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Seeking Information on Spirituality
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Spirituality In The Work
Place Information and Resources
A spirituality of the workplace
offers everyone (Christian,
non-Christian, atheist) a way to
integrate the many facets of often
times very fragmented lives through
work. It is not about thumping the
Bible, but trying to reach the
underlying concepts that promote
integration. A work place spirituality
respects the religious dimension of
everyone involved and is truly
ecumenical, while at the same time
economical. It fosters the kind of
fundamental dialogue or conversation
where any religious tradition can find
expression and work to integrate human
life.
We serve such a spirituality by
introducing the basic vocabulary of
faith, hope and love in the work
place. Simply put this spirituality
starts by asking three simple
questions of ourselves and one
another. In what do we believe? What
are our dreams? And do we truly love?
Here you will find information and
books about Spirituality in the work
place,
women's spirituality in today's places
of work, information on business and work
ethics for people involved in
improving spirituality in the work
place, and business professionals
committed to encouraging spirituality
in the work place.
Spirituality in the work place enables
employers, employees, clients and
families to acknowledge the
relationship between their own
spiritual beliefs and handle cultural
diversity and social justice issues at
work.
Spirituality In The Workplace
Information
Spirituality in the workplace
suggests that there be more to work
than just survival.
The fear is about losing our job and
having to do more with less. And the
emergence of spirituality in the work
place points to the desire that there
be more to work than just survival. We
yearn for work to be a place in which
we both experience and express our
deep soul and spirit.
How do we bring spirituality into a
work place where aggression is so
valued, admired and rewarded?
While no one likes to feel
marginalized, unfortunately people
often are by gender, race, sexual
preference and other areas commonly
addressed in social discourse. It is
time to come together around the
common theme of spirituality, the
spirit of the employee, the spirit of
the work place, and the spirit which
transcends it all to give meaning to
it.
Does your business place have a policy
on vacations or sick leaves? Or does
it have clearly established hours of
opening and closing? Does your
employer offer you health benefits?
These questions, and others like them,
seem very consistent with the work
place, but if I ask Does your business
place have a spirituality? you might
find the question odd. How can a place
of work have a spirituality? Well this
is exactly the question I plan to
address.
Spirituality
I think that the word spirituality has
stumped the vast majority of people.
For many, they have viewed it with
suspicion, as though it bordered on
the occult. This is an unfortunate
fact. I believe that spirituality
provides a vocabulary that has been
missing from the work place.
Such a lack, not having some way to
express aspects of one's whole life,
actually diminishes both human
productivity and personal
satisfaction. Such alienation Karl
Marx perceived and commented on quite
differently than I will today. For
Marx, alienation was of the worker
from the object of work.
The very process of production, as
Marx saw, was reduced to the parts of
the process, and lacking the sense of
satisfaction found in the artisan's or
craftsman's previously completing the
entire cycle of work. While alienation
may have come about for economic
reasons, it is the spiritual side of
the problem I wish to address.
Spirituality, simply put, can be
considered as the integrating
principle of a person's life. Given
this definition, we can talk about a
variety of spiritualities. For some
golf or running becomes the
integrating principle, or for some
power might be the integrating
principle, or even a sense of social
justice might provide an integrating
principle.
However, it is through the integration
of truly religious principles that a
proper spirituality may be found. For
as much as some things can integrate,
the religious principles clearly offer
us the most satisfying means for human
integration. Having said that, I need
to explain.
The kind of alienation that plagues
our modern post-industrial information
society is the tendency toward
fragmentation of life. For the sake of
managing our lives we tend to
compartmentalize even our life itself.
No longer an alienation of the means
of production but we now face an
alienation in our means of living, a
self-alienation.
We compartmentalize our lives into
fragments: work, play, rest, home,
kids, school, church, social and
personal blocks. Unfortunately, the
end result is a fragmented life.
Spirituality provides a way of bring
about a kind of completion or
wholeness in one's life that is
lacking due to this pervasive
alienation.
In the work place, spirituality
pertains to the ways in which the work
place environment lends itself to the
kind of integration needed, not only
in the work place, but for all of life
as well. It takes the chaos and
confusion not only of work, but of the
many desperate bits of people's lives,
transforming them into a mosaic of
meaning.
By way of illustration, it is not
unlike the holographic posters popular
a few years back. Their meaningless
bits and dots fell into place not by
focusing but by un-focusing so that
the image could be seen.
The Value of Spirituality in the
Work Place
Spiritual tradition offers many
insights which can serve a variety of
religious traditions. In a true sense,
the work place is ecumenical not
secular, people of many faiths and of
no faiths share the nine to five
world. Consequently, the question is
not about proselytizing, that is
trying to win converts, but about
dialogue, trying to make conversation.
In this context the work place
benefits from a dialogue or
conversation that is timeless. The
value of this conversation is seen in
the way people move from alienation to
integration which benefits the
personal as well as the professional
aspects of work.
The value of spirituality, at least
what I hope to offer, is that it
provides a base-language which focuses
us on the real issues of integration.
It recognizes that full human
flourishing longs to be satisfied at a
depth level of meaning and it
challenges all impostors and
pretenders, especially those of our
own making. Spirituality in the work
place enables employers, employees,
clients and suppliers to bring
together the shards of their
fragmented life. This is done not by
invoking a confessional language,
preaching at people, but by exploring
a professional language, being with
people. Many of us are all too aware
of work places which lack even the
means necessary to pursue a meaningful
life. Often such environments lose out
on the fullest contribution of its
employees because they will bracket
out their job from the rest of who
they are.
Not only does a spirituality of the
work place foster the meaningfulness
of an integrated life, it can also
safeguard against the dysfunctionality
often present in the work place. Two
dysfunctional realities in particular,
work-aholism and impersonalism, seem
to rob everyone involved, both
employer and employee. The first,
work-aholism, occurs when a person
tries to cope with the fragmentation
of his or her life by fixating on just
the one facet of life, namely work.
Such drive can be rationalized and
even socially sanctioned, but in the
end it is self-destructive. The
second, impersonalism, is equally
dysfunctional. It happens when our
sense of alienation extends beyond the
things in the work place to the very
people with whom we work.
Impersonalism reduces employer,
employee, co-worker to the status of
mere object. It seems to me a safe bet
that in some form or another, work-aholism
and impersonalism account for most
absences, illnesses and resignations
in the work place.
Work place spirituality.
Now that I have defined
spirituality and touched on its value,
I would like to offer a kind of
workplace spirituality built on the
theological virtues of faith, hope,
and love. I say built on these virtues
because like any good foundation they
are out of site yet they support the
more apparent structures.
As we saw in the previous talk, the
cardinal virtues provide moral
strength of character in the workplace
but just being ethical isn't enough.
We find that the theological virtues
enable us to move beyond the ethical
to an almost sacred sense of
rightness. This added capacity, St.
Thomas said, is a gratuitous but
necessary gift from God. And while it
isn't an essential class taught in the
business or management schools, it is
an essential piece to achieving the
purpose for which we were created in
God's image.
Spirituality in the
workplace enhances
human nature and enables us to excel in
our journey to God.
If this is true,
and I have no doubt that it is, the
concepts of faith, hope and love can
provide the missing element in what we
might consider a perfectly ethical
business or a completely moral life. I
stress the concepts of these virtues
because in the work place we need to
address the underlying reality common
to all people suggested by these
religious terms. In other words, Jews,
or Muslims, or Buddhist, or Christian
may not share the terminology but
certainly share the concepts of faith,
hope and love.
Faith
Faith, for Thomas, pertains to God and
the things related to God. In fact the
real object of faith is simplicity,
but the human mind lacks the ability
to grasp simplicity as simplicity so
it must rely on a variety of concepts
to hint at the true object of faith.
Our concepts about the object of faith
are born of the human encounter with
God and are understood as revelation.
Belief in these revelations, gathered
together by the community of faith
into propositions called articles,
this enables a person to begin to
grasp his or her encounter. However,
the act of faith is to believe and
this capacity to believe is a vital
part of any spirituality, Christian or
non-Christian.
Faith is related to the gifts of
understanding and knowledge, and by
extension I would say that a workplace
spirituality needs to be open to the
kind of belief that leads to
understanding and knowledge. Perhaps a
better phrase is the notion of
meaning. If our places of work are
open to faith, believing not only in
the mystery of God, but in that God
present and active in the arena of
human history, then the meaning of
one's life falls into place.
Understanding and knowledge as gifts
of the Holy Spirit help to integrate a
life of faith.
For many "jobs,"
technical knowledge is needed, but
such knowledge is vastly different
from the knowledge and understanding
spoken of as gifts. The more we are
able to interject a language of
believing into the work place the
sooner the concept of faith begins to
shape meaning.
Do you believe in this
project? Do you believe in some
overarching plan beyond your control?
Do you believe in yourself and the
gifts that are yours? Such questions
give rise to the larger question DO
YOU BELIEVE? This becomes part of an
unspoken workplace spirituality. The
workplace becomes a place where the
questions of faith find a home. In
what or in whom do you believe?
Hope
The next concept is that of hope. For
Thomas the proper object of hope is
eternal happiness or ultimately God.
The object of hope, Thomas says, is a
future good, arduous but possible to
obtain. His placement of hope between
faith and love is particularly
instructive. It is faith that leads us
to believe that such an object as God
is our future good and it is from this
perspective or order of generation
that hope comes before love or
charity. Hope looks to a future, but
acknowledges the present struggle as
well as the possibilities.
A work place spirituality requires the
language of hope that looks to the
future. It is very important that
people dream dreams. Hope enables an
employee to dream into one seamless
garment the many strands of one's
life, or it sets before an employer or
owner the realities of struggles and
hardships in light of a future goal.
Hope-talk can be introduced into any
work place with the question of
dreams: What good things would you
like to see happen? Where would you
like to be in another 5 or 10 years?
Am I willing to strive for my dreams?
Do my dreams exceed the possible? Are
they attainable?
But hope is not only about dreams.
Surprisingly Thomas explains that
hope's gift is fear. Not fear of God
but fear of losing God. Such pure fear
leads to wisdom in relating to God. So
this gift of pure fear makes us desire
all the more the object of our hope.
Unfortunately the contrary vices of
despair and presumption work against
hope. Both of these are telling for a
work place spirituality. While the
theological notions of despair and
presumption are born of despising
divine mercy with one and Divine
justice with the other, for our work
place spirituality they are
instructive.
Life, with all its component parts
possesses a desirability. Our work
place spirituality is not only about
dreams but the desire to hold fast to
the most cherished gifts. The language
of hope casts light into the darkness
of despair and presumption. For
example, if our employees find their
situation at home or work hopeless
they will despair of the situation and
very likely undermine operations. Hope
is crucial to integrating worlds, and
the work place is an ideal place to
confront the unspoken despair that
plagues modern life and the human
presumption of inflated egos. For
Thomas, such hope leads to love.
Love
Love, or charity, as a virtue in
Thomas is about benevolently loving
someone for their good and not for
your own. This most properly is what
real friendship means, and aptly
captures the kind of charity that
Thomas intends. The object of such
charity is not only God but must be
our neighbor as well. I find it
interesting that Thomas stresses
actively loving as proper to charity.
He writes A...it is clear that to love
is more proper to charity than to be
loved.... In an age preoccupied with
being loved it is challenging to
realize that the key to love is
actively to love.
This is a lengthy tract in the Summa
covering 23 questions so I will
briefly focus on the effects of this
love. Internally, love begets joy,
peace and mercy while externally it
manifests itself in beneficence,
almsgiving and loving correction. As
you might imagine Aquinas thoroughly
treats the opposite vices involved
which I will discuss momentarily.
In a work place spirituality we can
foster the language of love by moving
people from a societal preoccupation
with being loved. Love is active not
passive and many of us find
unhappiness in our looking to be
loved. Love is an active benevolence,
a willing of the good, and it demands
that we ask questions of the inner
person: Where do you find joy? Are you
a person of peace? Do you have a
compassionate heart for others? But
love is not only about the inner
person, since love must be manifest, a
selfless giving: Do I or we do good
for one another? Do I or we give
something to the needy out of
compassion and for God's sake? Do I or
we offer correction born of love?
These kinds of questions reach to the
summit of a work place spirituality
for they manifest the noblest aspects
of human integration.
Hatred is contrary to love and some of
the vices that alienate us from love
are: envy, discord, contention, and
quarrelling. There are others but
these seem a good selection which
apply to the work place. When you
notice these vices - envy, discord,
contention, quarrelling - chances are
your place of work is in need of a
spirituality for the work place.
A spirituality of the workplace offers
everyone (Christian, non-Christian,
atheist) a way to integrate the many
facets of often times very fragmented
lives through work. It is not about
thumping the Bible, but trying to
reach the underlying concepts that
promote integration. A work place
spirituality respects the religious
dimension of everyone involved and is
truly ecumenical, while at the same
time economical. It fosters the kind
of fundamental dialogue or
conversation where any religious
tradition can find expression and work
to integrate human life. We serve such
a spirituality by introducing the
basic vocabulary of faith, hope and
love in the work place. Simply put
this spirituality starts by asking
three simple questions of ourselves
and one another. In what do we
believe? What are our dreams? And do
we truly love?
Spirituality for the Business Place
M. Demkovich, O.P.
copyright© 2000 Dominican Ecclesial
Institute
Spirituality involves living
core holistic values of your soul
Spirituality in the work place means
that you translate your basic beliefs
into your daily work life. All human
beings are the loving children of the
same God. There ought to be a common
linkage of love among them all.
Kindness, patience, honesty and
generosity are basic spiritual
qualities and are the essence of all
human beings. Making every effort to
practice these qualities of
spirituality in the work place IS
spirituality. You treat people with
kindness and respect. You try to be
patient with irregularities and when
necessary punish people from an
attitude of love and understanding. Be
as generous as possible with your
time, money, ideas and love.
Work offers a perfect environment for
practice of spirituality.
Opportunities to practice patience,
kindness, forgiveness and integrity
are plenty. You can think loving
thoughts, smile, practice gratitude
and accept others as they are. An
office boy will not be what he is now
if he had education, skills, common
sense and intelligence like his boss.
You can practice being a good listener
and empathetic. You can be
compassionate, particularly with
difficult or rude people. You can
practice spirituality in virtually
everything that you do, whether you
greet people or deal with conflict.
You can exhibit it in the way you sell
a product or service – or the way you
balance ethics with profit. It's
literally everywhere.
Spiritual means not selling yourself
for money and being proud that you are
the person who can be trusted. Feeling
good about oneself is an angle of
spirituality.
Spirituality reminds you of a higher
purpose of living. It helps you to put
your problems and concerns into a
broader context. It helps you to learn
from your difficult experiences rather
than become overwhelmed by them. Even
if you have to do something terribly
difficult such as punishing someone
one can do so from your spiritual
consciousness. On the other hand if
you are confronted with a hardship or
even a calamity there is a part of you
that is willing to understand the
reason. Having this faith helps you
get through difficult times. It gives
you confidence in a bigger picture. It
doesn't mean that difficulties be
eased but situations become a little
more manageable.
One of the nicest things that happen
to people who are spiritual is that
the small things do not continue to
trouble and drive them crazy. They are
able to take things in their stride,
move forward and stay focused.
Becoming more spiritual at work can
help you to become more successful and
fulfilling.
By Madan Saluja
Author of "Human Relations - A
Practical Guide to Improve
Inter-personal Skills"
madan@humanrelations.com
Below you will find a
variety of Spirituality in the work
place
Information
Spirituality In The Work Place-
Selected Resources about Spirituality
in the Work place
Selling Hope in Hard Cover
by
William Greider. To understand
the degraded conditions of work in
America, one must recognize that the
employment system is fundamentally
organized on a “master-servant
relationship,” the power relationship
inherited from feudalism when the lord
of the manor ruled the lives of any
serfs on his property. Now the lord is
called a CEO, but the domination of
people is not that different in
workplaces.
Spirituality, Creativity and
Business
“How can we bring business into an
expanded sense of our spirituality?”
Business is a learning ground for
deepening our spiritual awareness.
Responsible
Leadership: Base Your Leadership on
Spiritual Roots
Any company that
successfully integrates performance
and responsibility will thrive. When
leadership is firmly grounded in
spiritual principles, business
skills are applied with excellence,
and people strive to apply high
values to its products, its
communications, and internal
management practices – then the
brands of that company take on an
allure to anyone interested in high
integrity.
Forget
'Diversity' ~ Instead, Consider The
Concept Of Cross-Cultural
Intelligence
Think instead, in terms of
cross-cultural intelligence where
“culture” assumes its true
definition and acknowledges that
every single individual has his/her
own unique variation of one.
Naming the
Elephant
When we
understand the importance of
interdependence-the need to work
together across colors and cultures
to create change-only then can we
begin to own race relations as a
collective issue. And only then can
we begin to take the first baby-like
steps toward interdependence and a
better future for our children.
Multiculturalism: Learning to
Understand Other Cultures
Multiculturism
demands that we use our empathy and
intuition (emotional intelligence
competencies) to understand the
other point of view, that we seek
the common ground, and also that we
understand there are many cultures
within any given culture.
Divine
Hospitality Acting From a Higher
Perspective
What does it mean to be an agent of
divine hospitality at work? What
does it look like when folks put
their spirituality into gear in the
work place?
The
most commonly practiced types of
Paganism are Wicca, Asatru, Druidry,
or simply Paganism or Neo-Paganism,
just as a Christian can be Catholic,
Presbyterian, or simply Christian.
All of these are somewhat different
from each other.
Take Care of
Your Future
In 1987 the
the World Future Society met in
Cambridge, Massachusetts and made
some predictions about the 21st
century, including the
re-spiritualization of society
(reversing the secularization trend
of recent centuries), tying
knowledge to vision and direction.
Workers Ready To Jump
Millions of
workers are unhappy with their
present employment....They are ready
to move to a new opportunity as soon
as someone makes them an offer.
Creating a Context of
Spirituality in the Work place
By Dr. William Guillory.
10 steps for an individual worker
from The Living Organization --
Spirituality in the Workplace
Questions People Ask about
Spirituality and the Work place
Part 1
and
Part 2
Excerpts from The Living
Organization -- Spirituality in the
Workplace by Dr. William
Guillory.
How Spirituality in the Work
place can create Gray-Haired
RevolutionariesBy Joan Marques. Sounds pretty
paradoxical, doesn’t it?
“Spirituality” and “revolutionary,”
mentioned in one sentence, and on
top of all in a cooperative way
toward each other! Yet, it can make
perfect sense!
Feel-good
interfaith events may paper over
deep differences
By Charles C.
Haynes. In the long shadow of Sept.
11, Americans are rediscovering what
most of the world has never
forgotten: Religious differences
matter.... Now comes the inevitable
backlash from people angry about
“feel-good” attempts at religious
unity.... Ignoring differences
doesn’t work. But neither does
stirring up anger between religions
with hot rhetoric. Only by agreeing
to live by the principles of rights
and responsibilities that flow from
the First Amendment can we continue
to live with our deepest differences
– without going for the jugular.
Junk Food
Spirituality
By
Nancy R. Smith. Today's Spirituality
in the Work place movement
emphasizes the common spirituality
in all humans (which is good), but
often appears to water down all
examples of spirituality to the
least common denominator (which is
not so good).
What Is Work place Spirituality?By Nancy R.
Smith. Spirituality is the inborn
desire and ability of every person
to seek, know, and respond to the
Mystery that I call God. What does
this have to do with work and the
workplace? More and more, workers
are insisting that their
spirituality be welcomed in the
workplace just as their intelligence
is. Like intelligence, our
spirituality is part of what we
bring with us to work.
Does Spirituality Belong in the
Work place? By Nancy R. Smith. Did you know
that spirituality and spirituality
in the work place have become
popular buzzwords these days? As a
movement, spirituality in the work
place does not focus on God or
theology.
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