor" or this week's scriptural encouragement to be of service to God, which in the end is likely to be the same,  I think it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that I step into a space where I am focused on giving instead surviving.

Helpers

I've learned a lot this week from working on the book I wrote.  Almost every page has seemed to offer a spiritual lesson that I'd been choosing to ignore.  Just yesterday I was reading/writing about spiritual helpers--those people who are in our lives to help us learn spiritual lessons, to perform spiritual service, and to encourage development and use our gifts and talents. 

Sometime they are people who are there in an obviously helping way.  My friend Amy Frost has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since we met after she read Leading from the Heart right after it came out in 1996. She has done more to bring The Game Called Life into the world than anyone. Thanks, Aim!

Other times our spiritual helpers are difficult people in our lives, but they present us with lessons we need to know but with which we struggle.  I find it extremely difficult to make the leap from intellectualizing that they are spiritual helpers there for me to actually being grateful for their challenging presences in my life. There are a couple in my life right now, but I won't mention any of them by name.  I will say that my friend Evelin was sent as a spiritual helper to support me in some of those lessons.

Often spiritual helpers show up in a most unusual way in our lives.  I met Amy in the elevator at a conference in Mexico when she recognized my name as the author of the book she'd just read on my name badge. Another reader/helper ended up appearing in my life over Easter Dinner at her daughter's home, both of us from very different parts of the country brought together at a still different part of the country to provide me encouragement at a time when I really needed it.

Most of the time, we don't recognize spiritual helpers as such.  They are just people in our lives.  Today I talked with a spiritual helper that I was certain was there as a spiritual helper even as we spoke for the first time.  Darwin Gillett and I have communicated by email for at least a couple years, but we couldn't remember how we knew each other.  We had a conversation that would not have happened if I had not been furloughed.  He had shared by email that he's between books and wants to refocus his business more specifically about the role of heart in building an effective business.  Since that is something I did for many years, I thought I might have some useful thoughts to share, and I had time to actually talk with him this week.

The miracle occurred as I spoke with him.  I needed to hear what I was saying to him about allowing the business to grow organically, the right people finding me, and listening to my heart.  I spoke about how totally aligned I'd felt when I was writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting. I am so grateful for this furlough and so grateful I decided to reach out to him.  As we spoke, I finally honored my knowing that I have several books to get out.  Choice Point has been gathering dust since the late 90s, and Leading from the Heart has been crying for a second edition since Butterworth-Heinemann closed the division that published it and The Alchemy of Fear over a decade ago. 

When I think about how lifeless and under-utilized I feel on my current job and how energized I've been this week, working on my blog and my e-book, it doesn't take a magician to figure out what I should be doing.  But, then there is that money thing.  I don't know how that part works out, but I do know that I am awake again. This afternoon I am able to feel who I AM again.  That's all I need to know for now.  I am confident a spiritual helper will come along to show me the way.

The cycle of nature begins again

The first full day of fall hit Washington with a very chilly morning and a late afternoon sun that bathed me with its warmth as I left the office at the end of the day.  I just stood and drank in its wonder.  As just a few leaves drifted gently to the ground, I was reminded that this is the beginning of the year.  Seeds fall, nestled into the soft ground and germinate for the next season...just like me. 

While some make resolutions in January, for me the cycle begins with the transition of season into the fall.  As this transition began to dawn upon me this weekend, I was drawn to commit to who I am...who I have always been...a writer.  And, I've sacrificed the writer inside me over the last few years on the altar of earning a living.  I've been longing for the integrity of putting words to the page, so even if no one reads this, I become more whole by doing it. 

As I was halfway through writing my first book Leading from the Heart, I can remember thinking  that I didn't care if anyone ever read it, I was learning so much from writing it that was all that mattered.  (Thank you for all who did read it. )  What I know in my heart is that if I do nothing else, I must find time for writing.

A few years ago I had an astounding meditation one day when just flowing from me were the words of why we are here in this world.

• We came to deliver a service that is needed at this point in time.
• We have certain lessons our soul needs to learn.
• We are here to develop our unique gifts and talents.

Writing is clearly a gift that it is time for me to develop again.  Today, I write for the second day in a row.  I am planting seeds which will sprout in the spring and yield fruit in the summer. Today, I begin the cycle of nature...again.