Category: Spiritual Practices
The Story of Pentecost
Deepen Your Spiritual Engagement As We Wait For Pentecost
Pentecost is one of the most important events of the Christian calendar and is only a few days away.
As we head towards Pentecost on May 28, we can spend time each day waiting and praying, like the Apostles. And then we can head back into the world, perhaps inspired with renewed hope and a deeper sense of mission as we return to our work.This year, we are offering a recorded reflection as a way to help you prepare for Pentecost. Also available is a guide that comes with a transcript and scripture citations.
Holy Week Reflections
Holy Week is a time of high drama as Jesus heads into the final confrontation. The tension builds day by day until it ends in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
This year we are offering a daily series of recorded reflections that help us engage the narrative of Holy Week by following Jesus day by day. This journey will take us through the very dark times of his trial, torture, and death, and on to his resurrection on Easter Sunday. We will add one recording each day.
Prayer and the Development of a Sense of Mission
A Reflection on Mark 1:35-39
In this recording we talk about a time when Jesus went off and prayed by himself in the earlier morning hours, while it was still dark, and emerged with a clearer, more powerful sense of mission. This passage might have some important insight for us on the relationship between prayer and the sense of mission we bring to our work.
Listen on:
(Time 10:54)
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Noon Prayer Meetings and the Revival of 1857/58: The Workplace Connection
A Case Study: The Fulton Street Prayer Meetings
A powerful revival occurred in 1857 and 1858. Sometimes known as the
“Businessmen’s Revival” by its contemporaries, a distinctive aspect of the revival was the extraordinary popularity of noon prayer meetings organized and led by business people. These meetings built on the pattern established by the Fulton Street Prayer Meetings.
There are important lessons that can be drawn from this success of this movement and the manner in which the prayer meetings were organized.
This is an updated version of an earlier article.
Leisure and the Sabbath
The Gift of Rest and Renewal.
Most of us know that we could benefit from periodically taking time off from our work and responsibilities, and enjoying a time of rest and renewal. But that does not make it easy to do.
The Biblical idea of the Sabbath, of taking one day of rest each week, can be a great gift to us – a day of rest and refreshment, a day when we can recharge and replenish, a day that might even lead us into the rhythm of a richer, fuller life.
We should see it as a gift, not as a set of rules and obligations.
If we can take some time off each week, and really let go of our work and our obligations, we will find that the Sabbath is a great gift to us, and that it can help us move towards a richer, fuller, less stressful life.(Time 9:11)
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We Need More Silence!
Writing in the Harvard Business Review Online (The Busier You Are, the More You Need Silence), Justin Talbot-Zorn and Leigh Marz lay out the arguments for why busy people need more quiet time.
According to the authors, research shows that “taking the time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy, and conditions our minds to be more adaptive and responsive to the complex environments in which so many of us live, work and lead.” They provide selected references from both neuroscience and psychology.
They make a number of concrete recommendations involving ways to build more quiet time into our busy lives. These range from five minutes of meditation and reflection during the work day to longer quiet periods such as an afternoon spent in nature or a weekend meditation retreat.
In this article, Talbot-Zorn and Marz focus exclusively on the secular benefits of intentional silence, not the religious and spiritual. This is understandable given that they are writing for a general business audience; I might do the same.
But I think this exclusively secular approach leaves out an important aspect of intentional silence — the spiritual experience it sometimes evokes. . .
Carrying Too Much Stress?
Maybe your body can help.
There’s a lot of talk about spiritual practices, especially prayer and meditation, that can help us deal with stress.
But there’s another approach that might help — connecting with our bodies.
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Leah Weiss of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Hope Lab, recommends some things to help us become anchored in our bodies, as a way of dealing with work related stress. She recommends things like paying attention to a single intentional breath, noting our physical response to stressful situations, and magnifying small, physical pleasures — like the first sip of coffee.
There’s more and the article can be found here.
The Examen: A Practice for Becoming Spiritually Alert
There are spiritual practices that might help us become alert to the spiritual aspects of our daily lives; one especially powerful one is called the Examen.
The Examen was developed by Ignatius of Loyola about 500 years ago. He developed as a way of knowing when we seem to be moving towards God, and when we seem to be moving away from God. The practice involves looking at our recent life (perhaps the most recent day or half day) in considerable detail, and being alert to spiritual clues. Join us as we discuss how this practice might be helpful to us today.
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Spirituality and the State of Flow
Most if us are familiar with the expression being in the zone, and in fact most have probably experienced it at some point. Psychologists usually refer to it as being in a state of flow. It is usually thought of as involving a higher level of alertness, concentration, and maybe skill. Most also remember it as a very positive experience.
The state of flow is not often thought of as spiritual but there is a possible relationship that is worth exploring, and in any case the concept has a lot to say about human flourishing and growth.
We discuss flow and its causes, benefits, and connection with our faith and spirituality in a new article and on the podcast episode linked below.
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Workplace Stress: Can a Spiritual Practice Known as the Prayer Mantra Help?
Workplace stress is a common problem with important consequences for both our health and our effectiveness. A spiritual practice known as the prayer mantra can help us calm down, place our problems in a more realistic perspective, and act with greater strength, insight, and resilience. It can also help us stay on track at other times. (Time: 6:52)
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Flow and Spirituality
As we think about healthy, productive, and fulfilling work, Mihaly Csikszentmihali’s concept of flow comes to mind. Flow (sometimes referred to as “being in the zone”) is not often thought of as spiritual but there is a potential relationship that is worth exploring, and in any case the concept has a lot to say about human flourishing and growth.
Lectio Divina and Guigo’s Ladder for Monks
Lectio Divina is a traditional monastic spiritual practice that combines scripture and a form of contemplative prayer. It has recently become popular among contemplative Christians as a way to a deeper prayer experience. It is one of the practices we have taught in our Spiritual Practices for Your Work Life retreats.
Retreats: Spiritual Practices for Your Work Life
Please let us know if you are interested in hosting or attending one of a series of retreats we call Spiritual Practices for Your Work Life. It has been a couple of years since our last series, and we are putting together a new version.
In these retreats we expose the participants to a number of spiritual practices that can help them in their work life. We also provide some time for small group discussion and individual reflection, and in general help people see how their faith and spirituality can inform and support their daily work.
Spiritual Intelligence: Does it exist?
I ran across an article written in 2000 by psychologist Robert Emmons that is well worth considering (I wish I had seen it earlier). Emmons raises the possibility that spirituality might be considered a form of intelligence consisting of five components (I am quoting Emmons):
Charles Marsh on Bonhoeffer Without a Church
One striking aspect of Charles Marsh’s new biography about Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the degree to which Bonhoeffer’s church seemed to disappear. For someone as committed to, and embedded within, the church as Bonhoeffer, this must have been a highly distressing experience. How the experience seemed to affect him can have important lessons for us.
Prayer Mantras and Stress
(See also our podcast episode about the prayer mantra.) A spiritual practice that can be very helpful during times of workplace stress and uncertainty is that of repeating a personal prayer mantra. Mantras can reduce stress whether the issue is a minor hassle or a crisis large enough to generate outright fear. They can also help us to stay on track.
“Who Experiences the Presence of God and How Often”
At the Black, White, and Gray blog at Patheos, Bradley Wright presents charts based on 2004 General Social Survey data concerning the frequency with which particular groups say they experience the presence of God. The 2004 version of the G.S.S. included questions...
Gregory the Great: Active Contemplative
I ran across an insightful article by Chris Armstrong in an old (2008) Christianity Today on Gregory the Great (540 -604), Spirituality for Busy People. Armstrong writes that Gregory longed to be a monk and to devote himself to quiet contemplation, but felt obliged...
De Pree Center Conference
Last weekend I attended the conference put on by the Max De Pree Center for Leadership and found it to be excellent -- very worthwhile. The discussions focused on applying the approach to leadership advocated by Max De Pree, and included two articulate practitioners...
Ignatian Spirituality and Active Lives
Last weekend I had the opportunity to lead a discussion of Ignatian spirituality and its role in supporting the active life, concluding with an Ignatian meditative exercise. My focus was on the way that Ignatian meditation can ignite the imagination and lead to a...
