Posted by Luke in Recently there has been a growing concern about being “spiritual” at work. It seems to me that a lot of this talk is about religious tolerance… and the irksome concern of making sure everybody stays happy. What I have learned by applying spiritual principles to work is that often there is a box called, “my spirituality” and then there’s “work spirituality” where I have to be more serious. So serious is fact that my soul is left at home.
I think true spirituality is marked not by a sense of obligation but by a sense of heart. That is, you can’t fake real spirituality. You either choose to live by what you believe… or you choose to make what you believe a Sunday or Friday or Saturday thing. Say you love animals… that’s a spiritual thing in my books. Why not work with people who help animals… then your work becomes an expression of your spirit.
Selling out is sometimes a necessity but…
I was reading Stephen King’s short story The Mist and there was this section that Mr. King used to great effect (taken from Skeleton Crew, p.107):
“The picture was titled Beans and False Perspective. A man from California who was a top exec in some company that makes tennis balls and rackets and who knows what other sports equipment seemed to want that picture very badly, and would not take no for an answer in spite of the NFS card tucked into the bottom left-hand corner of the spare wooden frame. He began at six hundred dollars and worked his way to four-thousand. He said he wanted it for his study. I would not let him have it, and he went away sorely puzzled. Even so, he didn’t give up; he left his card in case I changed my mind.”
What emerges is that the artist felt it was the best picture he had ever painted and it wasn’t until later when he took the picture that he realised that it was of commercial value only… there really wasn’t much more to it. He sells the picture:
“Then I happened to show Ollie Weeks one day last fall. He asked me if he could photograph it and run it as an ad one week, and that was the end of my own false perspective. Ollie had recognised the painting for what it was, and by doing so, he forced me to recognise it too. A perfectly good piece of slick commercial art. No more and thank God, no less.”
Yet, in the selling of the picture the artist makes a living… albeit off what he calls ‘commercial’ art. In spiritual matters it’s no different. You can’t have a logical perspective about something that is as rich with meaning and say you don’t feel what you mean? As an artist, you can sell out if you are afforded the opportunity… as to survive. Yet, spiritually speaking you have ‘talent’… you have expressions. These are spiritual things. What kind of expressions do you have at work?
Work as a place of spiritual death
The divide between what is sacred and what is secular is something I don’t wish to attack in this post. What I do want to discuss is how our values are often not embedded in what we do at work. One might say, that our spiritual sides or that underlying and intersecting heart weaves through what we do. Why do so many of us act ugly then when it comes to work? What’s that about? Do we not believe what we say we believe when we come to work? Ambition makes a false perspective for us all and centres our status on ourselves rather than that work of others and ourselves. Why do we not shake this off? Pragmatics. Yet we say our workplaces have a degree of spirituality yet in that we have none. We fight, and strive and really at work we can get caught up in the ‘spirituality of self’. Yet if we are to contend the existence of something greater and we are expressing it… it is ourselves we are expressing.
Bringing our values to work
What do you believe? Are you like most people and want a bigger house, a better car, more money and a better life? What about spiritual things? Do you believe in love? What are you doing today (Sunday) and what would you do tomorrow in some small way to express your spirit? Let’s move beyond the world of self satisfaction for a moment and ask the question, ‘What’s in it for us?’ After all, what we share and build together has lasting value for all of us rather than the one who stands on the shoulders of others to be seen by executives.
In closing this post I want you to read a great short story that takes these issues seriously and inspired me to write this. It’s called in the Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells. I read it in less than an hour and I realised that a lot of my own beliefs are somewhat constrained due to the way I perceive things. I have indeed underestimated the power of workplace beliefs and there impact. Thanks for reading and remember just by showing a little bit of grace or love to someone you can make a huge difference in your workplace.
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