The Oates Journal (ISSN: 1098-1446) is a publication of the Wayne E. Oates Institute addressing issues related to spirituality, ethics, and healing from the perspective of pastoral care and counseling.

My latest reflection on this dynamic began in a small group meeting at church in which we were discussing the effectiveness of the worship service that was evolving into a new style, trying to retain continuity to the past while allowing new forms and patterns to emerge.  As people began to share, essentially all the comments were related to the planning of the service and how this or that was missing or how the worship leaders needed to be more intentional in one thing or another.  All the shared thoughts were relevant and helpful.  Nothing, however, was said about how one’s own inner preparation for worship would affect the outcome of the experience, or how reflecting on what one was unconsciously bringing to the service from their internal frame of reference would have a strong shaping force on the outcome.  If we enter a worship service with the expectation simply to be led, yet prejudiced by how that should happen, we place an almost impossible burden on the worship leader(s), as well as blocking the creative energy and spiritual resources we have within ourselves.  In contrast, if we enter a time of worship aware of our internal frame of reference we can focus on those aspects which allow for openness and receptivity, while letting go of control needs and excess baggage which gets in our way.  We are responsible for how our preoccupations and expectations, conscious or unconscious, affect the outcome of our experience.  Worship is just one of many encounters in which what we bring will affect what we experience.

The more conscious we are of our inner selves the more we can participate in the environment of the moment.  I have found this dynamic to be extremely important in pastoral care and counseling relationships.  If I enter that moment with someone and am absorbed either with my own preoccupations or my own expectations, it is impossible to be fully present and hear what it is they have brought to the moment.  In a moment of self-absorption I am tempted to lay onto that person what I think they need to hear, rather than hear the hurt, the fear, the doubt, or whatever they are experiencing and need to share.  In his amazingly insightful little book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1954) states,

God does not will that I should fashion the other person according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather in his very freedom from me God made this person in His image. I can never know beforehand how God’s image should appear in others. (p.93)

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. . . . It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. . . . Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. (p.97)

What are other kinds of things that are brought to any spiritual or relational experience that can limit or obstruct a positive outcome to the experience?  These might include feeling-based things such as anger, guilt, grief, depression, and anxiety.  They might include thinking-based things such as doubt, confusion, legalism, and ignorance.  These are the kinds of things that become buried and are unseen conditioners of attitudes and actions, and we bring them with us wherever we go.  It is by naming them and making them conscious that we manage them instead of being managed by them.  It is by owning them that we take responsibility for keeping them from setting up outcomes that are undesired.  Owning them also allows us to consciously include those realities that promote faithfulness, hopefulness, and loving kindness in all that we are and do.

Being aware of our inner selves is especially important when we enter what may be called sacred spaces.  For me, worship is a sacred space, as is personal prayer and meditation.  Being with my wife in the exclusive intimacy of marriage, and sharing special times with family and close friends are sacred spaces.  And, providing pastoral counseling and caregiving to distressed persons is a sacred space.  Sacred spaces can be both personal and professional.  Too often we clutter up a sacred space with unconscious and minimally conscious preoccupations that are a drag on the moment and interfere with the outcome we desire from the moment.  Effectiveness is lessened and healing presence is compromised.  So, we need to periodically examine what it is we are hauling around with us, unseen by us or others but powerfully intrusive on positive possibilities.  Once we know what they are, we can make choices about what we let go and what things we can find more fruitful ways to manage in our lives so, as Bonhoeffer says, "we can listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God" (p.99).

References

Bonhoeffer, D. (1954). Life together (English translation). New York: Harper and Row.

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