Wellspring: inspiration and guidance for a spiritual journey

The art of facilitating, by Joy Collins

Like all of us Wellspring bloggers, I have a “day job” – mine being a professional facilitator and trainer in Corporate America. Last week at the end of a leadership series I was teaching, one of the leaders came up and told me a horror story about a previous, botched leadership series she had attended at her company. Apparently the trainer created an exercise where all the leaders shared private, very personal stories from their past.  This trainer then in subsequent sessions continued bringing up this woman’s story, to the point where the leader finally left the class in tears. My client was expressing relief and gratitude that my leadership series was so much more affirming, helpful and targeted.

I can sympathize with this leader, and also have an inkling of what that other trainer was trying (miserably) to accomplish. CONTACT. As the famous mother of the self-esteem movement, Virginia Satir, so eloquently wrote,

Contact
I believe
the greatest gift
I can conceive of having
from anyone
is
to be seen by them,
heard by them,
to be understood
and
touched by them.

The greatest gift
I can give
is
to see, hear, understand
and to touch
another person.

When this is done
I feel
contact has been made.

Who wouldn’t want this? How do we create this type of authentic connection in our Wellspring groups, while respecting people’s privacy and right to remain silent? Clearly that original trainer had attempted it in a terrible, nail-on-the-chalkboard way.

In one of our early Wellspring groups I took at risk, and it could have gone either way. I/we were fortunate. At the time, fairly early in the church year, a participant shared a great personal difficulty during the small group check-in. Our Parker Palmer inspired covenant would have suggested I nod in sympathy and move on. But my heart told me to do something different. As a liberal, I don’t usually take advice from my conservative Christian sister, but I could hear her voice in my head. I turned to our Wellspring participant and asked if she would be interested in the rest of us praying for her situation over the next two weeks? Now for my sister, this would have been a no-brainer, but for an intellectual group of Unitarians? I worried I had overstepped my bounds. Were those nails I was hearing on a chalkboard? After a very long moment, the participant said she might like that. And then offered to email us a photograph about her great difficulty. By the time we got around the room to listen to the rest of the check-in’s, two more participants asked for specific ways the group could hold them in their thoughts. It was a turning point for our group, and moved us beyond being primarily a study group - to that place of deep, Satir-like CONTACT. We all felt it.

In the other Wellspring and small church covenant groups I have facilitated, the “contact” came sooner or sometimes later. It never comes in quite the same way. Hence the “art” of facilitating. There are tips, but no formulae. If I go too far in pushing, I’d end up with a situation like the leader leaving the room in tears. If I don’t nudge slightly, that opportunity for deep human connecting might not happen, especially in our intellectually laden UU small groups. What has worked for you? When and how was that magic of “contact” created? How much of this can a facilitator influence? What is simply the universe at work?

Bees, by Amy Baker

I woke up this morning to the infernal buzzing of bees. In the shower, over breakfast. They began their attack even before I turned on my bedside light. It’s a racquet. A trial. An unholy comedy of accusations, explanations, judgments, denials. A neural drama of embarrassments, mistaken judgments, missed opportunities. ‘You should have.’ ‘You could have,’ ‘I would have except…’ What happened in the night?

Turning a deaf ear, I dress for work. When I’m ready, I get into the car, buckle my seat belt, and set my jaw. I have a plan. I’ll shoo these bees while I’m driving. And so, knees against the wheel, I enter into battle--flapping my arms, brandishing my swatter. But they don’t give up. The more I swat, the louder they buzz.

At the restaurant, I greet you with my failure. I’m under siege. It’s impossible to think. I want to back out of this parking lot, back down the hill, back all the way home. I want to start the day over. I want to go back to the place where your life is at least as important as mine.

But I don’t leave. I hunker down instead. I focus on your face, your words, and concentrate on waiting for you to ask the questions before I produce the answers. I remind myself not to interrupt. You’re steady, welcoming, but I can’t take delight. I’m battle-weary. Battle-worn.

You leave the table for a moment. I sigh, put my feet up and slide down deeper into my collar and my chair. I write a few words, sigh again and write a few more. It’s quieter now, but I don’t notice—not until you’ve returned. I notice then, when I look up and discover you there—dense with life. The bees have gone! The air is thick with your presence and mine; the room is quiet except for the sound of waitress talk and dishes.

And now, sitting in this busy parking lot, the air is thick too. It’s the sound of hammers and the whine of a saw--or perhaps it’s two. Another time, I’d crank up the windows or run for cover, but today it’s like music. Crisp clean sound traveling the airwaves with me here to receive it. I tilt the seat and settle back, content to listen to the world going about its business. There’s no place else I’d rather be.

When I am the stranger, by Tina Simson

I started a new job recently. I work for a rather large social service agency. I feel privileged to work at this agency with its varied and relevant programs and it’s profound regard for the consumers. It fits my values and offers me an opportunity to contribute to the wellbeing of others. Our main office, in downtown Rochester, is in a rather dodgy part of the city. I confess I was a bit concerned about my car in an unattended parking lot and my walk to that car, as the early evening hours get darker. There were often people hanging around the front door waiting for the services to open in the morning, and roaming youth coming from a school program in the evening. I’m aware that I need to look at my concern with a critical eye. I walk to the door in my suit with my briefcase and frankly look out of place, like some do-gooder or some suburban white woman. I am not yet at home here.

Then I meet a gentle, disheveled, older man. He waits by the front door early in the mornings before the programs open. At first I just smile and say good morning but after a few days, he sees me coming and opens the door when my arms are full. One day he asks, “You working here now, young lady?” “Yes I am, sir.” “Welcome then”, he says with a smile. “ This is a good place.”

After a few days of pleasantries, I notice he’s not well. I can see this by the way he huddles in clothes that are not warm enough in the blustery wind of November. His hands are shaking, his eyes are sad, and he still opens the door for me. One day I miss our morning ritual and come into the office late. The next day he says, “I missed you yesterday.”

And one day as I approach, he is fumbling with a cigarette. His fingers don’t work and his hands are shaking more than before. I see his eyes and he asks, “Do you have a match by any chance?” I say no and feel as if I’ve let him down. He smiles and opens the door for me. And I realize, this is radical hospitality and I am the stranger. This gentle man has welcomed me into his world and I am no longer out of place. We know each other’s names now, we both have grandchildren, and he’s going to his granddaughter’s house for Thanksgiving. I am changed and in my bag I now carry a couple of packs of matches.

Welcoming the Stranger, by Libby Moore

In preparation for talking about our Universalist heritage, we've asked people to listen to Rob Hardies' John Murray lecture from General Assembly in 2006. Rob challenges us to practice radical hospitality, to open our hearts and welcome strangers with the kind of open hearted love with which Thomas Potter welcomed John Murray. "Welcome, my friend, I've been waiting for you for a long time," Potter said when Murray arrived, broken and shipwrecked. Admirable as it sounds, practicing this kind of radical hospitality can be a hard task, a stretch from our comfortable habits.

Thinking back to when I was "the stranger" helps, though. At the end of the turbulent '60's, I relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico from the East Coast to teach in an alternative school there. I moved with a man I later married, so I wasn't altogether alone. But we hardly knew anyone. We arrived in Santa Fe shortly before Fiesta, which is a very big deal there. It starts off with the burning of Zozobra, a great fireworks display to dispel Old Man Gloom. On someone's advice, we drove up into the brown, juniper-covered hills to watch the spectacle. Sitting on a blanket, waiting for darkness, we discovered that people were joining us –people we had met at the school, people we had run into as we explored our new community. They seemed like old hands, having lived in Santa Fe for a while – three months, a year, five years – and they welcomed us as instant friends. This congregation of people on the side of the mountain became our community, our family, later sharing our wedding and Thanksgivings and the birth of our son. It was a miracle of hospitality for us, giving us the warmth of community to support our new lives so far away from our families.

Radical hospitality goes beyond just welcoming the stranger, though. It asks us to open our hearts to other's ideas as well, and to welcome the presence of love in every encounter. The other day I had a phone conversation with my non-church-going brother, who was raised Unitarian but has a somewhat skeptical attitude about my "religious" life. I was telling him about Wellspring, and he asked if I was a "believer," which started us talking about what we both believe about God – and I discovered that we're closer than either of us had thought. We share more in our beliefs than we would ever have known if we hadn't opened ourselves to this discussion. Welcoming the opportunity to listen to each other gave us a new understanding and appreciation for the other. May all of our encounters be open to the unexpected presence of God.

Evolutionary or Revolutionary?, by Joy Collins

Last weekend my spouse and I were in New Jersey to attend a civil union ceremony. New Jersey legalized same-sex commitments earlier this year. The couple, in their mid-60s, have been in love for 47 years. One of the pair, Marge, is a practicing Catholic, active as a lay leader in her parish. Though she knew the answer, she asked her parish priest to perform the ceremony. He declined, but asked if he could come, without his collar. So the ceremony was instead performed by a federal judge, with “Father Mark” incognito. Both Marge and Father Mark have chosen to stay in the Catholic Church, trying to evolve it from within. They take a lot of heat from their more revolutionary friends. Father Mark told me it’s his and Marge’s church too, and if they leave, the powerful win over the loving. Some might think Marge and Father Mark are weak-spined.  However, I think theirs is a courageous stance. The stance of hanging in to slowly move an institution forward.

In Rochester on the other hand, our city gained notoriety 10 years ago when Father Jim Callan not only blessed same sex unions, but allowed all worshipers to receive communion and allowed a woman in vestments on the altar. The Vatican removed Jim as a priest, and he and his 1,000 person congregation are now part of the American Catholic movement at Spiritus Christi Church. I think Father Jim is courageous too. Each is expressing their radicalism in a different way.

I compare this to almost 500 years ago. Our Rochester Wellspring groups are currently reading For Faith and Freedom, a short history of Unitarianism in Europe, by Charles A. Howe. There are two chapters dedicated to Michael Servetus, who by daring to challenge John Calvin’s Protestant doctrine was burned at the stake in 1553. He believed Jesus was human as well as divine – a heretical threat to the prevailing power structure. Micheal Servetus, the first (and unfortunately not the last) Unitarian martyr, was willing to lose his life for his beliefs.

We don’t ask our Wellspring participants what they are willing to die for. We DO ask them what they are willing to lose, in order to stand up for their beliefs. There is no right answer. Are Marge and Father Mark “right” for working within, some say supporting, the Catholic dogma, or is Father Jim Callan “right” in forcing the Vatican’s hand, and being ousted? I believe we are each called to shine a light to support the “inherent worth and dignity of every person”. And we need to be willing to lose something in that endeavor. At the same time, where we are on the evolutionary – revolutionary spectrum is up to the conscience of each of us.