I’m over at The Mudroom today, sharing on their theme of Cyclones, Storms & Squalls.
Here’s a little taster. You can click the link below to read more.
It takes a few weeks before I can name this storm. I don’t want to test the winds, to look at the lows and highs, to name this as something more than a squall. I’d prefer to call it a cyclone, really, than depression, even if I get to soften it with the more than acceptable moniker of “postpartum.”
On March 13, my first book, Embracing the Body: Finding God In Our Flesh & Bone, officially launched.
The day before, March 12, marked six months of life for my daughter, and a huge milestone for my own body in terms of continued health and well-being.
But I haven’t written much about that, have I?
Today, December 28, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. As I shared with the glorious pilgrims in the Coming Home eCourse, it’s my favorite feast day of the year. It combines Christmastide and doubt, the hope of the resurrection and all of our questions, and here, with a little sneak peak into the course materials, is why:
(A Note On The Image Above: I chose this painting of all of the paintings of the massacre of the innocents because of its horrible peacefulness. Although I shied away from the more active scenes—and then ruefully noted my own inability to confront the real evil of this day—there is something so chilling and painful about Navez’s rendition, with the action off to the back and the grief front and center, that speaks to this commemoration well.)
You may think me morbid, but the Feast of the Holy Innocents is one of my favorite feast days of the entire Church calendar. It’s not because of the brutality of what it commemorates, but because of what this particular feast makes space for both in my heart and in the worship and life of the Church as a whole.
In Matthew 2:16 the Gospel writer tells of Herod’s rage at being deceived by the magi and his subsequent order to have all male children under two years (which at the time would have most likely meant age one and younger) in Bethlehem and surrounding area killed. This horrific act was completely consistent with Herod’s character (it is well documented historically that he had his own sons killed), and is a terrible reminder of the cost of pursuing goodness and life in the face of great evil.
The Church recognizes those children killed by Herod as martyrs, whether or not their parents were believers, because they themselves took the place of the one Herod was after—Jesus. Over the years, the killings grew in the imagination of the Church, with numbers being cited in the hundreds of thousands, while the reality of the population of Bethlehem and area indicates that the number of children killed was between six and twenty.
Whatever the actual number of children, December 28 is a day clothed with the horror of lives cut off, death visiting those who had lived so short a time and so deserved to be protected and cherished.
Over the years, my own celebration of this feast day has come to be quite dear to me. While God can take my rage, my questions, my anger, my lack of understanding of His ways any day of the year (and often does), it heartens me that there is a day in the Church calendar where the whole assembly of believers is encouraged to cry out the anguished question: WHY?
On this day, I set aside time to let those questions and aches in my heart have full-throated voice. I weep and cry out WHY, LORD? in the company of the great cloud of witnesses who also weep for those holy innocents who died so long ago. I let my mourning be deep and angry and real this day—as I can any day with God—because He is big enough, powerful enough, and, most importantly, good and loving enough to hold receive these questions hurled at him from me. It is a time for me to mourn and wail for those things unmourned this year—or unmourned in my soul in general—or to continue mourning those things if necessary. It is an acknowledgement both that God can take it, and that His ways are mysteriously larger than mine.
Consider spending some time on December 28 to hold these truths of God’s story and your own together before Him.
O God, whom the Holy Innocents confessed and proclaimed on this day, not by speaking but by dying, grant, we pray, that the faith in You which we confess with our lips may also speak through our manner of life. Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of his Resurrection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Glorious God,
how curious
and what a confession
that we should set aside one day a year
and call it Thanksgiving.
I smile at the presumption,
and hope you smile, too.
But the truth is,
Holy Friend,
that my words can’t carry all the praise
I want them to,
or that they should,
no matter how many trips they make.
So this day,
all is praise and thanks
for all my days.
I breathe and it is your breath that fills me.
I look and it is your light by which I see.
I move and it is your energy moving in me.
I listen and even the stones speak of you.
I touch and you are between finger and skin.
I think and the thoughts are but sparks from the fire of your truth.
I love and the throb is your presence.
I laugh and it is the rustle of your passing.
I weep and your Spirit broods over me.
I long and it is the tug of your kingdom.
I praise you, Glorious One,
for what has been, and is and will ever be:
for galaxy upon galaxy, mass and energy,
earth and air, sun and night,
sea and shore, mountain and valley,
root and branch, male and female,
creature upon creature in a thousand ingenious ways,
two-legged, hundred legged, smooth, furry, and feathery,
bull frogs and platypuses, peacocks and preachers,
and the giggle of it—
and turkeys (especially, this day, the roasted kind, not the flops)—
and families gathered, and the thanking;
the brave, lonely one, and the asking;
the growling, hungry ones, and the sharing.
I praise you, Glorious One,
for this color-splashed, memory haunted,
hope-filled, justice-seeking,
love-grown country
and the labors that birthed it,
the dreams that nurtured it,
the riches that sometimes misguide it,
the sacrifices that await it,
the destiny that summons it
to become a blessing to the whole human family!
O Glorious One,
for this curious day,
for the impulses that have designated it,
for the gifts that grace it,
for the gladness that accompanies it,
for my life,
for those through whom I came to be,
for friends through whom I hear and see
greater worlds than otherwise I would,
for all the doors of words and music and worship through which I pass to larger worlds,
and for the One who brought a kingdom to me,
I pause to praise and thank you
with this one more trip of words
which leaves too much uncarried,
but not unfelt,
unlived,
unloved.
Thank you!
from Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle by Ted Loder
This have been quiet here for the past few months. My daughter was born in early September, and the final edits on my book, Embracing the Body: Finding God in Our Flesh & Bone, were due at the beginning of October. I had hoped to finish the Enneagram & Prayer series before going on maternity leave, but the Father had a different plan.
Although our little family is still journeying into our new rhythms (the Night Offices are a dear companion in this season), I thought I’d stop in to say hello to the Anam Cara Community and let you dear ones know that the Series will continue when we find our way to what God has for us in the present of our lives. I’d like to tell you when that will be, but as I’ve been staying in prayer it’s been clear that receiving God’s love and comfort means not pushing or setting deadlines right now. Instead, to walk into Christ’s love is to live rest with our little one, and to be alongside those who have trusted me with their God-story as their spiritual director. When there is grace and space, the Enneagram series will be back. In the meantime, I humbly ask for your prayers and your support—sleep is a rare commodity in our lives at the moment. But we are filled with Love.
So it’s getting to be that time—I’ve been sending out requests for endorsements (humbling, so very humbling) and reviewing the edits on the manuscript for Embracing the Body: Finding God In Our Flesh & Bone. I’ll have an announcement for you next week about the release date and all that will be happening around that.
In the meantime, I need your help. It’s headshot time, and I’m just not great at this process. So I’m going to admit my need, and ask you, Anam Cara Community, which headshot you like the best. Vote by number in the comments, and if you have time, let me know why you chose the one that you chose.
I’m so grateful to have such an amazing group of readers and friends, a real community of the Way. I never take it for granted.
Grace & peace to you this day.
With so many thanks to allison dubois photography + graphic design.
Fives are alert, insightful, and curious. They are able to concentrate and focus on developing complex ideas and skills. Independent, innovative, and inventive, they can also become preoccupied with their thoughts and imaginary constructs. They become detached, yet high-strung and intense. They typically have problems with eccentricity, nihilism, and isolation. At their Best: visionary pioneers, often ahead of their time, and able to see the world in an entirely new way.
Key Motivations: Want to possess knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment.
The Meaning of the Arrows (in brief)
When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), detached Fives suddenly become hyperactive and scattered at Seven. However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), avaricious, detached Fives become more self-confident and decisive, like healthy Eights.
Source: The Enneagram Institute: Type Five
With Type Fives, we move into the Thinking Center of the Enneagram. The Thinking or Head Center is where Type Fives, Type Sixes and Type Sevens go when they lose touch with the core of who they are. Each of the three Types in this center retreat to their heads in different ways, but each is reacting to and out a place of Fear. Where the Heart Center (2-3-4) struggle with Shame, Head Centers do their best to hide or attack the fears that plague them.
Type Fives are actually the most introverted of the nine Types. Fives are deeply motivated by the need to know or understand. They are exceptionally good at research, and will be the ones who are most able to be objective, perceptive and wise. Type Fives are trustworthy and kind; their integrity is one of the most important things for them to maintain.
Type Fives value their inner order, so much so that new information often disturbs and discomforts them. Type Fives need time to integrate new ideas, feelings or experiences into their own inner world, and will regularly withdraw in order to have space to make sense of things. Although they are stereotyped as bookish or intellectual, Type Fives are observers whose focus may be on a particular topic rather than a mode of research.
Because they fear being hurt, Fives strive to reduce their vulnerabilities. Although they can often articulate their feelings quite perceptively, that doesn’t mean that they’re actually in touch with those feelings as they compartmentalize with great skill. Type Fives are often the most difficult to engage with on an emotional level because they value their privacy so highly—they simply won’t share how they are feeling until they feel completely safe with you. Fives have a passion for absorbing information; they often feel like they have a bottomless pit inside of them that they seek to fill with knowledge, resources, observations and collections. More than other types, Fives are collectors—stamps, wine, books, pictures or simply odds and ends that seem important to they.
That bottomless pit inside of a Type Five leads them to feel like they are unwanted and they often experience a great deal of emptiness inside. This leads to their voracious consumption of information and observation. (Type Fives often need glasses earlier than other types, and can often be either casual or professional photographers because “taking” pictures fills them, even temporarily.) Because they take a long time to process, people close to a Type Five can feel ignored or cocooned in silence as the Five assimilates new information and attempts to make a decision by themselves. Fives are afraid that if you give people an inch they will take a mile, so they often refuse to give even a millimeter. The root sin of Type Fives is avarice, which, unlike gluttony, doesn’t have to do with material goods or worldly possessions, but rather an insatiable desire to hold on to what you have, not sharing or giving to others. Type Fives are often seen as “takers” rather than “givers”, and find parental roles particularly difficult.
Type Fives are a particular gift to communities and to the world. When they are operating in a healthy, balanced place, Fives let go of their fear of being vulnerable and offer their considerable powers of observation and reflection to the world. Type Fives make excellent counselors or support people—they have the ability to listen to others for hours on end, taking in information, synthesizing and absorbing all that they other person is giving. And then, with their great stores of knowledge and wisdom, Fives will shift the perspective in such a way as to bring truth and freedom to others. At their best, Fives help others make wise, whole-hearted and objective movements into the world and into relationship.
Although Type Fives will enter spiritual direction as a way of learning more about God and about themselves, they are a particularly difficult Type for most directors to journey with. This is because Type Fives are so interior and private that the very thing that makes spiritual direction most successful—vulnerability and transparency—is deeply threatening and frightening to an average Five. Those in relationship with a Five have to be careful to give them space to incorporate new ideas and information without rushing them into a response, while still encouraging them to open up and share the raw places within themselves. Some prayer types that are most useful for a Type Five:
Prayers of Compassion
Although Type Fives can be incredibly perceptive of the feelings and responses of others, their fear tends to drive them away from truly encountering the suffering of others. A particular practice of prayer that is helpful for this type is a prayer of compassion—prayer that engages the imagination on behalf of those who are struggling, in pain or in grief. Type Fives might start this type of prayer by imagining the experience of those far away from them (women sold into sexual trafficking in South East Asia, families who have lost everything in political conflict in unstable countries), calling to mind in vivid detail what it might look like and feel like to be with that person or people in those circumstances. While this imagination can seem exploitative if left at this point, Type Fives need to take their imagination first to heart (to feel and experience the suffering) and then to God in prayer.
Eventually, Type Fives will be able to transition this prayer to those are are in their immediate surroundings, as imaginative prayer for those in their circles and communities who are experiencing heartbreak, sickness, oppression and loss. As they do this, Type Fives will be motivated to move toward their area of integration and move into the world like an average Eight, as their prayers shift to compassionate action on behalf of others.
For Type Fives, this type of prayer can be summarized in these words: “Lord, break my heart for the things that break Your heart.”
Prayer of the Senses
As Observers, Type Fives like to take in the world through their eyes. They read, they watch, they take pictures. Prayers that integrate their whole selves into communion with God (and with all their other parts) are therefore deeply valuable—and sometimes very difficult and frustrating for a Type Five. Prayers of the Senses are prayers that use the senses as a form of attending to God and His goodness in the world. To pray this way, we engage all of our various ways of absorbing the gifts around us—taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing—in a holistic experience of the present moment. An easy way to start this type of prayer is to eat meals mindfully, to intentionally slow down your eating so that you can absorb all the various tastes of the food in your mouth, the smell of the nourishment that is coming to you, the way things feel in your mouth. Paying attention in this way naturally leads to wonder, thanksgiving and praise—have you ever really tasted a fresh raspberry? It’s hard to not turn toward God in worship.
Prayers of the senses are an engaged form of prayer that focuses on the gift of the now, releasing problems and worries, and, most importantly for a Type Five, fears. To be in the present moment with God, engaging the senses right now rather than analyzing or worrying, helps a Type Five to receive God’s love and overwhelming care for them in their places of emptiness.
Prayers of Belovedness
That place of emptiness in a Type Five can lead to further withdrawal and isolation. Type Fives need a long time to assimilate new information; they can often be skeptical or cynical until they’ve done their own research. Prayers of Belovedness, prayers that acknowledge the One who hung the stars also deeply cares for the Type Fives specifically help to move Type Fives away from filling their own emptiness toward letting God fill them.
This prayer can take the simple form of breathing in and out the words, “I am the beloved of God.” This can start with just a few moments of this prayer, but it even more transformative if it stretches into minutes or long periods where this prayer simply moves through all parts of yourself in deep communion with God.
Another way to practice this prayer is to take the words of the Father in Matthew 3:17 (And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”) and allow God to speak them to you specifically. This involves spending time with the passage, allowing the words to penetrate. God does say of you that you are His child, whom He loves, with whom He is well pleased.
Conversational Prayer
Because they spend a lot of time in their heads in an introverted, alone space, Type Fives often benefit from developing a conversational prayer life with God. This is different from simply giving God a laundry list and going—which isn’t a good relational strategy for any relationship, let alone that with God. Instead, this type of prayer takes the time to dialogue with God about what God is feeling or thinking about a particular issue or topic, and responding conversationally.
For those who haven’t had experience of a conversational relationship with God, some suggestions I make for beginning are things like starting out this type of prayer by journaling. Explore your thoughts and feelings about something on paper, and then invite God to speak into the situation. Write down the words or ideas that you feel like you hear from God; don’t worry about getting it “wrong” or “right”, just allow the voice of the Divine to share. I particularly recommend Frank Laubach’s book, Letters from A Modern Mystic, if you’re looking for a way to begin the conversational journey with God.
If writing out your prayers feels artificial, simply set aside some time to have a real conversation with God. Ask God questions, aloud or silently, about what God feels about simple things. It’s helpful to chose things that you know the answer to, because if you hear something other than some version of “yes” to a question like, “Do you love me, God?”, you know that there are voices other than God’s speaking. Be creative in this type of conversation, and practice patience as you wait for God to speak. It may take a while to get used to, but it will be fruitful.
Prayer in Groups
The most introverted of the types, Fives find sharing their prayer life with others particularly fearful and difficult. Thus, prayer in groups is a huge stretch for a Five, whose interior world is a place where very few are allowed to visit. Praying in groups of safe people, even if the prayer is silent, is a very helpful exercise for Type Fives. The ability to be with others as they speak to God helps a Five to stay in the moment and to release the fear of being judged or praying “wrong.” It also develops in a Five the ability to enter into the conversation with God by overhearing how others speak to Christ. Sharing this intimate space may be a long, slow journey for a Five, but doing so opens them to intimacy with others and with God. Starting with simple presence—attentive silence without needing to add words—is a helpful beginning, as it takes the pressure off of a Five to articulate what’s going on inside. Once a certain comfort level has been reached, Fives can be encouraged to share their prayers with the group in a more ad hoc manner. Praying in groups is particularly helpful in situations where no feedback is given after the prayer. This time without response allows the Five to assimilate all that she or he has experienced in a way that feels life-giving instead of threatening.
Another Note On Prayer:
Type Fives cope with their feelings of inadequacy or incompetence by retreating from the world and defending themselves against it. This response to their perceived powerlessness actually serves to increase their distance from reality, rather than inviting them into the world to move and shape things and discover how they in particular are a vital expression of the Kingdom of God. In prayer, anything that grounds a Type Five in the present moment—the experience of the now—is deeply important, because it takes them out of their minds and into the spaces where they can most readily experience God’s love and provision for them. Because of their defenses, Type Fives often feel uncared for by God. Type Fives do well to remember that God is their protection and their provision, to hear God’s words to Abram as God’s words to them, as well: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” (Genesis 15:1, NIV)
(developed by Jennifer Brukiewa of Attending Grace Ministries)
Sources: The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert, The Enneagram and Spiritual Direction: Nine Paths to Spiritual Guidance by James Empereur, The Enneagram Made Easy: Discover the 9 Types of People by Renee Baron and Elizabeth Wagele, and Using the Enneagram in Prayer by Suzanne Zuercher.
Interested in more? You can read about the other types by clicking on the image below.
Join me in welcoming back the Enneagram & Prayer series! Thanks for your grace as I’ve taken a needed break. Type Five will be posted next Wednesday, July 2. Today, enjoy reflections on Type Fours and Prayer.
Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.
Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a “rescuer.”
The Meaning of the Arrows (in brief)
When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), aloof Fours suddenly become over-involved and clinging at Two. However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), envious, emotionally turbulent Fours become more objective and principled, like healthy Ones.
Source: The Enneagram Institute: Type Four
Part of the reason the series has been suspended has been life circumstances—but part of the reason is that the hardest type to examine, pull apart and evaluate honestly is your own. As a Type Four, I’ve had to do my work to ensure that these resources, prayers and information aren’t coming out of places of disintegration and scrambling for me, especially as I’ve encountered my own blocks to prayer and relationship with God.
Type Fours are the final of the heart-centered triad. Of all the types, they are the most connected to and aware of their own feelings—often to their detriment. Fours can be so attached to their feelings that they live in them, rather than in reality. Alternately, they seek situations, relationships and circumstances that heighten their connection to their emotional world, they gravitate toward what other types would call “drama.”
Type Fours are often called the “artists” of the Enneagram, which can surprise some Fours who don’t have any connection to the more traditional art worlds. Although many Fours have found some type of artistic expression, Fours are called “artists” because they shape, script and form all of life. The active inner world of the Four projects outward on their expectations and hopes of others. Unlike Ones who have a concrete Ideal in mind, Fours usually have some sense of the way the world, and relationships in particular, “should” go and are often disappointed when their more romantic projection of things isn’t realized. In general, Fours have a tendency to invite people into “their world” (beautiful and carefully constructed, of course) rather than moving out to encounter others on their own terms.
Type Fours are highly sensitive and deeply aware of the beauty around them. At their best, they have an uncanny ability to sense and accurately discern the feelings of others, as well as the “sense” of spaces and groups. Fours relish the symbolic, and see layers of meaning in even the most mundane of experiences. Dreams and artistic visions are important to Fours, and they often dress iconoclastically in order to express the beauty and uniqueness they themselves desire to communicate to the world. Fours are able to perceive multiple layers to reality and as a result they often live in a longing for deeper beauty, deeper meaning, deeper experience.
As do Twos and Threes, Fours can struggle with feelings of shame and of inadequacy. Because Fours perceive keenly the beauty and life around them, they tend to experience the present moment as continually disappointing—and often blame this on either themselves for not having the ability to express what is within them or they blame it on others for being unable to match the extraordinary script that the Four has unknowingly written for them. Because they are so attuned to their inner lives, they often express their disappointments as aggression toward themselves. The besetting sin of a Four is envy, a deep desire to have what others seem to possess. Unlike greed, however, this envy is actually an envy of the seeming contentment, uniqueness or beauty of others. In a word, Type Fours are envious of the seeming happiness of others, something that their inherent sensitivity for melancholy seems to prevent them from experiencing. Type Fours are often discontent in the present moment, believing that the key to the happiness they seek is either in the past or the future.
The glory of the Type Four is their ability to both feel and express the depth of emotion—both positive and negative—around them. A healthy Four has the ability to hold together light and dark, happiness and sadness, the gifts of the present and the desire for more. Type Fours can express symbolically and emotionally the deep currents flowing through all of us, and are often those who call us toward more beauty and life. In healthy places, Fours can express themselves authentically without artifice or drama, and don’t need to experience extreme highs or lows in order to feel alive.
Type Fours gravitate quite easily to spiritual direction and the examination of the interior life. While unbalanced Fours are so externally oriented that they have difficulty identifying their emotions as their own and not projecting them on others (like an average Type Two), an average Four has the kind of self-awareness that naturally leads to self-reflection. Fours revel in silence and solitude as natural prayers, even if they are more extroverted, and can often be found in roles or volunteer positions that help others identify what’s going on deep inside. Type Fours often seek spiritual direction when their emotional lives become overwhelming and they need support in discerning what emotions are grounded in reality and relationship—the Spirit of God moving in and through them—and what emotions are the result of their false self needing to stir up deeper longing in their quest for perfection. In some Enneagram rubrics, Fours are called Perfectionists, not because they need everything to be neat and tidy, but because they are so dedicated to the Good, the Ultimate Perfect, that they fail to see the “enough” that is before them. Prayer types that are most helpful for Type Fours are:
Prayers of Gratitude
Type Fours can, in general, have a tendency to focus on the melancholy side of their spirituality—to be acutely aware of how they feel they fall short (or how they believe they fall short in the eyes of others, if they have internalized a particularly stringent religious system), to the brokenness of this world, and to the ways in which they are different or misunderstood by others and even God.
Those experiences are not illegitimate; however, Type Fours tend to find a deeper sense of interior peace and balance (their cardinal virtue) when they practice regular prayers of gratitude. It is important that these prayers aren’t simply reflexive lists of what Type Fours “should” be thankful for—lists of 5 things every day or reminders that there are people starving in other countries so they should be grateful for what they have—this will make a Four even more melancholy and interior.
Instead, Fours benefit from spending some time meditating each day on the joys that they naturally enjoyed. Ice cream, the way butter melts in a pan, the feel of hot water in the shower, the way the blue of a friend’s eyes shone or the warmth of a dog beside them: these moments of simple gratitude that rise from the heart can be pondered and given thanks for. As soon as the list gets abstract (a roof over my head, enough money in the bank), it’s time to put down the exercise in prayer for another day. Sometimes these moments of genuine, heart-felt gratitude stretch for a long time, and others they are over in a few minutes, but this type of attention-giving to what has been beautiful or joy-filled in a day helps the Type Four stay grounded in the gifts of the moment.
Prayers of Surrender
Type Fours can be so attached to the vision of how things would work out most beautifully and well in their imagination that reality simply never measures up. Fours benefit from prayers of surrender as a way of releasing their own version of events to God and embracing what comes before them with whole-hearted trust. The first line of Psalm 23 (indeed, all of the psalm) is helpful for Fours: “The LORD is my shepherd, I will experience nothing as missing.”
This kind of surrender into God’s care and provision helps Fours release and relax into the now, allowing them to experience God’s goodness in and through the moment they are in. This type of prayer can be a meditative repetition of Psalm 23, or a simple prayer of “What is, is enough”, or a detailed surrendering to God of the Four’s plans and expectations. Most Fours will know which is most appropriate at which moment.
A simple but ancient prayer (Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner), this breath prayer is helpful for Type Fours because of its ease of repetition and the humble heart posture it requires. The most common way to pray this prayer is quietly, meditatively and repetitively over a fixed period of time, noticing how the interior reactions to the words shift within us over time. For Fours in particular, the Jesus Prayer is helpful in its simplicity and focus on Christ and His action in our lives.
Prayers of Expression (Journaling, Painting, Dancing)
As naturally expressive and artistic types, Fours benefit from harnessing this mode of being in their relationship with God. Journalling as a type of prayer helps a Four to be in dialogue with God and with themselves—articulating their emotions and experiences in a more concrete form. This putting things to paper helps get sometimes dreamy Fours out of the abstract and into a place of conscious reflection that gives them a sense of who they are and who God is for them at the moment, which can lead to the kind of definitive transformation that happens when Fours lean into their growing edge and become more like Ones.
Expressive prayer for Fours doesn’t have to be in words. In fact, when Fours feel overwhelmed or disconnected, sometimes the best forms of prayer are both expressive and wordless: painting, taking photographs, dancing or exercising. Those activities are not necessarily prayer in and of themselves, but they can become avenues of connecting with God in prayer when they are undertaken consciously and meditatively. When Fours can let go of the need to make something “beautiful” (Ira Glass’s reminder on the trap of having “good taste” is helpful for a Four here) and simply express themselves in paint, movement or song to God, deep interior freedom and intimacy opens up for them in ways they often don’t expect. When they let their current expressions be enough, the presence of God can be felt in the moment and Fours are moved to awe and praise.
The Prayer of Examen
An ancient prayer form, the Prayer of Examen can be used at the end of the day, end of a week, a month, a season or a year. The Daily Examen is attributed to St. Ignatius and is a kind of review of the day that helps the individual grow in sensitivity to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives and in the world. The Daily Examen in its various forms is particularly helpful for Type Fours because it grounds them in the details of their lives and helps them to see specifically where God is moving in their lives. Fours may resist the Examen at first because it feels too structured or imposed (a helpful movement toward an integrated Type One, nonetheless), but after some time of relaxing into the rhythms of the prayers and finding there a deeper intimacy with God, Fours find the Examen particularly rewarding. There are a few different forms of the Examen prayer that I find helpful. You can find them here, here, and here.
Prayer of the Ordinary
Because Type Fours have such a gift for what is beautiful and good, they often feel disappointed with their daily lives, feeling that relationships are not going well, or that their lives are not what they should be. This is why “prayers of the ordinary” can be so helpful for a Type Four. Prayers of the Ordinary (something that is sometimes called practicing the presence of God, after the book by Brother Lawrence) are a type of prayer that focuses on being aware of the gift of the ordinary moment and the presence of God within it. Prayers of the Ordinary notice and acknowledge the beauty and gift of the way soap suds feel when you are doing the dishes, or the weight of wet laundry in your hands reminding you that this practical task is a way of loving and caring for those around you. Prayers of the Ordinary refuse to look for some “transcendent moment” that is elsewhere, on some mountaintop with God, but instead focus on the way that God is present in the dirty carpet or the screaming children or the act of getting groceries. These prayers don’t have to be prayers of gratitude necessarily (although they often lead that direction) but are instead physical and spiritual noticings of the gift of being alive and the constant, caring presence of God with us all.
The Merton Prayer
Thomas Merton is a famous and well-read Type Four. Deeply connected to God and to the interior life, Merton nonetheless struggled to stay present to the immediate in his various settings. This prayer of trust and surrender expresses many of the conflicts and questions natural to a Type Four, and can be very useful for Fours seeking a deeper life of abandonment to God:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. –Thomas Merton
Type Fours can be very hard on themselves—harder, in fact, than anything they express consciously or unconsciously out toward others. Therefore it is very important for Type Fours to marinate in the love of God for and with them, no matter how they feel about themselves. Accepting God’s kindness and care, seeing themselves as chosen and delighted in particularly by the Creator of the Universe is a place of prayer and love that Fours benefit from returning to again and again. I know that my spiritual director repeatedly reminds me to “be kind to Tara,” a reminder that all Fours will find helpful. Grounding that kindness in the self-sacrificing love of God helps Fours stay away from being self-absorbed and instead frees them to express their gifts, perceptions and love on behalf of a broken and hurting world.
(developed by Jennifer Brukiewa of Attending Grace Ministries)
Sources: The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert, The Enneagram and Spiritual Direction: Nine Paths to Spiritual Guidance by James Empereur, The Enneagram Made Easy: Discover the 9 Types of People by Renee Baron and Elizabeth Wagele, and Using the Enneagram in Prayer by Suzanne Zuercher.
PS If you haven’t joined us already, please consider signing up for Anam Cara’s newest eCourse, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, which starts on July 7.
I’ve had a few of you dear ones send a note asking if the Enneagram & Prayer series is going to continue. Thank you so much for checking in. It absolutely will, with Type Four & Prayer being posted next week on Wednesday, and I’ll hopefully be able to get back into more of a rhythm after that. Life circumstances have been full recently, so I appreciate your grace and patience as I embrace the fullness of my humanity (including being six months pregnant!) and my own limitations during this season.
Oh, and if you’d like to dive more into the journey together, to be part of a transformational community during the season of Ordinary Time, please consider joining us for the new Anam Cara eCourse that just opened its doors: The Kingdom of Ordinary Time.
I’m looking forward to experiencing more rhythm together, no matter how syncopated!
Today I attended the funeral of a dear friend, a life cut short, but lived so well. Last night, I got a message from a friend who was in lockdown on the campus of Seattle Pacific University, the site of another school shooting. In the evening, students gathered to pray on the lawns as their classmates struggled for their lives in a local hospital. Today’s service was beauty and grief intertwined—as a colleague, friend and spiritual director said to me, “This sucks. And this is glorious.” Something that our friend herself would have said, I’m sure. As I wept and sang the songs of worship that she loved, I was filled with the reality of how music becomes our Pentecost reality—speaking across nations and cultures, tongues and tribes, theological interpretations and views on Scripture. It was a holy place, and out of it comes this prayer, for me, for us all, as we commemorate Pentecost this Sunday.
A Prayer for Pentecost Day
on the occasion of the funeral of my friend, Heather
Let the Church brokenhearted
sing. Not in triumph as we enter
the gates of the city, waving our
victory like so much oppression. Not
in despair, downtrodden, exiled and
wailing for the rivers that ran sparkling
through our camps. No. Let the Church,
brokenhearted sing
hope through our pain, though
death come, though
we grieve and mourn, wearing ashes
that betray the tracks of our tears, let
the bright tongues of fire alight over us
as we sing in the tongues of all
created things yearning toward home,
let us sing the songs of Pentecost believing
that holy language will visit us, that we will
become a bright flame of love, our grief
burning into something beautiful.
Oh, yes.
Let the Church, brokenhearted,
sing.
5945 Chokecherry Dr, Colorado Springs, CO 80919 | Copyright © 2020