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If what it means to be human is found in relationship then the ability to be mindfully present with others is really important in our spiritual journey. This is especially true for youth workers if the old adage “you can’t give away what you don’t own” has any truth to it. In order to be mindfully present though first we have to be able to know ourselves enough to identify what our issues are and second we have to be able to hold in tension the honest reality of our own situation along with the present reality of the space we find ourselves in. This is not easy.
Spiritual Disciplines
Spiritual disciplines really help, especially meditation and journaling. Both meditation and journaling are ways of inviting Jesus into us in an integrated way.
Meditation is an act of becoming mindful of the things that fill us up in order to invite Jesus into the space of those things. Jesus helps us discover, name and organize these residuals of our lives. This doesn’t happen so much in a cognitive way though, being able to describe our inner workings with descriptive language is usually the last thing available to us because of how our brains work. I’m not convinced that we have to be able to name everything though. Often feelings or intuitions communicate in a language that is enough to help us navigate wholeness. The more time we spend in meditation the more we making the needed space for the master to fill us up.
Journaling is also an act of becoming mindful. Have you ever kept a dream journal? For two years I would have these dreams that involved animals, many times they were lions. Some times the lions had full mains other times they looked shorn like a sheep. Some times they would notice me and some times they wouldn’t. I felt these dreams deeply and knew that my pre-conscience was trying to tell me something but it wasn’t until I began to reflect on them consistently through journaling and meditation that I was able to connect them to places and things inside me. Whether it’s keeping a prayer journal, a daily reflective log or a dream diary journaling can be a tool that helps us better know ourselves.
Holding the tension
How many times have we been unable to really engage with someone because something in the immediate environment has triggered our concern for ourselves? Countless times have I been with students in a sort of half present way. Holding the tension is coming to grips with our own needs enough so that they don’t dictate us. There’s a level of trust that is required there though. It’s a trusting that we’re okay and that we’re going to be okay. Jesus is constantly whispering this blessing to us: that we’re his that we’re okay and even still we’re going to be okay but we have to listen to hear it. When we’re okay so to speak we can make space for the other. This is the ability to really hear and have actual empathy for the other human being I’m with.
The example of Jesus
Jesus was the archetype human. God had become that which God wanted to save. When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and his friends deserted him it must have been disheartening. His disciples, the only ones who might have had a chance to bear with him a part of what he was going through, continually fell asleep. Yet in that moment Jesus showed us how to be present. He turned to God, holding in tension what must have been a painful reality along with the present task at hand.
We are called as youth workers to be places of the blessing of Jesus. Yet there are a lot of tensions and pressures in our lives everyday that threaten to undo us. Spiritual practices like those that lend to mindfulness help us find the space needed to hear the blessing and offer it through actual, present ministry.
