A Labyrinthine Journey

When I first met the Enneagram, I had a mixed reaction to it. I was excited to see how the insights of this map to the soul could be used for my own journey as well as in my ministry of preaching and direction. That excitement continues especially as I keep on digging deeper into it. In November, I was blessed to lead 23 others in catching some of this excitement and some of these insights. I have even received a few nice emails expressing gratitude for that day. That is very nice.

However, the mixed part of my reaction was the more extreme pathological approach that many of the authors I read used. Especially with my type (8). The descriptions seem to be very tilted toward the worst parts of our behavior. On the one hand these authors would be talking about the importance of avoiding the use of the Enneagram as a source of judgment, but then the very descriptions they use are pretty much all couched in terms of negativity. For my type, the descriptions talked about an extreme aggressive attitude toward people and the use and abuse of them for my own benefit. The descriptions would say something about the positive approach to things, but those descriptions of the strong protector would be overwhelmed by the dictatorial tyrant. It’s no wonder as I was trying out various type inventories my 8 score would often be 3rd or 4th in line.

At one level I can understand where that came from: many of those who have formulated the descriptions of the Enneagram in these first few generations were writing from the perspectives of diagnostitions who were used to viewing the pathology or unhealthy aspects of personality. In fact, Claudio Naranjo’s major contribution to the literature of the Enneagram connects the Enneatypes to the traditional categories of psychoses and neuroses (Enneagram Monthly, Susan Rhodes, Depathologizing the Enneagram).

For me, that only has limited attraction. As a preacher, teacher, and spiritual director, I am less interested in diagnosing the pathologies than I am more interested in what motivates us and can be resources for our wholeness and holiness. In the article above, as well as a couple others that I have read recently, there is a growing call for a new focus on the Enneagram. Susan Rhodes talks about Depathologizing the Enneagram, but we cannot truly remove the pathology, because those unhealthy parts of our being cannot be ignored.

Instead, I have been thinking about taking a cue from a movement within the church and even within systems theories of seeing the Emergent Qualities of the Enneagram.

I have found it very helpful to begin my thoughts and focus on the Essential Qualities and the Holy Ideas that the Enneagram points to. This is an approach that A. H. Almaas and Sandra Maitri have helped me to begin with. What is the presence of God/Essence/Life wanting to create within us, the unfold as an Emergence within our lives? Then we can place in its proper context where we get stuck and go astray. With that greater context it is easier for us to avail ourselves of that Emergent energy and those resources for wholeness to be more fully who we are already.

I have been spending a lot of time gathering in ideas related to the Enneagram and sorting through them to make them a part of me. Now I am going to start playing these ideas out. Feel free to enter the discussion.

There was a time when I would describe myself as being declared a heretic in at least 2 different churches. As I consider some of the tools I use now in my spiritual and pastoral toolbox, I think I might have to expand that level of condemnation. And maybe I have done my part to intentionally amplify that status in the last few years. I confess that I have a bit of a stubborn streak when it comes to people trying to control me (Enneagram Type 8 for those of you who care).

I hoping in the next few weeks to begin to write extensively here about my learnings from and ministry application of the Enneagram in this space. If you google “Enneagram” you will find a few sites that are very eloquent in its condemnation of the Enneagram as a tool of the occult bringing spiritual chaos into the church. I suppose the Enneagram symbol does look occult/mysterious/secret-society like. And after all, most of the early adopters of the Enneagram are non-Christian mystics and psychologists. If that is the case, then the labyrinth would also be placed in that category of anti-Christian symbols that appear occult. For me, both that labyrinth the Enneagram are symbols and tools that have great power and usefulness in my work as spiritual director and pastor as well as in my own personal walk with God.

The more I think about it, there are other reasons for falling into the heretic mold for some people. I am very much a process oriented person. Not only do I still use the family process perspective on relationships from Murray Bowen and Ed Friedman in my counseling and spiritual direction, but I definitely see myself as a Process Theologian. God’s love might be unchanging, but our God is a Living and Dynamic Being who responds to and is affected by the divine involvement with history. So how God works in my life is never the same as how God works in another person’s life. Beyond that, how God works in my life today is not the same as how God has worked even in my own life. There is no “God only works in these prescribed ways” point of view in my theology. Not only would those Baptists in my history be aghast, but my Reformed Church colleagues would be convinced that I have lost something important.

I, however, think I have gained far more than I have lost. And that gain lies behind my title. it also lies behind a deeper reorientation I think the church should examine about many things we do that are acceptable means of grace within the church.

The key reorientation is to not become focused on the various forms of God’s grace, but to keep our eyes on the Grace of god itself.

I enjoy the symbol of the labyrinth because I do believe it has a certain beauty and symmetry to it. I have experienced some profound moments of God using the labyrinth in directing and transforming my life, but the symbol of the labyrinth should not become a magical talisman that holds power itself. It is powerful as it holds and contains and brings my life into contact with the living and dynamic presence of God. The symbol of the labyrinth is simply that of a tool (a very good tool for many people, but worthless to many others) that God is able to use to slow down our lives to be able to see, hear, and allow God to work within us. The focus is on the God at work, remaining thankful for the tool.

Same thing with the Enneagram and Process theology. I am a student of both and a witness for both in my life and ministry even if I don’t mention the names themselves. Why? Because God has used both the process orientation and the Enneagram to open up a deeper and profound perspective on the spiritual journey that rings true as I seek to follow God. There are so many aspects of the spiritual life that it is easy for me to forget and to get lost in all the nuances and details that come from Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. The Enneagram has become a very easy way to remember and to process what God is doing in my life and in the lives of those I know and love. I get excited about how it helps me sort through all the details to hold the core gifts of God before my heart and my preaching. There is no magic in the symbol, but there is power because I keep finding the ways that it makes sense of what God is doing. While I am thankful for that understanding, it is simply a tool, a very powerful one to me, that keeps my focus on the god who is ever making us and remaking us into the imagio dei.

Yet, my title goes beyond that. I find myself continuing to remind myself of this tool perspective for more things in the church. How many of our worship wars come about because we have our eyes so focused on the form of our worship (music styles, liturgical styles, media, architecture, etc) that we forget Jesus leading us to be people who worship God in spirit and truth (John 4:23). Worship is important and we need to do it often and well, but when we become so wrapped up in what worship looks like, have we lost our way confusing the means with the grace.

How about church budgets and apportionments? Do we become so focused on the dollars and cents and the power that goes along with them that we lose sight of our money being tools that God gives us in order to witness to God’s love in word and deed? I have been trying for years to keep my focus on the grace we are stewards of during the annual finance campaigns. I believe that as we keep our focus there, the tools will no longer leads us into anxiety, but will become occasions for celebration and greater generosity. Or how about administrative structures (both local church and denominational)? We are way too focused on the forms of our structure that we forget what they are there for.

Even spiritual disciplines (I could go on, but this will be my last set of examples). For years, I would become discouraged because I couldn’t journal everyday, or read my Bible every day, or even pray every day as I knew I should, or even as I wanted to. I would really kick myself for not being a very disciplined person (as this blog will demonstrate). Lately, I have realized that my self-defeating discouragement was another form of putting the means before the grace. I was always thinking that the important thing was the reading, the writing, the praying, the whatevering, and since I kept failing that I was a failure (recipe for depression). However, what if I kept the focus on why those things were useful as tools of God’s work in my life? What is the purpose of prayer and scripture reading? To spend time with God and growing in my relationship with my Beloved. What would be the purpose of journaling or writing? To remember and nurture what God is doing in my life. As I have been reminding myself of the primacy of living God’s grace, I have not only had less anxiety about what disciplines I do or do not practice, but paradoxically, the actions of the disciplines flow more freely and more naturally.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us – 2 Corinthians 4:7 NRSV

I know that Paul is reflecting on the wonders of how our mortal, fragile beings can be vessels for the gospel, but I think it can apply to these other tools as well. Whether the clay jars are more “acceptable” like worship styles, words of scripture, church buildings, disciplines, or more fringe such as the Enneagram or the labyrinth, we need to keep our eyes on the extraordinary treasure which is the living presence of God within us, for the transformation of the world.

Well, that is what I am hoping to come up with as I go through all this preparation.

As I first tried to chart my course for digging deep into the Enneagram I looked for a conference or some sort of training to go to as my Continuing Education for the year. I found a couple interesting trainings out there and decided that I was interested in Helen Palmer’s Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition training (still am actually). However, the cost was beyond what my budget would allow me to consider at this time. Actually, the cost of any of the training courses was beyond my budget.

So that meant Independent Research (translated: read a bunch of books).

One thing I noticed as I researched what books to use for research was that there were some pretty distinct schools of thought amongst Enneagram authors and teachers. And amongst those schools of thought there was little love lost. I actually found that somewhat ironic (and familiar). Amongst authors and teachers of a tool that is meant to help guide us beyond the pettiness of the personality and a limited view of reality, I saw the power of pride and prejudice that led to factions and animosity (and lawsuits). I had to laugh: where else in my life have I experienced people who seek to gather together for the betterment of the world and people in the world descending to petty battles and entrenched attitudes that detract from and almost nullify the source of the movement? Anyone? You in the back-yes, the Christian Church is the correct answer … sadly.

Well, I am a bit of an ecumenical Christian having lived and been influenced by major schools of Christian thought: Baptist, Calvinist, Wesleyan, Quaker, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, contemplative, socially active, spirituality based, even a touch of pentacostal. So I have been trying to gather from the wide variety of perspectives on the Enneagram that I can. Many of those are listed on my blogroll in the sidebar. Soon I will post a list of the major sources just to help me keep track.

One thing I have found is that while I have a number of books and articles that lay out the personality traits and activities associated with each Enneagram type (Riso and Hudson, Rohr), I am most drawn to those books and authors that go down to the roots of the Enneagram and the development of the personality fractures and traps (Almaas and Maitri). The value is that I don’t have to focus on memorizing a lot of lists and ideas without a context to put them in. What I find myself doing is finding the bedrock and laying the foundations that will make it easier to remember the details and even go beyond anyone’s lists to see type and then to respond to type.

This is parallel to my work with spirituality. With my wide experience with different families in the Christian tradition it would be so easy to get lost in the detail and I think the church has truly got lost in the details substituting a focus on the form of our faith while losing sight of the substance of our faith. Spirituality is one of those foundational and ecumenical activities that can (if we can let go of the schools of thought divisions) provide a path to be a part of God’s healing the church (mission and service are another one of those foundational and ecumenical activities that can unite).

Well, enough behind the scenes posting. My next one will begin to focus on the bedrock I am building my foundations on.

Sorry to have dropped off the face of the Blogosphere, I have been occupied in a big endeavor: digging into the Enneagram. The presenting reason for that immersion in the 9 types, the circle, the triads, the lines of interconnection, and a tool for spiritual discernment is that I am going to lead a Day Apart with the Enneagram for our Annual Conference in November. Before, I was a beginning student of the Enneagram, but to teach? I realized I needed to be more than a beginning student. So I have been reading and sifting and considering and wrestling and whatever else one does with new typologies. It has been a good thing. Now I am more into the sifting and percolating process of understanding things so I have some time. Besides what better place to let ideas steep is to write for an audience. I keep seeking a way to find my blogging niche and this might be a place to start.

But before I get into what I am learning about myself and others through the enneagram, I wanted to tell my story of the Enneagram.

It started about 6 years ago while going to our Conference’s Pastoral Counselor to try to deal with a long term depression that both became part of the reason for a divorce and was also triggered by that event. At one point she mentioned that I might get something out of the Enneagram. She didn’t know a lot about it at the time, but had this intuitive idea that it would help me. So I stopped at a bookstore on the way out of town and bought a book on the Enneagram. I did the test that was included and thought I would be a Type 9: a Peacemaker. I liked that, it helped me some, but I didn’t find it all that earthshaking, just interesting.

A year or so later, I had remarried and we were moved by the Bishop to a new parish. Also at the time, I followed the sensed call of God to begin training as a Spiritual Director. I found a training program within an hour of my house in association with Creighton University in Omaha. Dr. Wendy Wright was the teacher for the first year as we looked at the history of Christian Spirituality. I loved it. Two characters in that history really stirred things within me: Ignatius of Loyola (on spiritual discernment) and Evagrius of Pontus. With Evagrius I also captured a deep appreciation for the Desert Mystics. I found in their writings a resonance with the process of spiritual growth and formation that I was sensing and observing. Now 4 years later I still feel that.

I wrote a research paper on Evagrius and his schema of Eight Thoughts. Those thoughts became the seed that eventually became the Seven Deadly Sins and their associated Seven Christian Virtues. But for Evagrius those Eight Thoughts were traps for anyone who sought to develop a Christian Spiritual relationship with God.

After that first year, I kept reflecting on both Evagrius and Ignatius as I began to try out Spiritual Direction. They are still very helpful. Then in the third year of the course, we had a Spiritual Director couple lead a class session on the Enneagram. I still typed myself as a Type 9 and still found it interesting.

However, what really got me interested in the Enneagram at this time was the correspondence between the Nine types of the Enneagram and Evagrius’ Eight Thoughts. They were the same, plus one. So I started paying more attention to the Enneagram and seeing how it might help.

Right after that class and for a few months before we were moved again by the Bishop, I went to one of them for Spiritual Direction. We had more in depth conversations about my Ennea-type. We came to the conclusion that I had mistyped myself. I liked the idea of being the Type 9, but we agreed that I was actually a Type 8 with a strong Type 9 wing. (If you don’t understand that, don’t worry, it is only marginally important for this post).

I did not like that at all. (Which is actually important, because that is a sign that we were probably right on). The Type 8 is the Challenger, the Dictator, the one who needs to be in Control. I did not like that because I knew a couple pastor’s growing up who would fit that description and I endeavored my whole life to not be like them at all (another clue that this typing was right). This triggered a major crisis in my spiritual life as I wrestled with the idea of accepting who I really was and what my traps and strengths were. It took quite a bit of time for me to get to that point. Once I did, that freed up a lot of spiritual energy. I found myself coming back to the Enneagram information again and again going deeper each time into my own type.

That continued for a year or so. Then, at a Spiritual Direction Retreat I kept bringing up thoughts and insights from my reading and reflections on the Enneagram. Out of that retreat, our Conference’s Pastoral Counselor asked me if I wanted to share those insights at a workshop on the Enneagram for the conference. In a moment of weakness/faith I said yes. Then I started digging into the reading.

That is my story, now to start sifting through all those ideas and lets see what I can share with you all as I practice and prepare.