In a time of deep division and chaos, marked by crisis including tribal politics, economic turmoil, and decline of institution, spirituality and spiritual direction, referred to as “spiritual companioning” herein, are often critiqued as soft disciplines or practices, focused on the interior life to the exclusion of what is happening in our world. This paper will argue for the centrality of spirituality in times of cultural crisis through a spiritual companioning methodology that serves as a fulcrum of action between justice and freedom.
Contemporary cultural threats and trauma have placed society in a chronic state of alert, in which we lash out, retreat, remain immobilized, or appease - fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These conditions provide fertile ground for the growth of “othering,” as a dominate model of organizing, where members of society divide into tribes of “us versus them.” Meaninglessness, mistrust and the decline of truth take hold, while at the same time persons yearn for an effective active response.
A methodology of spiritual companioning has the capacity to re-story and embed freer ways of engaging ourselves, God, and the other across society and culture. In this proposed approach of spiritual companioning, I offer a circular framework of “Just Listening,” that provides an expansive cultivation of engagement with the external world. The circle is rooted in the concept of belovedness and moves toward an other-encompassing conception of beloved community, articulated most notably by Martin Luther King, Jr., through a cycle of ever-deepening moves defined as present, proximate, grounded, unknow(n), and discovery.
This methodology draws upon the work of Martin Buber and Paul Ricoeur. In his I and Thou, Buber offers a pathway that, rather than a commodification and objectification of the other, in which a person’s value is comprised and measured by what it can produce and consume, finally encounters the other as one who reveals and enable one’s own humanity and wholeness. As one moves through this spiritual companioning framework’s circular pathway, first, the subject I, or Me, deliberately pauses; then,secondly, notices the objective It; and third, moves to penultimately encounter at each step the holiness of the subjective Thou, and concurrently the Eternal Thou. This pathway deepens one’s own self-understanding within the We that is beloved community.
I will also draw upon the philosophical hermeneutic of Paul Ricouer, particularly his dynamic structure of narrative comprising mimesis praxeos. Here Ricouer provides a model of restoration in which his second mimetic move serves as a pivot, a fulcrum, between pre-understanding and appropriation or embodiment. It is this fulcrum in which spirituality provides the pause, and opportunity of re-storying, toward restoration of personhood and community. Further, one’s pausing, noticing and encountering the other is an embodied action that reveals a wider framework with which to view and encounter the world and its transformative possibilities.
I will also be referring to the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman, and other voices in marginalized communities who are our teachers or spiritual guides in this circle of just listening. Here the methodology of Just Listening js rooted in an inclusive concept of belovedness in which each subject is seen as a child of God. In so recognizing one’s own, and the other’s, innate freedom in the process, love in action is enabled to move toward justice.
A next step in such acts of justice is that of being present. Listening is an act of justice in that we first learn to be present “in our own skin,” owning our own trauma and resilience. In the process we begin to reveal the absence of the other that can keep us captive to the external threats that surround us.
From this position an expansion of our world emerges in which we move toward being proximate. Here there are the beginnings of a sense of solidarity with the other, strengthened as one places oneself “proximate to pain.” In this posture just listening beckons us to remain resident with the turmoil of the other.
A resilience is nurtured that further grounds us in our own bodies, finding our belovedness in the context of tumult. Here our own frameworks of understandings – our operating systems – expand. The very notions of the composition of community grow. The other is not simply the human community, but creation. In this grounding, the ground itself calls to be listened to, along with the generations who have stood upon it. A new stewarding is called for.
It is in this space that we are invited, and sometimes catapulted, to unknow and move into the unknown. Letting go of our frameworks and living in the unknow(n) is rarely welcomed or embraced. We avoid the “dark night.” Yet here, the Eternal Thou can put our faculties to slumber to free us from what binds. This is an act of love. We begin to recognize the embedded frameworks that have defined and bound relationships with others and creation, particularly transactional models that have worked to oppress and suppress the beloved community.
This opens space to discover. Waiting in the unknown can open up new spaces and new stories. Here we are freed to discern that justice for oneself depends on justice for the other. A space for wonder is provided in which old frameworks no longer threaten, and new visions of understanding and relationship emerge.
This circle of intentional spiritual practices moves then toward news ways of functioning in the world as beloved community, in which the circle of just listening both is repeated together and expanded. In this process of just listening there is an honoring of the ongoing and uncompleted work of freedom and justice, as well the reality of justice’s accomplishments fulfilled and unfulfilled. The spaces on the circle not only beckon us deeper and wider, but also provides new lenses for identifying just listening in our world.
This paper argues for the centrality of spirituality, especially in times of cultural crisis, outlining a methodology of spiritual companioning called Just Listening that works as a fulcrum of action between justice and freedom. The paper draws upon the work of Martin Buber and his concept of I and Thou, and Paul Ricouer’s hermeneutic of mimesis praxeos, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman and other voices in marginalized communities. These inform a methodology of spiritual practice rooted in the concept of belovedness that moves toward the notion of beloved community. This employs a circular, iterative process—present, proximate, grounded, unknow(n), and discovery—to cultivate transformative relationality. Through active steps of pause, notice, and encounter, persons and communities deepen their own self-understanding and just relationship with the other and wider creation.