United Methodist Church
Morgan Hill, California

Growth & the Enneagram

Pecot's Putterings I hate gardening. Well, actually I don't hate all gardening. I like when other people do it. I love flowers. I even like making dirt and piles of things, occasionally. So, what I really hate isn't gardening as much as it is killing things that I plant --which I do a lot -- and I hate weeding. I hate weeding for the same reason I hate cutting, or even combing, my hair. So, it is with some confusion that I have watched myself in a binge of weeding on the church property. In the last couple of weeks I keep puttering around pulling dandelions, mostly, out of the gardens and picking up garbage that blows in. In the process of this uncharacteristic obsession, I have discovered something marvelous. It is incredibly easy to weed our church gardens. And in a time of the summer heat when the lawns and earth are drying out and the sprinkler system isn't working, that is saying a lot. The reason it is easy to weed is obvious. The gardens have been so well tended for so long, that the soil is loose, flexible, rich. Good and bad stuff grows easily. Which is to say that there are a lot of flowers and a lot of weeds. Pick a few weeds on your way to and from church. You will find that even huge weed-monsters come out with the barest tug -- or so my experience has been in the last couple of weeks. That is a spiritual truth. Weeds grow everywhere, but they come out easier in well worked soil. When our spirits are tended, nurtured, with good humus (or humility), over a long time, the spirit gets used to change and having things come in and out of it, so the bad stuff comes out more easily. Good spiritual gardening doesn't protect us from trouble any more than good gardening protects plants from floods or drought or weeds -- or someone stomping through them. Growing in the spirit is not to keep us away from the hard stuff of life -- that just doesn't happen. Instead, spiritual growth leads to a rich and humble soil from which lush things growth, and from which the weeds also grow but can be pulled more easily. What we try to do at church is provide all the ingredients for carefully nurturing our growing souls. Our culture know a lot about what creates a mature garden. But we don't talk much about what makes for a mature spirit. There is good reason for this, because there is tremendous variety in the ways we mature. But what I would like to do in the newsletter this month is paint in broad strokes a picture of spiritual maturity. Happy gardening.

Ted

The Enneagram
A Pattern of Life Growth.

Sparked by a women's retreat, a number of members in the church have been studying the "enneagram", an old personality typology. Crudely put, this typology is based on the premise that everyone is screwed up, but usually for a good reason. Everyone of us is wounded or threatened at some point early in our life, and the defense we develop to survive becomes a strong and later pivotal part of our lives, one for which we got stroked, and one around which we develop our self-image. But everyone's self-image is distorted from God's more holistic view and tends to get in the way of God's work within us. Pride or attachment develops around the defense and slowly this distorted self image becomes a kind of home.

Spiritual maturity becomes a life process of dismantling our one-sided views of ourselves, in order to put on God's more holistic view of us. Now there are as many different defenses and facets of the self as there are points around a circle (i.e. infinite). But the enneagram teachers (using mysticism and numerological patterns of threes and sevens) came up with nine central points around the circle to describe the nine over-blown self-images which articulate the seven deadly sins (sloth, pride, deceit, envy, greed, gluttony, and lust) plus fear and avarice. Growing spiritually we slowly see ourselves and act in God's 360 degree clearsightedness.

This system envisions these false self-images in a circle. Very briefly here are the nine points. To feel comfortable in the world:

The Types
Ones need life to be perfect. Twos need to be needed. Threes need to succeed. Fours need to be special. Fives need to understand or perceive. Sixes need to feel secure. Sevens need to avoid pain. Eights need to be against. Nines need to avoid.

You may be saying, "I need a bunch of those things". In fact, most of us need them all in some ways, but the typology tells us that one is probably home for us. Each distorted self-image has a deadly sin implicit in it (something that separates us in a basic way from God), but also a gift. Ones: Anger and judgment but also perceptiveness. Twos: Pride but also love. Threes: vanity and deceit but also efficiency. Fours: envy but also artistry and originality. Fives: greed but also perceptiveness. Sixes: fear but also loyalty. Sevens: gluttony but also celebration. Eights: lust and belligerence, but also justice. Nines: sloth and indolence but also serenity.

Spiritual maturity is defined in two ways. Humbly, as we grows, we can come to gracefully accept that the best of who we are is often deeply interrelated with the worst of who we are. As we grow, we can become more aware and set aside our poor self image to travel around the circle to other parts of ourselves (in a very specific way).

You will be hearing more about the enneagram in the coming weeks, and will be invited to learn this language of spiritual growth and perhaps begin to travel this journey of healing and self-discovery.

The Membership Promises

When we become members of the United Methodist church we promise to support the church with our Prayers, Presence, Gifts, and Service. This is to say that we support the church in:

Our ability to be present with God.
Our ability to commit and be part of a community.
Our ability to use ones resources for the good of the church and the world.
Our ability to move outside oneself to love and care for the neighbor.

United Methodist member spiritual maturity occurs at each of these levels. We grow not only in our individual paths, but our community path as we learn and share our gifts in these areas.

A Life Curriculum

What follows is nothing short of outrageous. There is a good reason that we do not often define spiritual maturity. Everyone is different. Throughout the history of the Christian church, or any other church for that matter, when the institution specifically defines a path to maturity, it tends to oppress more than inform or educate. However, we don't tend to do this at all, so I will be bold and suggest some broad-stroke hints at a life course in spiritual maturation so that you might get some ideas about where you might want to work. The life curriculum is divided into six areas of spiritual maturity. 1. Acquaintance with an image or facet of our experience with God. 2. What we should get to know in the Bible and spiritual literature. 3. Involvement in the experience worship in community. 4. Growth in supporting and helping our church. 5. Stretching our abilities to care in mission. And 6. An overarching experience of the Presence of God in our lives which is prayer.

Three notes. One, I will consciously avoid the temptation here to define growth within the process from learner to teacher, from follower to leader. Two, one's spiritual development certainly is influenced by life-stage, but one's maturity in the faith may be very different than one's life maturity. Three, to say that something is more mature is not to say that it is necessarily better (that is: contemplative prayer is more mature than "talking to God" but both are wonders in themselves. Child-like is not child-ish.).

A Child-like Faith

Image of God: Learn of God as parent and friend.

Study: Learn the basic Bible stories and characters. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Ruth, David, Jesus, Mary, Peter, and Paul.

Worship: Experience worship as a friendly and sacred time and place. Learn of ways to get participate.

Church work: Learn to serve the church by helping and "doing stuff".

Mission: Learn the values and grace of helping, giving to, and loving others.

Prayer: Learn to talk to God.

A High Schooler's Faith

Image of God: Learn of God in a personal relationship and God's bigness.

Study: Begin to study how to believe and search, not just act one's faith. Study Paul and Exodus.

Worship: Learn to open one's heart in worship to God's personal touch.

Church work: Help out, get involved in different parts of community, cause trouble, explore, paint, and begin to get to know that church work is a part of church life and spiritual growth.

Mission: Go out and do something for someone else.

Prayer: Learn to talk with God or vent at God.

A Young Adult's Faith

Image of God: Explore different images for God, a kind friend, a dispassionate Shiva, the Emptiness of Creation, the Counselor known by Paul, the Spirit of Passion known at Pentecost, the Mystical Whirlwind of the sufis, the God of Law and Commandment, the Rock of Ages and the Calm and Quiet Mother's breast of Psalm 131.

Study: Study and learn about the diversity of the earth, and of faith. Study the differences of people, tolerance and justice. It is a good time to study the prophets. Test one's illusions of the faith.

Worship: Rest in worship to bring all of oneself into the singing and praying and community of worship.

Church work: Sadly this is a time when most folks stop going to church. Instead it is a good time to broaden one's understanding of the scope of church work.

Mission: Learn how to make time in one's life to serve others.

Prayer: Learn caring prayers. Learn to pray in silence, and awareness. Learn the prayers of action and loving.

A Middle-Aged Testing Faith

Image of God: Get to know the light and dark sides of God and of the self, and the profound and disturbing "otherness" of God.

Study: Learn the deep human mystery of the Biblical text. Study the Psalms, learn of the life story of Paul. Experience the passion story of Jesus. Learn personal spiritual disciplines.

Worship: Learn the symbolic work of worship not just words and singing and praying, but that each action and movement in worship is a active symbol for the journey to God. Embrace ritual.

Church work: Learn the spiritual discipline of faithful and active service to the mystery, pain and chaos of one's faith community.
Mission: Come face to face with the most frustrating parts of loving the world. If you don't know how to love your enemies, now is the time to learn.

Prayer: Learn centering prayers and how to accept confession and forgiveness in prayer.

A Retirement Faith

Image of God: Get to know, at once, the judging God and the forgiving God -- both together, not separated, the god envisioned by Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Study: Oddly enough, I would suggest to most folks in this stage of their spiritual growth (whether they are eighty or thirty at this point) to do almost exactly the same thing as children. Go back to the basic stories, draw them, and make things as you study them in a simple way. Learn to play again.

Worship: The temptation in this faith is to want worship to be consistent, a dependable friend. But the maturing Christians I have seen discover the fulfillment of worship in the unexpected and in letting go, in diversity and surprise.

Church work: Serve the community of faith from ones deepest convictions. If you don't know what they are, it is time to learn. If you aren't at work where you are most deeply concerned, it is time to quit other stuff and get there.

Mission: Learn the art of selfless loving (not boundary-less co-dependence). The difference is grounded in the spiritual issues of passion and humility and obedience.

Prayer: Learn contemplative prayer, where one quiets the self in deep humility and let's God pray.

Faith in the Midst of Dying

Image of God: Know and learn to love the terrifying God that calls Abraham to sacrifice his son, that is, give up everything God has given over the course of a life-time. The God who calls Jesus to the cross. The God who dwells inside Mary's pondering. The God who calls each of us into creation and back into dust and ashes. The God who is Mother Earth.

Study: Perhaps nothing. Learn how to give up. Learn how to embrace everything.

Worship: Cast oneself into the loving embrace of God in all worship.

Church work: Don't use limitations as an excuse for sloth. Action and cooperation with those things that one loves can mean the difference between living to the end of one's life or just dying off.

Mission: Much of the very real work of mission in the last days of life, is the work of increasingly letting go of what one has and giving simply of whatever one can give.

Prayer: Prepare for the mystery of the next step by entering the heart of prayer.

United Methodist Membership

from the United Methodist Book of Discipline

Para. 217. When persons unite with a local United Methodist church they ... make known their desire to live their daily lives as disciples of Jesus Christ. They covenant together with God and with the members of the local church to keep the vows which are a part of the order of confirmation and reception into the Church:

1. To renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of the world, and repent of their sin;

2. To accept the freedom and power god gives them to resist evil, injustice, and oppression;

3. To confess Jesus Christ as Savior, put their whole trust in his grace, and promise to service him as their Lord;

4. To remain faithful members of Christ's holy church and serve as Christ's representatives in the world;

5. To be loyal to The United Methodist Church and do all in their power to strengthen its ministries;

6. To faithfully participate in its ministries by their prayers, their presence, their gifts, and their service;

7. To receive and profess the Christian faith as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

Para. 218. Faithful membership in the local church is essential for personal growth and for developing a deeper commitment to the will and grace of God. As members involve themselves in private and public prayer, worship, the sacraments, study, Christian action, systematic giving, and holy discipline, they grow in their appreciation of Christ, their understanding of God at work in history and the natural order, and an understanding of themselves.

Para. 219. Faithful discipleship includes the obligation to participate in the corporate life of the congregation with fellow members of the body of Christ. A member is bound in sacred covenant to shoulder the burdens, share the risks, and celebrate the joys of fellow members. A Christian is called to speak the truth in love, always ready to confront conflict in the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Originally published in the August 1997 Good News Letter of the Morgan Hill United Methodist Church.

Last update: 1/17/03WG