Wednesday, 27 December 2006
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From the Professional Elite to the Spiritual Director
Parker Palmer writes in The Active Life about the dark side of the professional active life. Too often, he claims, the professional lifestyle, which our culture has created an addictive need for, is shrouded in illusion. The professional creates a system where the professional is needed. Only the professional can create this system, and he is given the liberty to do this, why? Because he is a professional. Of course, the system that the professional has established to need the professional benefits the professional, most often with money, power, and status.
Eventually what we are left with is “a silent conspiracy to stay in business by making sure that society never runs out of the problems that [professionals] know how to solve.”[1] Part of this conspiracy is for professionals to create a language that is so complex and “mystifying” that only the elite can understand it. Palmer notes that something as common as “elemental sadness” has now been resorted to “depressive syndrome” and there is supposedly no lay person that can treat this. Of course, we lay people add to this conspiracy as we yield to the professional for our daily needs. Palmer notes that it used to be the community that helped each other out, but “as we have abandoned the responsibilities of community, we have lost it’s benefits as well, and the only friend some people can find is one they pay by the hour.”[2]
Professionalism, though, is originally very different in meaning to what we have made it. “At root, a professional is one who makes a profession of faith – faith in something larger and wiser than his or her own powers… The grieving person does not need professional technique so much as a restored confidence in the elemental grace of life, the grace found in community or in nature or in the self. The true professional is one who does not obscure that grace with illusions of technical prowess, but one who strips away all illusions to reveal a reliable truth in which the human heart can rest.”
This brings up so many examples in my own mind of areas that have become all too “professional.” On a very common basis, I think I.T. Departments have gone this route. How often have we heard from the IT guy, “Here, I’ll come fix it myself. It is not something you can do.” Or, what about car repair? How often are we ignorantly swindled out of money because we don’t really know what is going on with our cars?
In finishing seminary and having some of the connections still in place, I am often hit full force by the hard-core students of theology and Christian thought. Just today, I visited a website of a prominent theologian and professor. As I read through his blog and the comments therein, I was amazed that I had no clue what they were talking about and it was with great effort that I was able to apply it to my own experience. So, if theologians have developed their own world of language and theory that is difficult for me as a seminary graduate to understand, how on earth does a lay person connect with what is going on there? Is there any wonder that the lay person in our church has not been trained to think critically about what we profess to be true? We have developed a theology club and only the elite are invited.
I am confronted as well by this notion that we have created a place where we professionals can survive and thrive. As I approach spiritual formation in the church congregation, I wonder if my impressions of the church, my critiques, and my theories are more about me and making a place for myself than anything else. Granted there are needs in the church and granted we can benefit from the rising emphasis on spiritual formation, but am I missing something here? Palmer writes, “The true professional is one who does not obscure that [elemental] grace [of life found in community or nature or the self] with illusions of technical prowess, but one who strips away all illusions to reveal a reliable truth in which the human heart can rest.”
I find the appropriate professional to be the spiritual director. Now… I must be careful as I play this out, as there is also a tendency, even in spiritual direction, to make the director out to be the only one who can help. Yes, often money is exchanged for service. Yes, a spiritual director is trained to do what he or she does. There is a difference here, though, from the professional that continually steers the client towards needing the service. Within spiritual direction there should always be a direction away from the director. The direction is to the directee as an image-bearer of Christ, to the voice of the Holy Spirit, to the presence of God in the every day. I would think that most appropriately there would not need to be money exchanged for this, but as many churches are not offering this service, others outside the church must step in this role.
As we learn about what it means to point people towards the Spirit and as lay persons are exposed to the way of spiritual direction, it begins to take shape as true professionalism in all of life. There is such a great deal of listening that needs to happen, not just to each other, but to the Spirit speaking in each other. As we familiarize ourselves with spiritual direction, our attitude is turned away from ourselves and towards the other. Our desire is to see the other become more whole and to develop the ability to discern for him/herself and to in turn bless others. This is true professionalism spread to the community around us.
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