A Spiritually Grounded Presence
In order to bring a spiritually grounded presence into the public spaces and political discussions of our outer life, one must be intentional about the personal practices that are filling and forming our inner life.
For instance, to bring a prayerful presence outwardly into a space where political tension may arise, one must first be formed inwardly by an intentional prayer practice. The question is one of alignment between our inner and outer lives, so that our spiritual and contemplative formation is made visible through our words, actions, and leadership.
What personal practices are forming and grounding your inner life?
What tensions, triggers, or temptations are the most likely to destabilize or distract you from that intention?
How can we bring contemplative leadership into political dialogue and polarized spaces that have a high tendency to trigger arguments, animosity, and knee-jerk reactions?
Nurturing The Inner Life
What is the greatest and most precious value or belief that your life is oriented around? That spiritual gemstone can be an excellent starting place for choosing or sustaining contemplative practices that don’t simply give us more to do, but that increase our capacity for holding and reflecting the light of that core belief.
For me, that gemstone is love. Specifically, the love of God given to us so that can give it to one another. Many of my contemplative practices (including prayer, silence, and embodied actions) are done with the intention of holding that love, being formed by that love, and growing in my capacity to give and receive that love.
It can be difficult to maintain a posture of love during political discussions, so I would spend time in spiritual practices in order to prepare.
Relinquishing With Our Hands
Take a moment to imagine something or someone in your life that you would very much like to control or change. Visualize that desire as being in the palm of your hand, and close your fist around it. Name freely and without judgement everything you would change about that situation or that person, and squeeze it tightly. Then very slowly, stop squeezing and begin to loosen and to gradually relax your hand until it falls open and empty. During this process of relaxing, imagine what it would feel like to relinquish control. Relinquishing control doesn’t mean condoning a situation or another person’s actions, rather, it is a practice of opening ourselves to grow in our capacity to pray for them and listen to God on their behalf.
In a political space, such as a town hall meeting or a protest, this practice could not only be done in advance but also during the event itself. When you begin to feel tense or anxious, remember the sense of holding control in your hands, and then gradually relax them. As you intentionally release tension from your hands, allow the rest of your body to become more calm as well.
Listening With Our Hands
One practice that I created for the Group Spiritual Direction workshop at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation is The Wisdom of Two Hands. This is a specific practice for acknowledging our desires for a person or situation, while also growing in our capacity to go beyond those desires into a more expansive prayer.
Imagine that you have just heard the personal story, testimony, or political argument of another person. In your left hand, place the physical and emotional responses that you notice within yourself. Name what your initial desire is (such as the urge to fix something, to comfort someone, to change someone’s mind, to tell one’s own story or prove something about oneself, etc). We are not judging our desires as being good or bad, we are simply naming them. We physically move that hand off to the side, temporary displacing our desires, and then open our right hand.
Hold your right hand open, but to not attempt to fill it. Listen for what thoughts or prayers rise up more slowly, or alight as a dove in the palm of your hand. You may notice a new word, image, or question forming. You may notice your original feelings shifting or changing. We are not rejecting our own desires, but rather creating space to go beyond them so that we may be led into new territory by the Spirit. In our left hand, we hold our limited knowledge and limited desires. In our right hand, we listen with humility to what God’s deep and spacious desires might be for that person. We spend time in this prayer practice to grow in our capacity to listen and respond prayerfully, regardless of how well we know or agree with the person in front of us.
Inner and Outer Alignment
Part of our discernment around practices and presence is how our inner life is lived out authentically in the community. Are there spaces or places where your inner spirituality and your outer words or actions don’t reflect one another?
If we know that we need interpersonal support in order to maintain a more grounded contemplative mindset in political spaces, then bringing a supportive friend can be helpful. The friend does not need to share your beliefs or practices. They can simply be there to remind you to stay true to who you are. We can be thrown so far off balance that we need a friend who can lean over and ask us, do you know that you are clenching your fists right now?
What practices would help you to enter into political spaces with unclenched hands and a greater capacity for listening? This does not mean abandoning political opinions or shying away from disagreement; rather, decreasing our own anxiety and increasing our sense of peace can help us to grow in resilience when advocating for policy change.
Leading from that grounded center can serve as a countercultural example that political voices do not need to be the loudest or angriest voices in the room. A political voice can be the most grounded voice in the room. The voice of change can be the one that fosters listening rather than silencing others, or that invites co-creation rather than control and domination.
A political voice can first and foremost be a voice that is continually formed and informed by prayer.
To read more posts, visit my column here. Check out my published writing in “Soul Food: Nourishing Essays on Contemplative Living and Leadership”. If you are interested in contemplative leadership and are between the ages of 25-40, visit Shalem.org to learn about Crossing the Threshold: Contemplative Foundations for Emerging Leaders.
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