[Perfectionism vs. Experiencing "The Best Part"] Q. We are a group of nurses (and one college professor) in the Mid-West, meeting regularly to discuss Elegant Choices, Healing Choices in a peer-support/study group.
Last week we got bogged down with the points made at the end of Chapter 3. You seem to say that we can integrate our selfish and unselfish impulses healthfully. Most of us got fuzzy here. We seek more balance in life. We want to spend time contemplatively or on things that nurture the spirit, but life's responsibilities are geared to giving: giving to family and to patients or students and this usually demands putting ourselves last. Can you clarify?
What are your current thoughts?
A. Well, I feel we need to blend bthe practical side of our service to family, community and workplace and the ideal of our values (whatever we cherish). Let me explain:
When I've felt that pull between "selfish" and "selfless" roles, it has helped to mull over the principles of response outlined in the Martha-Mary parable. I elaborated on that in my most recent work Sometimes Enough is Enough (see p. 23).
[Mary & Martha: Obedience vs. Busy-ness] If you'll recall, in the Book of Luke, we're told that when Jesus visited Mary and Martha, Mary stopped what she was doing immediately. Mary's motif is that she's spontaneously able and inclined to attend to her Lord. To get her attention, Jesus didn't need to make an appointment -- Mary's disposition is obedient to the impulse to set aside time for, say, the
pure listening that's integral to contemplation or praying in the Spirit. She is also willing to devote time to consider the sacred Presence that, in differing degrees and frequency, we feel pulling us toward stillness, prayer,or contemplative pursuits -- whatever they are.
By contrast, Martha gets busy with all those legalistic -- i.e., obvious -- chores. She's handling the practical social urgencies that she thinks, erroneously, are required to fulfill her role as a gracious, helpful homemaker or hostess. In some ways, Martha is the ultra-responsible pattern within ourselves -- the state of mind that keeps us huffing and puffing (i.e., cleaning, cooking, running errands, whatever) until we get resentful and frustrated because we know we've missed the mark of our authentic heart. At one point Martha even scolds Jesus, telling him to tell Mary to get back to business helping out in the kitchen!Jesus then sighs regretfully and says something like...
"Oh, Martha, Martha, when will you learn to attend to the best part and forget the rest." (see Luke 10:38-42)Like Martha, most of us are much inclined to make ourselves useful. But, if we're like Mary, although to our friends and family, we may seem a bit day-dreamy -- intuitive, meditative, engaged in deep thought -- progressively we'll turn our attention toward the inmost Spirit in a way that seasons all things for the good.
Bear in mind, this doesn't mean we'll shirk our duties but that when the spirit moves us we'll respond appropriately. You'll note in the parable, no babies were crying or in need of care; no fires needed putting out. This says that there are times when, although we're able to set aside time for contemplative or spirit-nurturing engagements, some internalized pressure keeps us serving false gods.
[Mary & Martha As States of Mind] In some sense, both Mary and Martha are states of mind, or ways of being, that we each have, within. The flesh battling against the spirit, pulling us this way and that. Our job is to reconcile these pulls, to harmonize our
(a) "doing" drives (which in the extreme becomes a rigid perfectionism or compulsion to be humanly, not spiritually, blemish-free); and(b) "being" drives or desire to simply be whole, integrated, unified.
Only the latter involves contemplative activities -- the restful and awareness-enhancing disciplines (or pastimes) for which we, usually, believe we lack time. If we're naturally disposed to contemplation, we'll actually hunger and thirst for that. Especially at first, there are consequences for shaping our schedules in that direction. To understand that, we can paraphrase Joseph Campbell's popular motto and say that to follow one's bliss, one may first have to tread an unblissful path.
Q. Well, that's helpful in a general way but can you express the principle in more everyday -- less Scriptural -- terms?
A. Maybe. See if this gardening example works: Consider a young tree. To grow strong and fruitful, its roots must get established properly. So it drinks greedily from the water in the soil and absorbs any nutrients available from that same soil. Only after it gets properly established can it be fruitful, give out "stuff" -- flowers, actual fruit, fragrance, greenery, whatever -- to nourish others.
Serving From a Renewed, Spiritual Root:
In a sense, we're like that tree. When we're spiritually young, we're not really fruitful -- not in a lasting way. Consider the nurse or physician or parent or teacher who must, in order to be fruitful, care intelligently for others. Serving a patient, a child or student, calls for mature, consistent conduct, wisdom, generous patience. All these are spiritual gifts. To care for others fruitfully we all require the rest and creative, or spiritual root, from which mature, responsible giving flows.
In our tug of war between selfish/selfless impulses, the more wholesome we become (i.e., integrated, spiritually intelligent, wise, compassionate, etc.) the better we serve others. That is, to the extent we become infused with the essence or spirit of peace and unity, to that extent we get what we truly need with some measure of spiritual intelligence or intuitive authority, growing secure, trusting enough within to carve out time each day for the self-renewal we require. Another way of putting this is, "You can't give what you don't have." Or, "You can't squeeze blood from a stone." In other words, if you don't have patience, maturity, spiritual intelligence, how can you give it to those you would serve fruitfully? You'll give material stuff, or the tasks you're hired to do, but these will be empty gifts.
[What We Really Want] Picture the parent who so compulsively serves family that, in subtle ways, he or she makes them feel guilty for what they're getting. If you're rushing about trying to prove how capable or good we are (when in fact we're frazzled, rigid, worn-out and brittle), we're often like that parent. Conversely, we may know parents who preserve a bit of time each day for some sort of healthy self-renewal -- a bit of gardening, listening to music, exercise, reading -- thereby dealing maturely and generously when needed, without guilty strings attached, with the family.
Isn't that generous, true-giving what we really want? In our heart of hearts, don't we long for the relief, the release and the deep peace of mind that gives cheerfully and effective because we can give that way? Didn't you always wish your mother or father or a teacher or manager could give in that fashion -- with no guilty strings or frazzled emotions involved?
That peace of mind or deepest interior harmony is "the best part" of ourselves. It feeds everything else, including the love that lives at our ground of being. That's the love we want to give others and receive for ourselves. The manager who can "love" others becomes a decent, trustworthy listener when employees need to talk over a problem; the nurse who "loves" other, calmly prioritizes a zillion pesky tasks so that, somehow, a hectic day runs smoothly. In the midst of simultaneous demands, s/he feels, "Ah, I can do this -- I was born for this..."
Without proper self-renewal (i.e., that results in peace at our ground of being), we feel, "Why am I doing this? I'm so tired I can't think straight."
The more integrated or whole we become, the less conflict we feel between what we truly need and what we feel we "should" do for others, and the more understanding we gain of how all this works.
On page 25 of Sometimes, Enough is Enough we read:
The 'best part' may puzzle reasonable worker bees. Ever buzzing, ever bent on doing more, having more or somehow impressing others with their achievements [or virtue, or responsibilities, etc.] the compulsive can't possibly be casual and giving about anything. In striving to do all things flawlessly, compulsives deprive themselves of [an important] spiritual comfort: the knack, now and then, of taking life as it comes, of simply rejoicing in the moment.