What is Distinctive about Masculine Spirituality?

Is there a difference between the ways that men and women approach and grow spiritually? Is it better to call it masculine and feminine since the behaviors are not exclusive to one or the other sex? These questions have been in my mind for few years now, and while I don’t have an answer yet, I am beginning to identify some patterns.

My relationships in providing and receiving spiritual direction have primarily been with women. My spiritual directors have been women, my peer supervision group is women, even my therapist is a woman. I have great respect for all of them, for the understanding and skill they have offered, and all that I have learned. But there have been times when I wondered if they understood me.

Earlier this month I participated in retreat for male spiritual directors. The conversations had a distinctive flow, and in a very short time I felt like those who listened to me really did understand at a deep level. The way we told our stories, slowly sorting through things in our mind and cautiously exposing our feelings was different from how women tell their stories.

In Melting the Iceberg: Spiritual Direction for Men*, Don Bisson describes his perception that men often begin with an insight. Don describes a process in which he asks the man to personalize the insights into his present life struggles which causes the man to move to the center of his passion. As the conversation continues, often there is an “ah-ha” experience, and the man reconnects the insight into an emotional stance where he feels more whole.

My struggle has always been to integrate my head with my heart, to bring them together to create a new whole and basis for faith. Often what first emerges in my awareness is an idea or new insight. Then I grapple my way through my thoughts and emotions by journaling, looking for the ways the thoughts and emotions confirm or contradict each other. I will try out pieces in conversations to see how others respond. I monitor my reactions and try to relate the inner work to outside experiences. I try to listen for how God is acting in all of the conversations and relationships.

Writing for this blog has become another way to move through the process of pulling the thoughts together. By recording the fragments as they appear, and letting them keep arranging themselves as I write, discarding what doesn’t fit, I play with how it all fits together. Each of these essays reaches a point where I decide it is “good enough” as I try to let go of getting it “right” or perfect.

But is this common for other men? Don’t some women also find the same kind of dynamic flow and process? Is it just because I start in my mind, when many of the women I know seem to start with the emotions and their heart?

I don’t know, but the questions keep me on the journey.

*Donald Bisson, FMS. Melting the Iceberg: Spiritual Direction for Men. Presence: The Journal of Spiritual Directors International, vol. 6, no. 2 (May 2000) pp. 31-37.

Alone in the Presence

I had seen it several times during the Spiritual Director’s International Conference at the end of March. It is one of a series of Prayer Vessels by Monica Armstrong, who had liberally spread her art throughout the meeting rooms. Titled Alone in the Presence, Monica honors the spiritual wisdom of Julian of Norwich.

Julian was an anchoress in 14^th century England, which means that she lived the last decades of her life in a small cell with the door locked so she could not go out nor others come in. Her cell had a window into the church from which she could hear the Mass and receive the sacrament. There was a second window on the outside wall where anyone could come and talk to her and ask for her advice.

The prayer vessel represents Julian’s ministry of prayer, contemplation and spiritual guidance. She lived her life physically in the middle, between the church and the world. While observing the daily offices, she was not cloistered from the world but available to any and all who passed by. The prayer vessel creates a similar physical inner space of prayer and meditation, a part of the world while apart from it.

Julian was a holy woman who experienced visions from God and took twenty years to write her understanding of them in Revelations of Divine Love. Her non-punitive understanding of sin was radically different from the Church of her time. Also, Julian often used feminine images of God, even describing Christ as “our mother.” Her sense of the inclusiveness of God’s complete love led her to state: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Alone in the Presence provides a striking contrast to Monica’s other vessels in bowl or bottle shapes which are traditionally seen as feminine forms. It stands tall and narrow as a tower, strong and visible, which is a traditionally masculine shape. While I am not privy to Monica’s vision for her artwork, I can speak to my response. It illustrates one medieval woman’s ability to stand, separate and tall, independent in an age when a woman’s independence often meant ostracism or death. She wrote and spoke God’s truth as she knew it, opposing the fear and turmoil of those days when the plague or violence from other people could strike anytime.

Julian’s cell has not survived and the church was destroyed by a bomb during World War II. However as the first woman to write a book in English, her words continue to inspire many who continue to learn from her vision over six hundred years ago.

Alone in the Presence now sits where I can see it while I provide spiritual direction, a reminder of Julian who preceded me in listening to others on their spiritual journeys.

Walking Prayer and Community

Walking a labyrinth always seemed to be a solitary and internally focused time. When encountering others on the path, one or the other of us would step aside with a simple nod, quickly returning to internal focus. We would be polite to each other, but distant, not wanting to intrude into other person’s prayer time.

That changed one evening in early July walking the gravel and stone labyrinth at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA. The participants in the Internship in the Art of Spiritual Direction met in silence at the outdoor labyrinth. One at a time we entered the labyrinth, walking as individuals into the center, pausing for varying times, then back out. As people finished, they sat in the grass on the side, watching until the last person was done.

Starting the walk, I was hoping for the sense of centering and quiet. As I walked, I became very aware of who was around me, their names and what I knew about them. I noted in my journal “what an entirely different feeling it was for me – I was excited to be joining in with all of the others in walking . . . . it is big enough that most of the group fit into it easily. Some greeted me as they went by, others did not.” (July 5, 2006)

I felt connected with each one. There was new kind energy in sharing prayer together, an experience of God’s presence in community prayer rather than personal prayer. In a synergy of spirit and respect for everyone, the feelings stayed with me through the rest of the training program.

During the middle ages, the faithful would walk together in a line or dance in labyrinths. We know this from church documents which record church officials denouncing the activity and forbidding it. I have wanted to experience it, so at the end of the workshop at Mercy Center, I invited the others to join me in walking the labyrinth in a line.

Several gathered at the appointed time at dusk and we walked into the center with one hand on the shoulder of the person in front. We used a simple pattern of three steps forward then one step back, then three more steps forward and one back, over and over. Late arrivals joined the line on the way, until we were circled around the center.

Walking out, we held hands and walked naturally as the darkness was settling around us. “It was quite fun and playful coming out, and fun to see the line of more than a dozen of us stretched out around one side of the labyrinth. The most fun was when we were three to four layers deep near the center.” (July 23, 2006) One person began singing “We are walking in the light of God,” and soon we were all singing it loudly.

Those experiences changed me, and led me to become more attentive to what was going on while I was walking the labyrinth.

A few months ago at the National Cathedral, a several men were all walking one of the labyrinths at the same time. That is unusual, since there are many more women who walk than men, so I became very alert. As I approached the center, I was the second man to enter it. Then three more men entered. I wrote later:

For several minutes there were five of us men in the center – just amazing! I have never seen that many men walking before, much less to all be in the center at the same time. I was aware of all of us, praying that all could share with the others, and that God touch all of the others the way I was being energized by it. (October 30, 2007)

That small group of men, sitting together in prayer, touched me with an unexpected sense of community, even though there was no conversation and we did not even know each others names.

Now, whenever I begin each new walk through a labyrinth, I wonder if I will again sense the community of God.

Walking Prayer

Many of us were taught as children to pray by pressing our flattened hands together, holding them up in front of our chest, bending our heads down, and closing our eyes. We were supposed to stay in place, whether we were sitting or standing, and not move. Finally, no peeking was allowed.

If you ask adults to get ready to pray, they usually adopt a similar pose. They move into a similar body position with eyes closed or downcast, hands held in a particular way, and stop all movement in their limbs. It is an introspective position in which distractions are reduced and busy-ness is stopped, though as squirming children testify, not always successfully.

But as my radical Second Grade Sunday School told me, that is not the only way to pray. She told the class many years ago that prayer can be done with our eyes open, walking down the sidewalk and our hands at our sides. It so startled me at the time that I still remember that class even if I have forgotten her name. I thank her for that gift of a broader understanding of prayer.

So why did it take decades for me to adopt walking a labyrinth as a form of prayer?

In college, I encountered walking meditation based upon Eastern religious practices, which were in vogue. The leader showed us how to slowly extend one foot, putting down the heel, shifting the body weight onto the ball of that foot, lifting up the other foot to extend it, and repeating the motion very slowly. We moved so slowly I was able to feel a anxious sense of imbalance at I lifted up the foot in the back to move it forward.

Surprisingly, that deliberate movement of my body led to stillness in my mind. It was easier to let go of the distractions in my thoughts and feelings than sitting meditation. It remained a singular experience, although never forgotten.

It was a Washington Post article in April 2003 that led me to walking prayer in a labyrinth at the National Cathedral. It was very crowded that evening. I noted in my journal, “There were so many people around – side stepping, passing by, stopping. Yet I felt alone on the path, by myself at my own pace, on my own singular journey, even in the middle of community.”

After my first walk that April 29th, wrote in my journal that I became achingly aware of strong emotions that had been pushed aside. “I was feeling sorrow come up from my center and tears come up, around my eyes, down my cheeks. . . .” Similar experiences have occurred during many other walks since that one.

Since then, I try to walk that canvas pathway in my stocking feet at the National Cathedral every month. Sometimes I am with a friend and other times alone. I like to arrive around 7:30, when it tends to be less crowded. After writing in my journal to clear out the distractions from the day, I often reread the starting lines of Psalm 62, “For God alone my soul in silence waits . . . He alone is my rock and my salvation.” Then I go to whichever of the two labyrinths seems less crowded.

As I walk in toward the center, I repeat those words of the Psalm whenever my mind wanders. When I reach the center, I sit down and try to relax into quietness. I sit there until I sense it is time to leave and start walking back out. Walking in the opposite direction is different, and often feels like I am leaving behind a place that is safe and comforting.

Each time has been different, each time a new experience. Sometimes there is a sense of movement, healing or new possibility. Sometimes there is only emptiness or distraction. Yet I know I will come back again to experience the walking prayer.

I often remember one experience of release and relief. In one section of the Chartres style labyrinth, the last two half-circle paths before starting the final steps into the center, I often remember a time of letting go of deep seated anger, and feeling myself soaring. I had stuck out my arms like airplane wings, and banked my wings into the curves, floating free of the pain and weight of that anger.

It is not something I do everyday, and is not my primary form of prayer. It doesn’t always “work” at leading me into a quiet contemplative place. It does continue to lead my claiming a deeper sense of God in my life.

What is Your Hermeneutic Perspective?

It is a shame that the name for the study of how we read and understand a text is so difficult: hermeneutics. I can imagine anyone’s first encounter with the word, trying to use phonetics to pronounce it, then deciding to watch TV instead. If you want a definition I think the one in Wikipedia is a good start.

Rather than trying to explain it in great detail, I suggest you take a short twenty question Hermeneutic Quiz, sponsored by Christianity Today and Leadership Journal. This quiz will let you experience the range of decisions that people make, rather than try to think it all through. As you take the test, you may wonder why the questions are worded the way they are and if there is something you are missing. Just go ahead, and answer with what seems to make sense to you

There is nothing neutral and accurately quantifiable about the quiz. The questions clearly reflect the bias of the person developing it, and reflect one view of the issues of interpretation. It is thought provoking and may open your eyes to what choices you make as you encounter the more difficult passages of the Bible.

Try it and let me know how you scored, and what you learned in the process.

Let me note that several members of my family have taken it, and the scores ranged from a conservative 49 to mine as the most progressive at 83. Several of the test takers noted that the categories of conservative or progressive for some of the questions seemed strange, and that they were surprised with their ranking.

More importantly, a family as diverse as mine on this scale of biblical hermeneutics still comes together as a family, laughing and crying together, knowing our common bond. We have had our clashes and struggles over the years, but we never called each other names or questioned each other’s Christianity. We are all active in the ministry of our various churches, and know that each one is living a life of faith true to that person’s understanding of the Bible. Someday I hope to be able to say that about my Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Human Limits in the Perception of God

An important first step in any research project is to think clearly about the frame that will be used because it affects both the course of inquiry and its results. Without taking the time to define framing, a short explanation can be found in the introduction to Simple Framing by George Lakoff:

Carry out the following directive: Don't think of an elephant! It is, of course, a directive that cannot be carried out – and that is the point. In order to purposefully not think of an elephant, you have to think of an elephant.

The frame used in the Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) illustrates how a human point of view can limit and distort our perception of God. The report identifies (page 28) the two dimensions that were used to analyze the research analysis: “God’s level of engagement” and “God’s level of anger.”

For the sake of brevity, I will focus on the dimension of anger. Since one side of the graph assumes that God has some degree of anger at humanity, all of the responses to the survey are interpreted with that expectation. In this case the “elephant” in the report is “God’s anger.” All of the analysis done and reported results have that image of the angry God built into them.

This reflects the theological position of Baylor, its founders, its faculty and its students, so it is an honest frame from their personal experience. Even as the survey shows, there are many in the United States that believe in the Authoritarian and Critical God, so the researchers do a good job of describing what they know.

However, there are many of us in this country who do not experience God as angry with humanity. When I was growing up, Sunday School teachers constantly reminded me that “God is Love,” and God’s love is one of acceptance and welcome. Just as Jesus gathered the children to him during his ministry, we sang the song “Jesus Loves Me,” further building up that image of a warm, welcoming and caring God.

The assumption of anger by the BRS researchers does not describe my religious experience. By forcing all religious believers into that assumption of anger, they force a theological and experiential bias that is alien to many other people. Just as you cannot forget the elephant in Lakoff’s example, there is no way to forget the frame of anger built into the research reports.

While I keep trying to find some way to salvage some good from the report, I keep running into that angry elephant. I am disappointed because I had hoped to use the research in my conversations with people as their spiritual director. Yet there are two aspects of this research that I can apply.

First, there are a significant number of people in this country who believe that God is angry at them, either as an Authoritarian or Critical presence. When I am with someone in spiritual direction, I want to be sensitive to that belief, to listen carefully to how it affects their relationship with God, and whether it supports or interferes with their spiritual growth.

Second, I want to be aware of my own spiritual frames, and to avoid imposing them upon those who come to me for direction. I want to listen for how God may be acting in the other person’s life, which may be very different than my own history and experience.

It is only with God’s help that I will move beyond my own human, limited perception of God. I pray that God will challenge and support me.

The Tricky Part

Last night I saw The Tricky Part written and acted by Martin Moran. The play is based upon a book of the same title, which I am now reading.

Martin told of his experience as a twelve year old boy being sexually misused by a 30 year old man, Bob, and how many years later Martin still carries that boy within. It is not the same story as those in the headlines the last few years of priests molesting altar boys, but runs in parallel with them. Martin was an altar boy and attended a Catholic school as a child, and while Bob was not a priest, he was Martin’s camp counselor.

The play is intimate and honest, a blend of emerging sexual awareness, emotional need and loneliness, spiritual questioning and guilt, desire and manipulation. When he describes his relationship with Bob, it is not that Bob was just a trespasser. Bob was also a friend and teacher. The relationship continued off and on for three years because Martin needed much of what Bob offered even as the boy was being manipulated by the man.

This is all in the context of the Catholic school with the nuns and priests, seen with all of their strengths, weakness, and flaws, preparing the children for life. As the boy goes between physical encounters with Bob and conversations with the nuns, none could have known how each person’s ideas of God, Sin and “mortal sin,” sexuality and guilt, and love would be put together. The mind of the not-yet pubescent male tried to make sense of his experiences, and the adult Martin is still exploring the meaning.

What stunned me as I listened to him retell the story – for who knows how many times now – was how gentle and vulnerable he still seemed to be some thirty six years later. Of course, he is being the actor. But he is retelling his own story and the depth of his past could still be felt. The honesty and courage of making public the most intimate of experiences and thoughts was incredibly powerful. I will never forget it. What I heard in that room of 35 people was as intimate as what I hear in the privacy of providing spiritual direction. I am amazed at the ministry he is offering to those trying to understand.

I had decided to buy his book before it was over, and as I stood in the lobby waiting to talk to him, I was aware of how different he seemed. He was greeting friends and members of the audience, being bright and cheerful. He had admitted in the play how shy he had been, and as another person who deals with shyness, I could see him acting in the expected role. It was a necessary separation from the intense experience in the theater.

When he turned to me, with my recently bought book in hand, he asked me my name so he could personalize the note. Feeling awkward, I asked him to repeat the line in the play which summarizes what The Tricky Part is all about. He replied “Is it possible that what harms us might come to restore us?”

His note was short. “To Bruce – with blessings X O Martin”