Faith Venture

I first discovered the Enneagram at least 35 years ago through the study of the Jesuits. Ennea from the Greek for nine; gram from the Greek (sort of) for picture. The Enneagram is a diagram showing the nine basic personality types and some relationships among them.

The origins of the Enneagram are hazy, but an early church father is thought to have put out the original ideas.

The Road Back to You provides an overview of the nine types and their nuances. Most importantly, since the Enneagram has Christian origins, it is more useful for spiritual development than it is for psychological profiling.

Oh, the nine types:

• One-The Perfectionist, Reformer
• Two-Helper, Giver
• Three-Achiever, Performer
• Four-Individualist, Romantic
• Five-Investigator, Observer
• Six-Loyalist, Loyal Skeptic
• Seven-Enthusiast, Epicure
• Eight-Challenger, Protector
• Nine-Peacemaker, Mediator

I am a Five with a strong Four—just so you know why I write observations so much and prefer reading and researching. Don’t ask about the Romantic side 😉

The purpose of this is not to know your type, or your significant other’s type. It is to do the work of growth and spiritual development. It never ends.

Thomas Merton said, “Do not be too quick to condemn people who no longer believe in God, for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice, your mediocrity and materialism, your sensuality and selfishness that have killed their faith.”

Time and again we’ve seen people driven from God by the sort of attitudes Merton describes. We see it in issues even today where we divide people into groups—some are “sinners” while we, I guess we are not? Except that is not a point of view that Jesus would have endorsed.

Worse is when we reflect on our own prejudices and cold attitudes and see that we ourselves have had a part in that whole driving people from God process.

We need to look in that mirror not with vanity but rather with probing, self-aware eyes and hearts that see the times we have unleashed our inner Pharisee and hurt others.

Then we need to ask forgiveness. And receive grace. And start again with renewed heart.

People as diverse as Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) and Ben Franklin (co-founder of the USA) have written of a daily discipline of reflecting on time spent.

In the morning, ask “what good will I do today?” In the evening reflect back and ask “what is one good thing I have done today?” Many spiritual seekers recommend writing those in a journal.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that it appeared as if people of ill will have used their time better than people of good will.

“Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.” Steve Miller Band, from Fly Like an Eagle.

We all realize this on some level. Grasp the time wisely, or we could be despairing like Pink Floyd:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Pink Floyd, Time

How are you using your time today?

Software designed to help management run businesses usually forces the company to change to fit it. Rather than assisting people operating the organization it forces workflows and the way to operate as designed by some geek in a cubicle hacking computer code.

Politician can be that way. They have a theory and fit facts and people into categories according to that theory. Everything becomes a battle where I’m trying to get my theory triumphant (in whatever sense) over your theory.

Christians can also be that way. We have a theory and derive rules from that theory. We expect people to agree with the theory and to completely follow the rules we have constructed. And, woe to those who disagree or slip in the following of a rule. They will be cast into hell where we Christians can joyfully sing “I told you so.”

But, there exist followers of Jesus who try to live out the harder commandment. “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And your neighbor as yourself.”

We don’t have rules. We have “The Way” as the first followers were called. And that way means we don’t try to force people into molds and then judge them according to the mold. No, each person is a child of God. And we treat them as such. Offering to help them along the way.

Jon Swanson comes up with some of the most intriguing and challenging ways to serve. Follow the link to some practical yet fascinating ways to “fast”—or better said, to Love our neighbor. I wish I had the courage to try out his ideas.

Among the important traits of a leader, stability ranks with clear vision and effective communication.

Ricochet Rabbit served as sheriff in a cartoon parody of the American Wild West. He earned the name “ricochet” because his hyperactivity had him bouncing off the walls–literally, it was a cartoon, after all.

I had a boss like that once. Nice guy, but I never knew where he would be coming from when he walked into my office. Yesterday’s project was forgotten. On to new things today, only to be replaced tomorrow by another idea.

We find ourselves at times like that. Our mind resembles a group of squirrels scrounging for seeds.

“We must try to keep the mind in tranquility. Our mind when distracted by countless worldly cares cannot focus itself distinctly on the truth,” said St. Basil the Great.

David Allen, the master productivity guru wrote in Getting Things Done the importance of having a “mind like water.” That is a mind that absorbs a shock, the ripples start out but smooth out into stillness once again so that we may focus.

Take a deep breath, slowly exhale, allow the mind to settle back into a state of tranquility. Then we may perceive the truth. And make better decisions.

I was meditating on the spiritual experience of awakening. That moment when inspiration and awareness arrive in an instance–after sometimes years of discipline.

This was early yesterday. The third day consecutively where I rose from bed with about two hours less sleep than normal. These conferences can sometimes be physically, as well as intellectually, tiring. When I’m walking the mile-and-a-half from my hotel to the conference location after perhaps six hours of sleep rather than my regular 7.5+ or meeting my 6:30 am Lyft driver to the airport, awakening is on my consciousness.

I was going to write this yesterday on the early plane. I was upgraded to first class. The seat was wide and comfortable. I dozed off. Missed the first-class free breakfast, although I had grabbed a quick bowl of oatmeal and a slice of toast at the United Club before the flight.

I also missed reading and writing while sleeping most of the way from Orlando to Chicago.

What a metaphor for how sometimes we sleepwalk through life. One day after another. Not paying attention to our surroundings or other people. No awareness that the spiritual presence of God surrounds us and infuses us.

Just asleep.

And then we awaken. And it’s great to be alive.

“I don’t understand how anyone can argue about it. Here it is in black and white,” moaned a guy at a Bible study who had just lifted a few words from a sentence of a letter from Paul the Apostle which was compiled together with other writings as part of the teaching document of the new movement called by some Christians.

He was, of course, reading it in English translation from Ancient Greek totally in the context of his own political beliefs.

Has this been done before?

Of course. Anyone who has read widely in the literature of the past 2,000 years has seen attempts at lifting phrases and making an entire theology or political philosophy from them.

But actually understanding the text takes considerably more work and thought than that.

St. Augustine taught us that not reading the New Testament in the light of Jesus two commands to love God and to love our neighbor brings the reader to error.

NT Wright has written “If you try to read the New Testament as a ‘how-to’ book, which sadly is how some people approach it, you may end up frustrated, thinking it would be better if the spirit had given us something more like a car manual or railway time table.”

It is so tempting to read the New Testament with an eye toward discovering how we are good and they are bad. But that would be an injustice both to the writers and to the they.

My reading today came together around the theme of growth.

The notes on a book on leadership I read a couple of months ago, Reboot, pointed out from the writer’s bitter experience that a leader’s failure to grow leads directly to failure as a leader.

From the book I just finished, Surfaces and Essences, the great mathematician Henri Poincare said of Albert Einstein what was most admired was Einstein’s ability to take in new ideas, consider them, and then incorporate them into another place in a wholly creative way.

God teaches us when we observe nature that that which ceases to grow begins to die.

The problem when we take personality profile we can think it is a static score. The Myers-Briggs gives you a type. We can think we are locked in to that type. (As in, I am an FJ, so I can’t grow and be open to new ideas.)

If one does the Enneagram correctly, it becomes a pathway to growth. We look at the positive side and the ways in which that personality has negative connotations. Then we work to become more integrated.

At any rate, if we are getting older and still holding on to our 10-year-old’s view of the world and faith, then our discipline is lacking. Study, prayer, and meditation will help us grow up.