Frans Maas & Kees Waaijman Social Spirituality and The

F RANS MAAS & KEES WAAIJMAN

SOCIAL SPIRITUALITY AND THE QUEST FOR SOUL

SUMMARY – This article explores the phenomenon of social spirituality in the fields of education, care, work and wellbeing. We postulate that in all these fields attention is paid to skills, competencies and abilities, but at the same time there is a sense that that is not enough. ‘There is more to it than that’, is a perennial complaint. The relationship between the two dimensions calls for close reflection. We believe the concept of soul, if properly understood, connects them.

By social spirituality we mean spirituality as it is encountered and cultivated in the social fields of learning, care, work and wellbeing. These fields overlap. In the field of work people also learn, and vice versa; likewise care and wellbeing feature in all fields. But not to complicate matters unnecessarily we deal with the four fields separately as if they were clearly demarcated. In each field we inquire into the phenomenon of soul. At first glance it manifests differently in these fields than in conventionally religious areas. Yet on closer scrutiny one finds strong similarities. That will be particularly evident in the final section on wellbeing, where concern for soul is most explicit. Social spirituality, also known as lay spirituality, is burgeoning and has been studied extensively. This form of spirituality is often distinguished from religion. Opinions vary on the relation between the two. There is a wide variety of forms, practices and trends, as there is in the general concept of spirituality as such. They diverge enormously. In fact, who still knows what spirituality is? Hardly any definition enjoys universal assent. Neither is this article aimed at finding one. What we are looking for in all the divergence are lines of convergence. We want to explore what these forms of spirituality are actually about. We want to trace a golden thread that will reveal the connecting links once more. Our hypothesis is that this golden thread lies in the makeup of human beings. After all, the remarkable thing about human beings is that they are more than just machines. People can throw themselves into their work heart and soul; machines cannot. One can touch a person’s soul, but not a machine’s. People can put their souls into a task, machines cannot. Humans are sensitive, emotive, motivated, forever probing further; they are infinitely more than machines, though they may not have the same capacity for work. Our intuition

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tells us that the golden thread of social spirituality may be soul, or rather, what the traditional – both biblical, theological and philosophical – term ‘soul’ conveys.

Because this article does not provide an overview of the international scene1 but concentrates on the depth structure of social authority, we focus on the situation in the Netherlands using the paradigmatic method.2 We focus on each field of social spirituality from two angles. The first is the recent history of that field and reflection on it in the literature, specifically the way the quest for spirituality is developing in that field. The second angle concerns the spirituality of concrete subjects in that field, being those who primarily and actively shape it: teachers, caregivers and workers. This second angle will highlight that the sphere of soul is by no means an abstract dimension and how real and concrete a factor spirituality is. In our analysis of wellbeing we do not proceed from these angles, but simply elaborate on what the preceding three fields have revealed. Wellbeing relates to the many organisable manifestations of the good life – what they include and what eludes them. In Western culture the latter manifests itself pre-eminently as soul.

1. SPIRITUALITY IN EDUCATION

1.1 Exploring the Fields of Humanism and Religion Since the 1980s the world of education and learning has seen a growing interest in spirituality. We want to look into it more closely. It may well have various facets, objectives and hidden agendas.3 In the Netherlands certain features are immediately obvious. For a number of decades the religious lessons of yore have become instruction in worldview, sometimes combined with the discipline of philosophy. A worldview is not practised on a regular basis, but depends on the individual preference of children and/or their parents. Nothing is mandatory. A more broadly based type of religious education is hardly conceivable. Only a minority of the Dutch population today was still socialised according to some religion or worldview.

1 We have already provided such an overview. See K. Waaijman, ‘Spirituality: A multifaceted phenomenon – Interdisciplinary explorations’, in: Studies in Spirituality 17 (2007), 1-113. 2 In this regard see K. Waaijman, Spirituality: forms, foundations, methods, Leuven 2002, 11. 3 Unless indicated otherwise this tour d’horizon is based on: M. Chater, ‘Child and youth spirituality: Current research and practice issues, and some strategic pointers’, in: Studies in Spirituality 15 (2005), 251-265; and on: Waaijman, ‘Spirituality: A multifaceted phenomenon’, 73-80; these articles include references to the literature.

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Besides, often it is a matter of an informative introduction to worldviews rather than of substantiating, let alone appropriating them. Few children know more about the religion in which their (grand)parents were raised than that. The historical and social context has largely been lost. They have to find their way on their own. This individualisation and to some extent free-floating character of religion is reinforced by the plurality of religions and worldviews espoused by learners and teachers. So what happens if the fragmentation is in its turn accompanied by a fuzzy concept of spirituality? Does it fragment even further? Or could it nonetheless lead to a broader, shared undercurrent? In many countries spirituality is becoming increasingly important in official educational and teaching policy. It may assume the form of a sharp focus on the vulnerable mystery that children fundamentally are, but often policy tends towards inculcation of values, which deals pedagogically with the task of character building and emotional development. Hence it is much broader than what is envisaged by movements that advocate prayers in class, biblical instruction and religious rituals at school – movements that are influential particularly in America. In Europe national educational policy, hence the place of spirituality in education, is largely determined by supra-national institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches. In that policy spirituality serves mainly as a counterweight to rationalism, technocracy, market orientation and consumerism, which all feature prominently in our society.4 Does this functional reduction of spirituality to an antidote for the late modern hierarchy of values do justice to its essential character? At any rate it does not detract from the fact that such a task definition makes spirituality a constitutive element of the educational process. This task, while not all-encompassing, is nonetheless significant.

From Religious Background to Humanistic Openness In most Western countries churches have contributed greatly to education and the value orientation of schools. As in the domain of health care, they did their job so thoroughly that the teaching situations they created grew beyond their capacity. They had made themselves redundant and education passed into the hands of other administrative agencies. The educational paradigms of the religious institutions of yore now comprise different objectives, centring mainly on Enlightenment values such as freedom, autonomy and authenticity; the overall, religiously inspired purpose of life has been relegated to the background.

4 Cf. T. Geurts, ‘Leren onderbreken: Religieus leren in de context van verzakelijking in school en samenleving’, in: R. te Velde & H. Goris (Eds.), Levensbeschouwelijke vorming: Tussen filosofie en religie, Nijmegen: Valkhofpers, 2009, 88-111. (Annalen van het Thijmgenootschap 97 [2009] 3)

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Whereas initially spirituality derived a certain clarity from its religious origins, that is no longer the case in education today. There is no consensus on the exact nature of spirituality in education. Thus it is questioned whether there is something like ‘the soul of the child’, a kind of all-encompassing dimension where all the particular activities and reflexes of human life come together according to their purpose so that their function becomes clear. And how does one cultivate such a dimension? In that way spirituality, being related to such a dimension, would be a kind of fundamental framework that unifies all human activities. Others propound diversity rather than an underlying structure. Both views raise questions. Does the first view not run a risk of merging all uniqueness and creativity into a static, standard human being with no spiritual vitality? Does the second view not culminate in an endless variation of spiritual profiles without any standard at all? What does this free-floating concep- tualisation entail for the moral and psychological development of young people? The loss of the great narratives from which people used to derive meaning has intensified these questions. They have long ceased to be purely academic.

Separate from the Material World or Connected with It? Another problem is the relation between the spiritual dimension and the social, physical and material dimensions. In England the Education Act of 1996, a key determinant of British educational policy, states that education concerns the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of the child. Spiritual is defined as awareness of what lies beyond direct experience and the material realm. Spirituality is the acknowledgment and recognition of the non- material aspect of life. That seems perfectly appropriate, partly in view of the widely accepted social function of spirituality as an antidote for materialistic reductions in our culture. But this critical function of spirituality should not come at the expense of its integrative function. One can justifiably ask whether such a notion of spirituality does justice to the Christian idea of incarnation that has so fundamentally shaped Western civilisation, that is the belief that the supreme power can only be encountered in and via everyday material and social reality. Separating spirituality from material, social and cultural reality not only denigrates the incarnation, hence Western civilisation, but also runs counter to the world-affirming dimensions of all major religious traditions. The tendency to such dualism is sometimes averted by relating spirituality to a Larger Whole. This trend seems justified, provided that Whole is not conceived of as some vague, fluid, amorphous entity with virtually no impact on real life.5 Some holistic trends run that risk.

5 Cf. Hunkering naar heelheid: Het nieuw-religieuze verlangen naar een authentiek bestaan, ’s-Hertogenbosch: Katholieke Raad voor Kerk en Samenleving, 2000.

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Separation from Religion also entails Uprootment In Christian spirituality the relationship with God is the hub on which everything turns. Seen thus, the relation between spirituality-in-learning and religion is a key issue. The literature indicates that at a certain point there was every reason to sever the rigid connection between the two and allow spirituality to go its own humanistic way, more particularly towards discovery and development of a true, authentic self. It was realised that for many people spirituality would always have a religious connotation, but the new humanistic perspective on meaning was seen as more universal and therefore more appropriate, being suited to both religious and nonreligious people. Besides, the separation would resolve the awkward relationship with some religious traditions and permit a connection between spirituality and modernity. After all, spirituality had sometimes been a vehicle for religious indoctrination and excessive church interfer- ence in personal lifestyles. But what was not immediately realised when spirituality parted ways with religion was that the separation would entail uprooting spirituality in the sense of depriving it of its cohesive framework. Thus spirituality ended up in a down- ward spiral of fragmentation and individualisation: henceforth it would focus on individual self-actualisation, the search for an authentic self and the deline- ation of personal meaning. To be sure, the spiral is mitigated by the inclusion of a philosophy of values, in the sense that human values that transcend the individual counteract individualistic fragmentation. Nonetheless it raises the same old critical questions that have already been asked, quite rightly, in regard to the religious setting of spirituality: does the established order of policy-making adults not dictate its own values in this context? Is the development of young people’s worldview not totally predetermined by the values that the present generation of adults deems important? Here the dangers of conformism and suppression of youthful spiritual creativity – dangers that it was thought could be averted by eliminating religion – come from a different side: the involvement of ‘enlightened’ adults. It calls for vigilance.

Religion is More than a Source of Humane Values Sometimes policy makers try to steer a course between the twin hazards of total individualisation and value conformism, for instance by examining a broad spectrum of value clusters that are considered common to a number of religious traditions. There are four areas which one would expect to feature in the education of youths: valuing oneself (self-respect, health); valuing others (tolerance, respect for others and their property); valuing society (participation); and envi- ronmental concern (sustainability, biodiversity). The advantage of such curric- ula is undoubtedly that they reflect some spirituality and especially that they correct some of the biases in the spirit of our times, but one still wonders why

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youths would want to conform to late modern values such as the ones we have mentioned. According to a noteworthy trend in the literature, that still requires deeper existential commitment to a religious dimension, concretised in a community and its shared praxis. Presenting an array of values and appealing to spiritual, individualised motivation is not enough to inspire such fundamental engagement. The spirit of spirituality can only become flesh and blood – be incarnated in material, social and cultural reality – if sufficient attention is paid to the socio- religious context. But that is often omitted from the script by policy makers who have set their caps on exclusively secular transmission of values. Another argument for combining educational spirituality with religion is that in a religious context we can look at the price that value realisation demands from us. In days of yore asceticism and the practice of virtues were a major component of religious spirituality. When the religious basis is removed one loses sight of the arduous road that leads to humaneness. That makes the spirituality model as a source of values a-historical, simply a matter of consensus, without solidity and in a sense insubstantial. Religion really is more than a possible source of humane values: it is an age-old existential, emotional, ritual and doc- trinal practice in which a great deal of human wisdom has been invested. For that reason alone, it is said, it is a real loss when religious traditions are set aside.

Convergence and Inner Core Apart from the contextual support that religious traditions could offer educational spirituality, there is another important reason for connecting with these traditions. They provide consistency and convergence which prevent the diverse forms and practices of spirituality from falling apart. Every spirituality has an inner dimension, and contact with that inner core is considered vitally important when people engage in diverse forms of spirituality. Some years ago prin- cess Irene of Orange spoke in parliament about the inner dimension of sustainability. In Christian spirituality that inner core lies in the relationship with God incarnate. In Judaism it is the Torah, in Islam the Dhikr Allah – surrender and the concomitant behaviour. In Buddhism it is sunyata, in Hinduism the principle of non-duality that makes atman Brahman, et cetera. Every religion and worldview has its own version of concentration, in which its spirituality is organised into a coherent whole. All sorts of components of spirituality have evolved around that core, which is what the specific spirituality ultimately and fundamentally consists in, though naturally not exclusively. Remove that core and you take the heart out of spirituality. You are left with loose spiritual components (exercises, areas of concentration, beliefs, fascination with the spiritual way, etc.), but these are fleeting and ephemeral. Yet that is what commonly happens in secular spiritualities.

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A Golden Thread? Religious socialisation, however important it used to be and maybe still is for educational spirituality, does not happen as a matter of course. What is possible is to look at the inside of spirituality. That may differ from one religion to the next, but from the human angle there has always been just one word for it: soul. Soul is people’s, including young people’s, openness to a dimension of life that is given rather than constructed, a mystery rather than a solution. Soul is receptiveness to ultimate reality that people enter into and transcend – in the Christian tradition it is called receptiveness to God. Soul is human asking for and knowing about that layer of existence. This could help us to discern a golden thread in the diverse practices of social spirituality. In the pluriformity of social spirituality we focus on the quest for soul, first of all in concrete learning situations.

1.2 Spirituality of the Teacher The world of education is complex. One can view it from different perspectives: that of the learner or the teacher, that of the management or the work floor, that of the school, parents or society at large, that of the school’s identity or of interested parties, that of the church or politics. To gain insight into this complex whole we opt for the teacher’s perspective, for the following reasons. The teacher is closest to the primary task: the teaching-learning process, which she directs. Teachers collectively embody the basic knowledge and skills that learners appropriate. Via teachers we can form a picture of all perspectives, for they are crucial: the interrelationship of leadership and base, subject teachers and auxiliary staff, parents and extramural activities. They are the responsible parties who are considered to be overseers. In addition they are the most constant factor in the fluctuating school community.

Segmentary Spirituality If we look at spirituality in education from the teacher’s perspective, we immediately face a dilemma: does spirituality pertain only to specific qualities, skills, segments and aspects, or does it comprehend the entire process? We can illus- trate the dilemma with reference to an excellent book, Inspirerende Leraren (‘Inspiring teachers’).6 In this volume Aad de Jong and Theo van der Zee report

6 C. Hermans (Ed.), Inspirerende leraren: Inspiratie van leraren en schoolleiders op katholieke basis- scholen, Budel: Damon, 2007; B. de Muynck, Een goddelijk beroep: Spiritualiteit in de beroeps- praktijk van leraren in het orthodox-protestantse basisonderwijs, Heerenveen: Groen, 2008.

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on their study of teachers’ inspiring qualities and what these instil in learners.7 They regard spirituality as a defined area: appreciation of beauty, gratitude, forgivingness and modesty. Spirituality is a circumscribed segment, a set of attributes. The study covered by the report was structured as follows. A group of learners was asked to visualise a particular teacher whom they considered inspiring. Next they were presented with 17 attributes varying from ‘gives good lessons’ to ‘cites good examples’, from ‘being attentive’ to ‘stimulating’. The learners had to indicate to what extent the teacher they had in mind displayed these qualities. It turned out that they ascribed all the qualities to the inspiring teacher to some extent, but especially those relating to subject matter. The learners were then asked to what extent the same teacher cultivated 20 qualities in them. The researchers subdivided these qualities into three groups: social virtues, spirituality and transcendence, knowledge and insight. This provided a fair picture of which qualities of a teacher effects what kind of education in pupils, and their interrelationships. What strikes one is that spirituality (clus- tered with transcendence) is seen as pertaining to somewhat ‘soft’ qualities (modesty, gratitude, forgivingness) rather than to, for instance, social responsibility, inquisitiveness, creativity, humour and the like. Spirituality is associated with, and in a sense confined to, the ‘soft’ sector. We are not told how it affects areas like subject matter, social virtues or motivation.

A more Integrated Approach The Judaeo-Christian tradition adopts a less classificatory, fragmentary approach to educational spirituality. Firstly, the particular subject (language, mathemat- ics, physics, history, etc.) has everything to do with spirituality. The educational congregations were experts in pedagogics, in developing teaching and learning material. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (born 1651), founder of the Congregation of Brothers for Christian Schools, thought elementary instruction in basic subjects essential for learners’ spirituality. We must remember that these brothers dealt with working class children from impoverished homes. Education had to enable learners to find a job when their parents felt they were ready for it.8 One key factor – with a view to subject expertise – was constant updating of lesson material (both methods and substance) based on experience and advancing insight. Hence an important question in spirituality remains: do I take time, do I have time to keep up with developments in my subject and to follow these?

7 A. de Jong & T. van der Zee, ‘Inspireren leraren? Inspirerende leraren en wat zij bij leerlingen tot ontwikkeling brengen’, in: Hermans, Inspirerende leraren, 65-88. 8 Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, Méditations pour les dimanches et les principales fêtes de l’année (ca 1730), Rome: Maison Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, 1962, 194/1.

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Of course that is not all. Hardly anyone teaches only subject matter. There are always overtones and undertones: Do I like my subject? Do I work at it? Do I enjoy my work? Interviews with teachers show that they like their work and find satisfaction if they see that it strikes a chord with learners. They spontaneously use qualifications like beautiful, lovely, delightful, flow experiences. They enjoy dealing with youths, are happy when their lessons go smoothly and learners like coming to school. They find it delightful to tell the class things, especially when the youngsters are interested.9 This statement proves something we all know from experience: our most memorable teachers were those who radiated love of their subject. One sensed their eagerness to learn. Enjoying one’s work is infectious.

The Teacher’s Inner World These affective over- and undertones have already taken us some way into the teacher’s inner world. But there is more to it. Learners very soon notice how broad or how narrow, how open or how blinkered, how rigid or how flexible a teacher is. Does he welcome my questions or not? How does he deal with them? Does he find them interesting? Does he expect them? Is he nervous? Narrow-minded? These questions put learners in touch with what one might call the teacher’s mental world. Teachers enter this world when they ask themselves questions like the following: What is the desired behaviour that I inspire, explicitly or implicitly, in my pupils? Adjustment? Critical perspicacity? Creativity? Applause? Attention? Is there room, do I make room to test my ideas (prejudices)? Do I let myself be guided by vogue opinions that I take as axiomatic? Do I stick rigidly to my beliefs? Am I a black-white thinker? When reflecting on such questions the tradition of the ancient Jewish house of study may help to keep this mental world open. House of study (bet hammidrash) literally means ‘house of questioning’. Questions were welcomed. They centred on the good life: what man desires life that he may enjoy what is virtuous, agreeable, enjoyable (Ps 34:12),10 was a key question. A key prayer was: Feeling and experiencing goodness comes with fear of the Lord (Ps 119:66). Fear of the Lord (ora we) is the source of all wisdom (Prov 1:7; 4:7; 8:22; 9:10). That was what all great teachers proclaimed in every possible way, as if their lives depended on it.11

9 F. Mertens & H. Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk: Werk als leerschool voor het leven, Kampen: Ten Have, 2009, 39-40. 10 Biblical quotations are free renderings of the author’s own translations and interpretations of the Hebrew text. 11 G. von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970, 75-101.

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The mental world is not neutral territory. On the contrary, it is a place of dialogue with oneself: we are answerable. A teacher experiences all sorts of things in the course of a day, a great deal passes through her mind. Dare I look inwards, make contact with myself? From interviews with teachers we know that they regularly come up against their limitations. Thus they find that in teaching they themselves are at stake, including their character. (…) If they dare not look honestly into their own characters, they will have difficulty assisting learners on their voyage of discovery through life. (…) On the basis of their own maturation process they can help them relate to their own souls and discover their identity.12 If one is at ease with oneself, one is not only a good listener to others, but will also be ready to reveal one’s own identity. Such people are transparent to their pupils and their colleagues. One teacher said: ‘I have learnt the hard way that you have to be yourself. I try to learn something from each colleague that he excels at, but I don’t just copy identity. Whom should one copy, as a teacher? Yes, “the good teacher”, but one must try to find him within yourself’.13 A genuine teacher speaks for herself. She is not a parrot, a copycat, a ventrilo- quist. In the Christian tradition Jesus is the prototype of a teacher. In his great Sermon on the Mount he is depicted as one who speaks for himself. You have heard it said, ‘You shall not kill’ But I say to you: You shall not write off your brother. You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’. But I say to you Do not treat your partner as your property. You have heard it said: ‘Do not swear falsely’. I say to you: Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. You have heard it said: ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. But I say to you: If any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn him the other also. You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbour’.

12 Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 40-41. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are ours. 13 Ibid., 41-42.

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But I say to you, Love your enemies. (Mt 5:21; 27; 31; 33; 38; 43) Jesus is not alone in this. Anyone who reads the Avot treatise encounters Jesus’ fellow rabbis. Here teachers are depicted as speaking their own words for themselves. A teacher speaks. He speaks for himself. The expression that occurs most frequently in Avot is: ‘He speaks’. The teacher’s words are pointing the way (tora), he is the incarnate Word.14

Listening We have said that if someone is at ease with herself, she is able to listen to her pupils and her colleagues. More broadly, she is able to maintain good relations with them. She is familiar with questions like: Am I accessible? Approachable? Can I listen peacefully with an open mind? Or am I prescriptive, invasive, meddlesome in my dealings with people? Do I see my pupils as real people? At bottom it is a matter of respect. The great Christian pedagogue Chrysostom says: ‘Look at your pupils closely every day. What talents given them by nature do they have to develop?’15 He compares the pedagogue with a sculptor who, as it were, frees the figure from the marble as he chips away. ‘Remove the inessential, add what is lacking’.16 Freeing the child’s essential self – that is what being a teacher means. Such creative attentiveness has certain basic requirements. The first is creating a climate for dialogue. In this respect Modern Devotion was a past master. Thomas à Kempis portrays the atmosphere between Lubbert te Busse and his pupils as follows: ‘Through such holy didactic discussion he and those who were invited to progress spiritually became very fervent’.17 A second require- ment is a humble attitude. A teacher is actually a beggar who knocks meekly at the door, seeking admission. An overbearing tyrant is no teacher. Hence it is said of the great teacher Moses: Moses was extremely humble, humbler than anyone else on earth (Nm 12:3). And Jesus says: ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart’ (Mt 11:29). His contempo- rary, rabbi Hillel, is said to have provided good guidance, because he radiated ungrudging love. He conveyed not only his own teachings but also those of

14 J. Neusner, Grondslagen van het Jodendom, Boxtel: Katholieke Bijbelstichting, 1990, 150. 15 J. Chrysostom, Sur la vaine gloire et l’éducations des enfants, Paris: Cerf, 1972, section 22. 16 Ibidem. 17 Thomas à Kempis, ‘Dialogus noviciorum’, in: Thomae Hemerken a Kempis … Opera Omnia (ed. M.J. Pohl). Vol. 7, Freiburg: Herder, 1922, 210.

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other schools. Moreover, he always gave the others’ views first before giving his own.18 The third basic attitude is empathy. It is probably decisive in pedagogic concern. De la Salle advises his brothers to transpose themselves to the pupil so as to feel from within where the latter finds himself. Concretely that means taking into account youths’ mental capacity, their age, home situation and growth potential.19 A few centuries later, in 1925, Martin Buber said much the same at an educational congress in Heidelberg: an educator’s profession requires him to sense his impact on his pupils as they themselves experience it: without in any way weakening the effect of his soul, he has to be at the receiving end as well, inside the skin of the other soul that receives this impact.20

The Question of God A crucial factor in spirituality is the religious dimension or the relationship with God. This applies to educational spirituality as well. We realise that we are entering tricky terrain. After all, what does ‘God’ mean in this context? The answer will never be unanimous. Incidentally, the same applies to the word ‘human being’. We know very little about human beings, or about the ‘universe’. Yet we go on comfortably assuming that ‘human being’ and ‘universe’ are useful search concepts. That goes for ‘God’ as well, for it gives us something that we can, tentatively and provisionally, refer to as mystery, infinite, absolute, all-transcending and the like – without professing to get to the heart of the ‘matter’. It refers to a dimension that concerns our origin and ultimate destiny. It is important that teachers should in some way be in touch with this dimension and not remain stuck in the 1960s. Often the question of God is coloured by old wounds or repressed authority problems. ‘God’ is also sometimes confused with ‘church’. We agree with Mark Chater, an expert in educational spirituality, when he urges himself and other spiritual people to engage in self- reflection. According to him they constantly have to ask themselves and each other in how far their spiritual agenda is shaped by their personal attitude towards religion or towards education and teaching, and they have to check that attitude against our knowledge of children and youths and how they live nowadays.21 The question in itself raises a second: how do I relate to ‘God’? Does that question at once put me on the defensive? Dare I – following spiritual tradition – enter the realm of not-knowing, including not knowing my own prejudices and categorical denials? Dare I look Mystery in the eye? Dare I

18 Babylonian Talmud, Erubin 13b. 19 De la Salle, Méditations, 33/2, 91/3 and 198/1. 20 M. Buber, Werke. Vol. 1, München: Kösel, 1962, 805. 21 Chater, ‘Child and youth spirituality’, 263.

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worship it reverently? Am I familiar with the precariousness and gratuitousness of life? Are questions like the following asked at all: Where is my origin and what is my destiny? Dare I linger in moments of deeper awareness and awakening? Dare I look at pupils in terms of such moments of hesitancy and wonderment? Dare I implicitly – sometimes explicitly – tell my pupils what the wise Chrysostom said: ‘Tell your pupil, living in this world, to be reverent before God’?22 Within the broad context of educational spirituality we have dwelt on the teacher’s spirituality. We believe, mutatis mutandis, that spirituality is relevant to learners, their parents, school leadership and all the perspectives on the school that we have described. In these concretisations we ask once more: is there one word that will direct our search for educational spirituality amid all these many viewpoints, aspects and layers? Is some sort of golden thread discernible? Startling as it may seem at first sight, we believe that soul is a possible answer, as the Leyden philosopher Gerard Visser shows in his philosophical essay on soul.23 Drawing on Western philosophy (especially Nietzsche and Heidegger) he describes soul as the space within human beings where they can reveal their individuality and uniqueness. He goes further: following Meister Eckhart, he sees soul as the unfathomable abyss that a human being is. And in that very sense – as unfathomable mystery – soul is the space of the Infinite, the Mystery. The beauty of soul is that it is primordially concrete and sensitive. It is very much part of our pedagogic competencies. After all, we often say that a good teacher puts ‘his soul’ into his lessons. But soul is more than that: it is palpable in the affective over- and undertones of teaching, the mental space in which we move, where we are by ourselves and love our pupils heart and soul. Above all it is the space of the Infinite. Here competencies and efforts, virtues and abilities, qualities and growth potential converge as in a burning glass. Soul is the space where all our abilities and powers merge and originate: the bottomless bottom of the soul.24 Here we are in living contact with our Ground. That Ground is not peculiar to you or me but is common to all human beings. It has always been the source from which all school and extramural activities draw lasting inspiration. Perhaps most importantly, soul is so broad that it permits us to speak once more about the mystery of God as an essential part of educational spirituality.

22 Chrysostom, Sur la vaine gloire, section 19. 23 G. Visser, Niets cadeau: Een filosofisch essay over de ziel, Nijmegen: Valkof, 2009. 24 Cf. e.g. Meister Eckhart’s sermon Populi eius, in: Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke, hrsg. im Auftrage der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, Stuttgart-Berlin 1936vv: Die deutschen Werke. Band I, 117-118.

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2. SPIRITUALITY IN CARE

2.1 Exploring the Field – Expertise and Inspiration Spirituality has become an inseparable element of health care. If one searches medical websites for ‘spirituality’, one finds hundreds of serious publications every year.25 And if one works through the titles carefully, one soon discerns two overall approaches. One approach sees spirituality as a specific dimension of care, often focused on the competence of the caregiver. In that case it is regarded as one aspect of care. The other approach sees spirituality as the very core of the care relationship. In that case it is the channel that conveys and carries all care. The distinction is far-reaching. In the first approach it is a matter of learning and practising certain personal behaviours peculiar to the many functions in the realm of care as well as to specific roles like those of recipients and givers of care and of supporters and facilitators. It concerns identifiable behaviours and attitudes. The second approach relates to the matrix that engenders and nourishes these attitudes. It is seen as a mentality that permeates the entire care process: spirituality as the soul of care. This difference in approach is comparable with the distinction we made in the previous section on educational spirituality between a segmentary and an integral approach. The segmentary approach focuses on specific skills and concerns in the educational domain that are described as spiritual. The integral approach deals with the same (and other) competencies in educative practice, but from the angle of their formative ground, their inspiration. In the Judaeo- Christian tradition this is where the relationship with God comes into it. In caregiving it has to do with compassion and love of others or, more neutrally, of the fundamentally human way of living a caring life in the world, as outlined in philosophical works.26 Hence the matrix and inspiration of care also assume different forms, but they always have to do with an underlying mentality that permeates and inspires the entire care process. The two approaches do not conflict in the sense that they are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are complementary. However, the literature sometimes creates the impression that they are diametrically opposed, and the actual praxis may well reinforce that impression. Institutionalisation and expertise, procedures and rules, as well as proficiency in the form of highly divergent

25 Cf. K. Waaijman, ‘Spirituality in care in the interaction between care seeker and caragiver’, in: J. Bouwer (Ed.), Spirituality and meaning in health care: A Dutch contribution to an ongoing discussion, Leuven: Peeters, 2008, 11-28. 26 K. Waaijman, ‘Barmhartigheid: De ziel van de zorg’, in: M. Pijnenburg & M. Nuy (Eds.), Het ziekenhuis als morele gemeenschap, Budel: Damon, 2003, 89-96; Idem, ‘Gunst en vertedering: Barmhartigheid in het Oude Testament’, in: Speling 51 (1999) no.1, 52-60.

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competencies are sometimes characterised as if they detract from the underlying basis of care, namely compassionate engagement with the other. On the other hand the deeper (religious or otherwise) inspiration is sometimes pushed aside as if it were an obstacle to the practice of competencies. In psychosocial care in particular religious inspiration was anathema for a long time. It could be attrib- utable to this professional group’s resistance to the often authoritarian involvement of church leadership in care. Maybe caregivers’ troubled dealings with religion in their own lives also play a role, so that they decide not to allow religious noise to interfere with their professionalism. A lot of recent literature in fact contrasts professional expertise with the traditional religious inspiration of care. Sometimes, however, the currently fashionable contradistinction between professional expertise and religiously inspired compassion is criticised in its turn on historical grounds.27

2.2 Some Attitudes We now turn to certain themes that have featured prominently in reflection on care in the Netherlands in recent years. We are not so much concerned with attitudes, abilities and professional competencies focused on the individual, but with exploring the soul of care, spirituality – hence the second approach. We ask ourselves if this soul of care is not in itself a response to a deeper commitment. In religious terms, does it not concern the relationship with God? And should this deeper connection not be considered when we deal with spirituality in care?

Presence Of late presence has become a pervasive category in reflection on care. Andries Baart’s theory of presence in particular has given coherence, consistency and hence authority to many experiences that have been encountered in care over the years.28 Thus it was found that, prior to everything that is ‘done’ for people in care, simply being there is important. Simply being there is just as important as concrete help. Without presence a lot of what people do for each other becomes meaningless and ineffectual. Naturally the performance of care tasks also entails presence, but there it serves a practical purpose. However, care benefits primarily by presence-for-its-own-sake. Baart’s theory is based on pastoral experience in impoverished neighbourhoods. He conducted extensive research, from which he concluded that presence is of primary importance in a

27 A. van Heijst, Liefdewerk: Een herwaardering van de caritas bij de Arme Zusters van het Godde- lijk Kind, sinds 1852, Hilversum: Verloren, 2002. 28 A. Baart, Een theorie van de presentie, The Hague: Lemma, 2006 (3rd ed.).

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care relationship. The core of presence is exposure, which submerges the pastor in the often foreign world of oppression and poverty. Being moved by it is crucial, the basis of everything else. By alternating description, explanation and reflection Baart arrives at five sub-theories: (1) on what poverty and social redundancy are; (2) on the various work orientations of pastors (focusing on individuality, sociability, mutu- ality, citizenship) and the roles they may play in each (friend, helper, moral- ist); (3) on the way presence presupposes connecting with the unfamiliar, always multi-layered life world of the other and what that may entail; (4) on the values proffered in pastoral care and how these should always primarily be an offering of oneself; and finally, (5) a critical sub-theory on interventionism and detachment and on interventions that are often made from the outside without genuine engagement. On the basis of this inductive inquiry Baart formulates a concept of presence with eight sets of attributes. One could also regard them as spiritual exercises. Presence is being-there that also and especially entails actively letting-be. One can distinguish between the following profiles of letting-be: (a) Being free for, that is the helper must not be trapped in her own preconceptions; it is a form of self-emptying. (b) Being open to – the pastor turns to the other and at this point is himself vulnerable: will the other admit him, and to what extent? (c) Entering into an attentive relationship, that is one that does not focus on functionality but on signals of who the other is. This requires (d) relating to the actual person, not as he should or might be but as he actually is. It also means (e) that the pastor learns to look at the world from the other’s perspective, enters into her truth. That is not primarily a cerebral matter but (f) an affective one; the caregiver offers herself and her capabilities. Such bond- ing also permits other kinds of offers: ideas, alternative behaviour, et cetera. Naturally all this requires (g) patience and time; presence per se means slowing down; in presencing time does not take the form of a plan to be executed but of (h) dedication and application. What Baart infers from pastoral care applies equally to other areas. Disin- terested presence is an affective context where people are seen and heard in a way that permits them to be or to find themselves; such presence-for-its-own- sake works, without being intended as work. In practice this perspective on care also acts as a counterweight to interventionism, that is the assumption that one way or another something has to be done to make the recipients ‘better people’. Of late this theory of presence, albeit developed in the practice of pastoral care, is widely used, especially in health care.

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Recognition and Humanity On similar but not identical lines Annelies van Heijst’s books argue that people should see others as human beings in care relationships.29 Her project of humane care, operating mainly in Tilburg’s Elisabeth Hospital, has mutual recognition as a central theme. Whereas Baart’s theory of presence juxtaposes presence-for-its-own-sake with a specific objective, Van Heijst relates the two hierarchically. In her view we have to reflect on the existing reflex, also in the care sector, to act immediately and find solutions to make clients find better, solutions that are then translated into new rules and protocols. This action reflex works like a charm when the ultimate aim of care consists simply in patching up and curing people. In fact, there is no other perspective. In that sense this view of care is totalitarian. Conversely, the compulsion to act triggers a similar view of human beings. According to Van Heijst cultivation of such a view must be actively combat- ted. In care, too, one has to learn to live with uncertainty; not everything is remediable and that should be allowed for. It is the only way to tailor care to real human beings. It is not an argument against expertise. On the contrary, that remains a necessary part of care. But it implies that professionalism goes beyond expertise. Humanity and mutual recognition should be the foundation of professional care, and in practice they are. It is evident in the way caregivers do their work and in the recipients’ response. Humaneness cuts both ways. Because of the recipient’s response professional caregivers persevere with it. ‘You get so much in return’, they often say. According to Van Heijst mutual recognition, the humanity that includes both dependence and attachment in the care relationship, is an undercurrent that features far too little in conven- tional care discourse. Mainstream care theories centre too much on expert performance and excel- ling in quality appraisals – efficiency on the part of the institution and staff, autonomy and freedom of choice on the part of clients and inmates. Humane- ness and its many concrete manifestations – concern for people, their insecurity and search for meaning, respect for their possibly limited world, empathising with their wounded lives, recognising their dignity and the like – are the framework in which the many divergent professional competencies belong, not the other way round. That rather than efficiency scores and marketing is the ultimate, supreme aim of care. At bottom care is not about patching up or curing but about assisting people in distress and not letting them down. This is becom-

29 A. van Heijst, Professional loving care: An ethical view of the healthcare sector (trans. K. Caldwell), Leuven: Peeters, 2011 (orig. ed. 2006); Idem, Iemand zien staan: Zorgethiek over erkenning, Kampen: Klement, 2008.

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ing clear once more from Annelies van Heijst’s research, as well as that of Marian Verkerk, Carlo Leget, René van Leeuwen, Johan Bouwer and many others.30

Gratitude and Appreciation The same theme can also be viewed from the angle of care recipients. On their side, too, neo-liberal values like autonomy, choice and rights have become dominant, further undermining the vital undercurrent of humanity. Not that these values are unimportant. Indeed, in a culture of subservience to medical and other authorities they are a wholly legitimate counterpoint. Naturally the achievements should not go by the board. But here, too, means have become ends in some instances. As ends these neo-liberal values are inadequate. Car- egivers have a feeling that they cannot offer the care they would like to offer in terms of the undercurrent of humanity. Care recipients, on the other hand, feel that, although they receive good treatment, they are seen simply as statistics. The monopoly of neo-liberal values has bred a strange kind of assertive presumption on the part of recipients: that assertive independence and awareness of one’s rights obviates appreciation. This attitude of recognition and appreciation signifies gratitude at a concrete level: being grateful that someone means and does something for you. The word has become a bit embarrassing, ‘soft’ and not consonant with management and autonomy. Caregivers feel that they really need not be thanked for their work, because they are merely doing their duty and are paid to do so. Clients, patients and inmates also tend to see it that way. Yet it detracts from the undercurrent of humanity, the supreme goal of care. Gratitude is a profoundly human feeling, as a result of which the real-life inequality and dependence between people – just like loving, compassionate presence – can help in a special way to deepen the humanity of their relations with others. It means that experiences of gratitude and emotionality are not eclipsed by an ideology of

30 M. Verkerk, Denken over zorg: Concepten en praktijken, Utrecht: Elsevier-De Tijdstroom, 1997; M. Verkerk & G. Widdershoven (Eds.), Over zorg gesproken: Wiens verantwoorde- lijkheid, The Hague: NWO, 2005; Idem, ‘Zorgconcept en competenties’, in: J. Bouwer & B. de Haar (Eds.), Kwaliteit van zorg: Optimaal zonder levensbeschouwing?, Assen: Van Gorcum, 2010, 9-19; C. Leget, Van levenskunst tot stervenskunst: Over spiritualiteit in de palliatieve zorg, Tielt: Lannoo, 2008; Idem, Geloven in wat je doet: Zorginstelling en katholieke traditie, Budel: Damon, 2004; J. Bouwer (Ed.), Spirituality and meaning in health care: A Dutch contribution to an ungoing discussion, Leuven: Peeters, 2008 (orig. publ. 2004); H. Jochemsen & E. van Leeuwen (Eds.), Zinervaring in de zorg: Over de betekenis van spiritualiteit in de gezondheidszorg, Assen: Van Gorcum, 2005; R. van Leeuwen & Bart Cusveller, Verpleegkundige zorg en spiritualiteit: Professionele aandacht voor levensbeschouwing, religie en zingeving, Utrecht: Lemma, 2005.

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equality, efficient organisation and division of labour. Such experiences moreover create an atmosphere and context in which expertise and management function optimally. We need hardly add that appreciation is not confined to recipients of care. Caregivers in their turn may feel and express gratitude because of the ‘so much they get in return’. To the extent that they are sensitive to what they get ‘in return’ for their care, appreciation and concomitant awareness of the dignity of the other will intensify.

2.3 The Soul of Care and the Relationship with God We have made a distinction between spirituality ‘in care’ and spirituality as the ‘soul dimension of care’. Now we consider whether we should not introduce a third distinction: the relationship with God as the source of soul in care. In the foregoing sections, following leading authors, we defined soul in care as presence-for-its-own-sake and humanity. That is the undercurrent, the ultimate aim. But in this perspective spirituality can assume many forms: attentiveness and a listening ear, expertise, appreciation, as well as the cultivation of assertive- ness and autonomy. The list of concrete manifestations of spirituality in care can be expanded ad infinitum: willingness to communicate and accountability, awareness of limits even in care, learning to deal with uncertainty and respect for the other’s insecurity, and so forth. To the extent that these aspects, however divergent, all concretise and embody the supreme value – call it humanity – they are all elements of spirituality, realised by somebody at a given moment. The question arises: should one not look into the source or inspiration of ‘soul in care’ as an underlying layer or foundation? In other words, in Christian spirituality, does the relationship with God feature in care? Annelies van Heijst is inclined to dismiss the question,31 firstly because that distinction, however important it may be for devout Christians, means nothing to nonbelievers; secondly, and even more importantly, because in care the distinction is prompted not so much by the difference between humanity and its source, as by the difference between purely instrumental, task-oriented expertise and humanity as the supreme goal. There is something to be said for her objec- tion. Concentration on the question of God can indeed result in an illegitimate evasion of the focus of the debate, especially in a country like the Netherlands where religious polemics has always tended to conceal a multitude of evils. Nonetheless we believe that in reflecting on spirituality in care this third distinction is unavoidable, for at least two reasons. Firstly, what is meaningless to many people can become highly meaningful if properly articulated; the

31 A. van Heijst, Menslievende zorg: Een ethische kijk op professionaliteit, Kampen: Klement, 2005, 15f.

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second reason is the current resurgence of religiosity in Western Europe, not only in the form of neo-religiosity and spirituality, but also because of Islam. This revitalised religiosity should be constructively linked with humanisation (read: humaneness). The first reason stems from the belief that the relationship with God is pre- eminently capable of inspiring humaneness. That means far more than the claim that in our culture love of one’s neighbour has always been grounded in love for God, the second commandment being based on and fundamentally equivalent to the first. The counter argument would be: the origin may be honourable, but given its fruits we can do without it. Thus secularised human- ists respect the Christian roots, which have undeniably borne good fruits but are no longer interesting as roots. But there is a lot to be said against it. Postulating humaneness presupposes a constant inflow of inspiration and sustainability. After all, the soul of care in the sense of humaneness is vulnerable and contingent. Of course it is not true that a relationship with God in itself ensures absoluteness and indestructibility, though a bond with the Infinite – a God mindful of humans (Schillebeeckx) – requires some sort of commitment to love. It imbues human beings with something of God’s mercy and boundless compassion. It is a long process, which in its turn is open to distortion and bias, but has nonetheless always proved to be an inimitably powerful and constant source of human compassion. The tradition of Vincentian spirituality sees this divine tenderness for sufferers as an enormous capacity in human beings.32 God’s limitless compassion with sufferers is realised in people’s ever limited talents – limited, but because of their commitment fundamentally inexhaustible. The tradition of charity is proof of it. New articulations and images of that ancient tradition – in short, new proclamation of it – may not be disregarded in care-for-its-own- sake. Religious motives and inspiration are among the deepest forces that drive people. Care is bound to benefit if these are harnessed in pursuit of its ultimate objective. The second reason why this is considered necessary lies in religion itself. The enormous power and impact that religion has on people may dissipate in vague notions or even act destructively if it is not linked with humanisation in the sense of being the presence and agent of salvation in their lives. This general proposition tells us nothing about how the bond should be established and what contradictions one may find between different religions and religious institutions. Naturally this is another long road that always has to be travelled

32 Kees Waaijman, Zuster van Liefde zul je heten: De spiritualiteit van Vincentius, Nijmegen: Valkhof, 2000; Idem, ‘Het zorgproces belicht vanuit spiritualiteit’, in: Bouwer & De Haar, Kwaliteit van zorg, 21-28.

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anew and reoriented. But that labour is vitally necessary if religion is not to become nebulous or even inhumane. The constructive question is particularly pertinent to the major religious traditions that have established themselves in Western Europe in recent times: what is their contribution to soul in care?

2.4 The Spirituality of the Nurse/Caregiver Heartrendingly vulnerable – that is the human condition. A cancer manifests itself and relentlessly eats away at an organism. A mental disorder cripples me throughout my life and terrorises me. Someone is sexually abused and suffers permanent psychological damage. Somebody is involved in an accident and is left an invalid for life. This happens to people in distress, from within, without any guilty party or deliberate external injury. When illness befalls us we become, to a greater or lesser extent, dependent on the care of others. The more profoundly the illness affects us, the more care encroaches on our lives and the more direct the contact. I am old and helpless: someone else has to wash me, dress me, drive me around, put me to bed. I am severely disturbed: someone else will bring me to my senses and look after me. I am wounded: someone else will help me and dress my wounds. Care of sick fellow beings is many faceted, not only because disease and debility may afflict us at different levels (somatic, psychological, social, mental, spiritual), but because it usually involves several parties, above all the patient, but also the carers (doctors, nurses), the care organisation and the care system. We shall look at it from the perspective of the caregiver, especially in direct care. In our view the principal lines of the care process converge in the caregiver: those of the person requiring care, the medical staff and the care organisation, with due regard to the overall care system.33 We shall try to probe the caregiver’s perspective as best we can: what motives are at issue, what sensi- tivities are necessary, what competencies are required, to what extent is the caregiver involved heart and soul?

Wanting to Help A major motive for providing day-to-day, long-term care is a deep-seated drive to help others. A caregiver of many years’ standing said: ‘Caring for people was a motive, and still is. People used to call it a vocation, but I wouldn’t really call

33 For an exploration of spirituality in care from different perspectives, see K. Waaijman, ‘Wat is spiritualiteit en hoe doet zij zich voor in de gezondheidszorg?’, in: Jochemsen & Van Leeuwen, Zinervaring in de zorg, 20-46; A. van Heijst, ‘Zorg en spiritualiteit’, in: A. van Heijst et al., Zorg om de zorg: Menselijke maat in de gezondheidszorg, Budel: Damon, 2008, 59-88.

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it that. If find it a lovely world to work in and one can do a lot of good. You can help people find their feet, support them, hence really care. That I would say is one of my main motives’.34 It seems that something inside us wants to help, to be there for others. To many caregiving is their heart’s choice, a movement of soul. At bottom people do not relish self-centredness. If they follow their hearts, they want to be with the other. That is how they gain esteem, both that of others and their own: ‘Care suits their nature, they like to help and feel they are valued for that. Caring for others gives them a sense of self-worth’.35 This movement of soul used to be called charity (Hebrew: chesed), a goodness surging up spontaneously in the heart, poured forth abundantly, directed to helping others; they look creatively and sensitively for ways to surprise the other without crushing them with kindness.36 The word ‘charity’ has become less popular. It is seen as condescending. Instead we speak of compassion or concern. But in essence it is the same: a profound involvement of the heart with a person in distress. This spontaneous impulse to ‘want to help’ has a flipside: one may demand too much of oneself, lose sight of one’s limitations and be unable to stop. That signals a need for reflection: how do I regain my inner freedom, space to distinguish between others’ appeal to me and the voice of my own soul, my own heart?

Touched to the Soul In interviews with nurses at University Medical Center St Radboud (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) one often hears how deeply nurses are moved by the suffer- ing of the patients in their care.37 One of them said: ‘We see many seriously ill people, but that moment when they are told that things are going badly does something to me. Then one wonders, dear Lord, what must I do about this? That we can’t handle, we can’t endure it. I often cry with patients’. This ‘divine weakness’, as Levinas calls it, is not the same as the wanting to help that we dealt with above. The weakness is a passiveness against which I have no defence. Wanting to help is a strong motive that surges up in us. The weakness we are speaking of here is the impossibility to remain indifferent when faced with someone else’s distress.38 To avoid succumbing to this incorrigible weakness René van Leeuwen advocates that caregivers cultivate awareness of the unmanageable side of the care

34 Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 23. 35 Ibid., 47. 36 For an analysis of chesed, see Waaijman, ‘Gunst en vertedering’, 52-55. 37 For an overview, see Waaijman, ‘Barmhartigheid – de ziel van de zorg’. 38 E. Levinas, De Dieu qui vient à l’idée, Paris: Vrin, 1982, 116.

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relationship.39 That is not easy, for caregivers are often doers. They tend to act in practical, problem-solving ways. The weakness at issue calls for patience and endurance. In our culture these qualities are not highly developed. Yet a growing number of people in health care are advocating the virtue of com-passion: ‘This virtue cannot be pinned down in principles, guidelines or a roster of duties. Compassion is a habitual disposition of a particular person. It should be added that compassion can only be experienced from the sufferer’s perspective’.40 Accepting these wounds from one’s heart and voicing it used to be part of charity, the flipside of wanting to help. It was called rechamim: being moved to one’s innards.41

Professionalism In a framework of compassion – both active and passive: wanting to help and being moved – knowledge and skills play a crucial role. Sometimes this is the foremost aspect. A caregiver said: ‘Healing someone who has a problem – that in a nutshell is what I like. It is not a matter of the patient’s appreciation. Of course that is nice too, but I am proud of myself if it simply comes off’.42 It is put almost laconically, but the undertone is concerned: ‘someone’ who has ‘a problem’. The patient is not identified with her illness, and there is nothing wrong with looking carefully at what the problem is. But one does not go to a doctor simply in the hope that he will take a close look (diagnosis) and do something about it (therapy). A growing number of nurses believe that spirituality is part of their professionalism in three respects.43 The first is introspection: the caregiver reflects on the values, beliefs and feelings that play a role in the care process and can communicate about these. Secondly, the caregiver is interested in the patient’s spirituality, from admission to evaluation. Finally, the caregiver contributes to quality care and the enhancement of expertise based on spiritual care. Good care sometimes misfires, does not proceed smoothly, turns out badly. Often the caregiver is helpless: ‘Oh, it’s hard not doing anything’. In interviews with nurses one often encounters the flipside of competence: guilt feelings about failure; the patient’s anger; fear of humiliation; over-identification with

39 R. van Leeuwen, Geloof het of niet! Spiritualiteit als relevante dimensie in zorg- en hulpverlening, Zwolle: Gereformeerde Hogeschool, 2009 (inaugural lecture), 32. 40 C. Holzem, Patientenautonomie: Bioethische Erkundungen über einen funktionalen Begriff der Autonomie im medizinischen Kontext, Münster: LIT, 1998, 354. 41 See Waaijman, ‘Gunst en vertedering’, 56-58. 42 Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 51. 43 R. van Leeuwen & B. Cusveller, ‘Nursing competencies for spiritual care’, in: Journal of Advanced Nursing 48 (2004) no.3, 234-246.

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fellow sufferers; threats of being taken to court. There is no remedy for death, be it the result of abortive intervention or error.

With soul… One nurse said: ‘If I couldn’t put my soul and my salvation into my work, I could never keep going. You must do it because it comes from your heart and your soul, without expecting anything in return’.44 Again the key word ‘soul’ crops up. It means that the caregiver reaches out to a fellow being with tremen- dous sensitivity. The eye of soul discerns the other in her uniqueness, is respect- ful, the caregiver can transpose himself to the other, feel responsible. The soul is the dish antenna of care, the sensitive disc on which the inspiration is recorded: ‘The inspiration resides in the way they [caregivers] try to be there for others (…) Alas, the technical jargon these days has no category for this essential dimension of care inspiration. That narrows and “un-souls” professional work, also in the workers’ experience’.45 The main thing is that the caregiver’s soul should see the patient’s soul. Soul sees the other as worthy of respect, as sacrosanct, evidenced by a praxis that concretises respect.46 To Herman de Dijn this is the crux of quality care. ‘The rediscovery of soul implies a different angle on quality. Hence it should be more than the much lauded “total (or integral) quality care”. True quality is achieved only by surrendering to that which is at stake’.47 And that is the soul of care, especially when it comes to the vulnerable body of the other, for as Wittgenstein poignantly puts it: ‘The human body is the best picture of the human soul’.48

…and salvation Soul is the domain of God, where one experiences doubts and makes conjec- tures about him. Here the words of Jean-Jacques Suurmond resound, wrestling with the cancer in his body, totally in the hands of caregivers: ‘Day by day I lie on my own, half naked under the clicking and zooming machines. Against my will I am sent into a silent, bare landscape, which then blooms with God.

44 Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 53. 45 Van Heijst, ‘Zorg en spiritualiteit’, 72. 46 H. de Dijn, De herontdekking van de ziel: Voor een volwaardige kwaliteitszorg, Nijmegen: Valkhof, 1999, 69. 47 Ibid., 78. 48 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen / Philosophical investigations. German text with a revised English translation by G.E.M. Anscombe), Oxford: Blackwell, 2001 (3rd ed.), II.iv, 152.

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A God I simply do not grasp’.49 Soul, then, is silent space, hypersensitive to the slightest movement of the Mystery; silently weeping about the not-knowing; God blooming in the desert; salvation that recedes into the unattainable distance. ‘I conceive of soul as the faculty that makes us sensitive to the relationship with God. Our senses enable us to perceive to some extent what is happening in space and time. Soul is the ability to get in touch with God, or with what transcends time and space’, writes Tjeu van Knippenberg.50 This soul is the very essence of care. But we must realise: soul also needs care – soul care. We have briefly outlined the spirituality of care from the caregiver’s perspective. We deliberately put the professional caregiver’s expertise at the centre. Without it spirituality disintegrates, evaporates. Just as deliberately we prefaced our outline of expertise with the attitude (or virtue) of compassion that wants to do good and is infinitely sensitive. After expertise we dealt with sensibility of soul that never loses sight of the Infinite – that which confronts me in the face of a fellow being in distress.51

3. SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE

3.1 Exploring the Field – History, Themes, Methods In sharp contrast with a half century ago when church and society were still very much interwoven, spirituality in the workplace is once more in the limelight. Fifty years ago some trade unions and employer organisations had a marked confessional orientation. But the time when spirituality was structurally all but mandatory is long gone. It was followed by decades of – by and large – silence.52 There was very little talk about work and spirituality. Secularisation saw to it that religion was kept as separate as possible from all sectors of public life, including those of work and industry. That silence has now been broken by renewed interest in spirituality in the workplace. It is happening both in and outside Europe; it is also happening right on our doorstep. Hein Blommestijn and Frits Mertens of the Titus Brandsma Institute in Nijmegen researched the

49 J. Suurmond, God en heer K., Zoetermeer: Meinema, 2009. 50 T. van Knippenberg, ‘Inleiding’, in: I. van den Essenburg (Ed.), Een dak boven de ziel: Over zielzorg en media, Lelystad: RKK/KRO Omroeppastoraat, 1999, 13-29: here 14. 51 For this twofold exposition of the care process in the tradition of care spirituality, see Waaij- man, ‘Het zorgproces belicht vanuit spiritualiteit’. 52 Nonetheless Speling published articles on spirituality in the workplace in 1979 and 1993, in health care in 1980, and in education in 1993.

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‘hidden spirituality’ among farmers and in industry, care and education.53 We shall return to their study presently. First we look at the current situation by listing the main trends in Dutch and foreign literature. We then try to trace a coherent line of concentration in workplace spirituality with its often highly divergent interests and objectives. As in the case of the educational and care sectors, in the field of business and industry we look for this line in the renewed interest in soul. Soul, inspiration, heart and soul: in our view these represent more than an explicit motivation. Prior to any explicit orientation to a concrete project, the soul dimension represents awareness and experience of a fundamental bond with all people and all things, an area where the effect of actual work projects finds a place and bears fruit. In regard to the current situation, we ask two questions. How come that spirituality at this level has become such a focus of attention? What are the themes and how are they dealt with?

How did Spirituality Come into the Limelight? The remarkable interest did not materialise out of thin air. There were reasons for it, but above all there was a historical undercurrent of worldview-related and religious interest in work, vestiges of which persist to this day. To start with the latter, the first impulses came from Rome and France. The encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) marked a revolution in the Catholic Church. In a time of rampant socialism the church finally paid explicit attention to workers, which was echoed by employers. Round the same time movements of Christian businesspeople arose: ‘Mouvement chrétien des Cadres et Dirigeants’ and ‘Communeauté de Vie Chrétienne’,54 which still exists today. These bodies organised monthly gatherings at which experiences of work and life were shared in a reflective atmosphere. They had an ethical and existential influence on the parties. Via the tradition of, mainly, the Jesuits the discussions were conducted in a religious atmosphere. As a result work and faith became intertwined. On similar lines the Alliance of Protestant Christian Employers was established in the Netherlands in 1949. In the early 1960s it became the Confedera- tion of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW). It organised the annual Bilderberg conference. After an initial series of mainly religious themes,

53 The project among farmers, in collaboration with KNBTB, culminated in F. Mertens & H. Blommestijn, Boer in hart en ziel: Zoektocht naar de diepere drijfveren van agrariërs, Zutphen: Roodbont, 2004; the project in collaboration with CNV entitled ‘Plezier in werk’ resulted in F. Mertens & H. Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk: Werk als leerschool voor het leven (Kampen, 2009). 54 www.lesed.org and www.cvx-clc.net

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the latest conferences increasingly deal with business ethics and social issues.55 On the side of employees the topic of religiosity and work was propagated mainly by French Dominicans. In the early 1940s they launched a movement of priestly workers, intellectually backed by the work of Marie-Dominique Chenu, who published Pour une Théologie du Travail in 1955.56 In Belgium Joseph Cardijn, partly inspired by the priest Daens († 1907), established the Catholic Workers Youth, also in the 1940s, and in this way exercised an enormous influence on the French, and eventually the Dutch, workers’ world. The CWY movement keeps young people informed of everything pertaining to faith and the workplace. While these movements may have ended up in confessional isolation, vestiges of their inspiration are still noticeable and continue to have an impact. There are a number of other factors that account for the current interest in spirituality in the workplace.57 The first is developments in the work environment. As a result of new technologies, mergers and reorganisation lifelong job contracts are on the way out. Employees will have to be highly flexible in future. Above all, they are replaceable. As a result they cannot derive the meaning of their work from their jobs as a matter of course. They increasingly have to find it in themselves. The spiritual search for their inner life, key values and destiny is becoming more urgent. Secondly, values are changing. Globalisation and the realisation that materi- alism does not bring the anticipated wellbeing have promoted this change. There is also a demographic aspect: as a group the baby-boomers reached the so-called midlife crisis some years ago, a time of reorientation, change and a deepened attitude to life. For the past twenty years this group has been located in the labour world and carries great weight, often also via cultural and societal key positions. These people grew up at a time when Western Christian culture was looking beyond its borders at Eastern spirituality for a new orientation. The ‘cultural creatives’58 deepen their worldview-related baggage. This in turn accorded with the cultural diversity of the time, in which multinational companies also paid attention to multiculturalism. Supercultural management and holistic views gained plausibility.

55 Cf. Duurzaam herstel, VNO-NCW Bilderberg Conference 2010, 8-13. 56 Paris: Seuil. 57 Cf. David Tacey, ‘Rising waters of the Spirit: the view from secular society’, in: Studies in Spirituality 13 (2003), 11-30; R.A. Giacalone & C.L. Jurkiewiz, ‘Towards a science of workplace spirituality’, in: Idem (Eds.), Handbook of workplace spirituality and organizational performance, Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2003, 3-28; Erik de Jongh, ‘Spiritualiteit als handelswaar’, in: Theologisch Debat 3 (2006), 4-12. 58 P. Ray & S.R. Anderson, The cultural creatives: How 50 million people are changing the world, New York: Harmony, 2000.

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Thirdly, there is the heightened and still persistent ‘New Year effect’ of the dawn of a new millennium. At New Year people look back, make fresh resolu- tions and venture predictions. The new millennium gave this ritual as it were global dimensions: where do we come from and where will this new millennium take us? Such questions are essentially spiritual and concern the meaning of life. Fourthly, the past few decades were the era of the self, of self-discovery, self- actualisation and personal growth. These are spiritual themes through and through, which are very much in the limelight at present.59 They feature in many popular lifestyle magazines. That leads to exchange and mutual stimula- tion of such themes. Finally there is the current worldwide anxiety about the danger of terrorist attacks, recent wars and the rise of Islam in the West. These developments disturb the complacency arising from a secularised worldview. Focusing on the United States, the 9/11 disaster – for the bereaved, which includes everyone – made love and relationship outweigh economic affluence once more. Conceivably awareness of the free market mechanisms that led to the financial and eventually economic crisis has intensified the call for more ethics and a spiritual outlook in the business world. These factors, which are continually analysed and differentiated anew in the literature, are conducive to spirituality in the workplace. Judi Neal defines it as the way people experience their work as a spiritual way, that is a place where they can grow personally and make a meaningful contribution to society. It is where they learn to care and empathise with colleagues and clients. It concerns integrity, truth and authenticity. This integration of work with spirituality extends across individuals and organisations and gives direction, wholeness and solidarity.60

What Themes are Pertinent to Workplace Spirituality? If one looks at the titles in the often lengthy bibliographies of the various studies, one is struck by the high frequency of the words ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’. The studies moreover tend to arrange the themes according to their own slant and angle of approach.61 Let us consider a few substantive themes and problems in the scholarly handling of these, the methodology.

59 Cf. Hunkering naar heelheid. 60 Judith A. Neal, ‘Spirituality in the workplace: An emerging phenomenon’, in: Studies in Spirituality 15 (2005), 68-279, here 269. 61 E.g. a lengthy list of literature arranged according to some theory of spirituality, structured according to encyclopaedic interdisciplinary principles; this theory is the basis of SPIRIN, the research programme of the Titus Brandsma Institute, and of the spirituality research project

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When it comes to content one finds a first group of studies that concentrate on the religious or philosophical inspiration that constitutes the main line in spiritual practice. What is the philosophical or religious background to specific notions about work, for instance about the difference between manual and intellectual work, about action and contemplation, about work and leisure? On the Christian side these are studies in the theological encyclopaedia, which often provide a broad overview of the history of the theme.62 There are also many separate studies of a specific inspiration based on various religious views of the area of work. Among these are Eastern spiritualities, but the Quakers and Western mysticism also feature pertinently.63 Another major theme is leadership. It may be linked with key figures in the Christian tradition, as in the volume De ene regel is de andere niet (‘Difference is the Rule’) which gives Augustine’s, Benedict’s, Francis’s, Dominic’s and Ignatius’s teachings on leadership.64 Naturally the theme also features in other spiritual traditions, for instance in Zen.65 Research shows that business leaders are better able than would seem from the literature to convert their inward

of the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies at Radboud University. Cf. Waaijman, ‘Spirituality – A multifaceted phenomenon’, 80-88. 62 Cf. inter alia P. Lamarch et al., ‘Travail’, in: M. Viller, F. Cavallera & J. de Guibert (Eds.), Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique. Vol. 15, Paris: Beauchesne, 1991, 1186-1250; G. Mattai, ‘Travailleur’ in: S. de Fiores (Ed.), Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle, Paris: Cerf, 1983, 1129-1143; E.C. Sellner, ‘Work’, in: M. Downey (Ed.), The new dictionary of Catholic spirituality, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993, 1044-1051. 63 I.I. Mitroff & E.A. Denton, A spiritual audit of corporate America: A hard look at spirituality, religion and values in the workplace, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002; F. Brendle & K. Lefringhausen (Eds.), Ökonomie und Spiritualität: Verantwortliches Wirtschaften im Spiegel der Religionen, Hamburg: EB-Verlag, 1997; HH the Dalai Lama & H.C. Cutler, The art of happiness at work, New York: Penguin, 2003; P. Frost & C. Egri, ‘Shamanic perspectives on organisational change and development’, in: Journal of Organizational Change Management 7 (1994), 7-23; J. Bartunek & M. Moch, ‘Third-order organisational change and the Western mystical tradition’, in: Ibidem, 24-41; M. Reis Louis, ‘In the manner of friends: Learning from Quaker practice for organisational renewal’, in: Ibidem, 42-60. 64 F. Bosman & H. Klamer (Eds.), De ene regel is de andere niet: Vijf spirituele grootmeesters over werk en leiderschap, Kampen: Ten Have, 2009; also cf. Wil Derkse’s much discussed books, The Rule of Benedict for beginners: Spirituality for daily life (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003); and Gezegend leven: Benedictijnse richtlijnen voor wie naar het goede leven verlangt (Tielt: Lannoo, 2007); also the books by Paul Chauvigny de Blot, including De brug naar spiritualiteit en leiderschap: Als macht niet meer werkt en innerlijke kracht de oplossing is (Eemnes: Nieuwe Dimensies, 2007); and Ignatius van Loyola als crisismanager (Kampen: Ten Have, 2009); and many publications by Anselm Grün, e.g. Leben und Beruf – Eine spirituelle Herausforderung (Münsterschwarzach: Vier Türme, 2005); J.W. Ganzevoort, Spiritualiteit in leiderschap: Een verkenning van de betekenis van spiritualiteit voor leiderschap in organisaties (Nijmegen: Titus Brandsma Instituut, 2003). 65 Thomas Cleary, Zen lessons: The art of leadership, Boston: Shambala, 1989.

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intentions into outward behaviour and to combine these with organisational innovation in their business. The projects of these business leaders display a remarkable resemblance to what is described as liberation spirituality in D. Sölle’s Mysticism and Resistance.66 Values are a third major theme. They include non-economic values, although profit making remains important. But work entails more than just profit.67 It offers a value system that permits personal growth. Often these values are also virtues: trust, truthfulness, wisdom, honesty, freedom, courage and compassion. When humans actualise themselves in this way human capital (human resourcement) is maximised. Spirituality manifests itself when there is trans- formative interaction between the values endorsed in the business vision (the code) and the work force, that is its human potential. A useful tool to analyse and study this interaction is Ken Wilber’s quadrant theory, which views the interaction between individual-collective and the internal-external poles as a single process.68 Hence while spirituality concerns values, it does so in a such a way that both the individual persons and the organisation are transformed. That leads to authenticity, creativity, energy, heightened motivation, on-going learning, handling diversity and productive use of intuition. Mobilisation of values takes place at two levels: the human and the transcendent. At the human level it entails a qualitative commitment by people to their organisations; the relation with values positively transforms both workers and their product. At the transcendent level there is a qualitative commitment to something higher than human beings. The latter is designated by terms such as the transcendent, the divine, God, cosmic intelligence and the like.69 Apart from substantive themes research raises methodological issues. Actu- ally there are two approaches that at this stage do not converge: a conceptual- hermeneutic and an empirical approach.70 The conceptual-hermeneutic approach looks for key concepts in traditional spirituality of whatever kind, and

66 Mystik und Widerstand: “Du stilles Geschrei”, Hamburg: Hofman & Campe, 1997. M.J. Dagevos, Weer buren: Spiritualiteit en ondernemerschap, twee overzijden die elkaar schenen te vermijden. (Master’s thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen 2009.) 67 Cf. J. Verstraeten, ‘Dépasser la morale sectorielle: La contribution d’une éthique herméneu- tique et théologique’, in: Revue d’Éthique en de Théologie Morale 213 (2000), 83-104; M. Fox, The reinvention of work: A new vision of livelihood for our time, San Francisco: Harper, 1994. 68 K. Wilber, A theory of everything: An integral vision for business, politics, science and spirituality , Boston: Shambala, 2001; for a clear exposition of this theory, see: F. Visser & Ken Wilber, Thought as passion, Albany, NY: SUNY, 2003. 69 Literature cited by Neal, ‘Spirituality in the workplace’, 277f: Tischler, Biberman & McKeage; Kinjerkski & Skrypnek; Neal, Lichtenstein & Banner; Beazly. 70 Waaijman, ‘Spirituality: A multifaceted phenomenon’, 81f; Neal, ‘Spirituality in the workplace’, 277; Margaret Benefiel, ‘Strange bedfellows or natural partners? The academic study of spirituality and business’, in: Studies in Spirituality 16 (2006), 273-285.

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tries to establish how they can be applied or made fruitful in the field of work, industry and business. Hence it seeks to interpret religious or philosophical concepts at a level other than the one where they originated. That requires a flair for translation. The language of reflection is usually philosophical or theological. Thus concepts like relation with God, creation/creativity, concern/ respect, freedom, et cetera can be studied in this new context to discover their capacity to generate new insights and good practices. It is not necessarily confined to concepts. Often it concerns affective, sometimes poetic images: love, passion, existential way, growth and such like.71 Especially in the beginning, when interest in spirituality in this new field first surfaced in the 1990s, this was the principal approach. Later it was sometimes dismissed as anecdotal. The second approach, empiricism, has gained ground, especially since the publication of Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Organizational Perfor- mance in 2003. In academia it is axiomatic that knowledge means measure- ment. Non-empirical knowledge, although not refuted, is only taken seriously once it is backed by empirical findings. Research into spirituality in the field of business and industry is increasingly following that route. Sometimes it yields fascinating results, for instance that people make a sharp distinction between spirituality and religion, the former being welcome in the workplace, the latter not. Another is that people look for identification figures and models to realise spirituality in the workplace, but usually can’t find any. Also, they do not want their need for spirituality to upset others.72 Empirical research is obviously conducted using the language and concepts of the social sciences. The critical question is whether the key concepts of spiritual traditions in fact feature in the inventories of actual topics. If not, one will lose sight of the generative core of a spirituality around which and for the sake of which all manner of beliefs, practices and experiences arose in spiritual traditions, and their peripheral characteristics will forfeit all power. That remains a critical issue. The distinction between hermeneutic and empirical methods is similar to the distinction between the two approaches. In the case of education and health care we distinguished between a segmentary and an integral approach. The segmentary approach is more amenable to empirical methods, the integral approach is more compatible with hermeneutic methods. Of course, the methods are not mutually exclusive – in fact, they need each other. But because of our focus on the Christian tradition the integral approach predominates. We believe that at the level of the workplace, too, spirituality should not be reduced to a demarcated theme like human relations, leadership or ecological concerns. Spirituality features at every level and in all objectives in the sphere of work.

71 J. Autry, Love and profit: The art of caring leadership, New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 72 Mitroff & Denton, A spiritual audit of corporate America.

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The question is not merely how it functions, but also what its generative and integrative sources are. Hermeneutic and empirical methods may conflict to some extent, but scien- tists are looking for a middle way in which they affirm rather than negate each other, a way that does not bypass ‘objective’ empirical research but incorporates it. That is particularly evident in the work of researchers like Judi Neal, who has championed empirical methods in this field. She claims that we should broaden the boundaries of classical research paradigms and find a more spiritual way of doing research and amassing knowledge. A major challenge to the study of spirituality is to indicate what such a ‘more spiritual way’ would consist in. We return to it in the section on wellbeing, inter alia in an appraisal of the range and potential of the word ‘soul’.

3.2 Working with Heart and Soul In the Netherlands some eight million people go to work every day in all sorts of sectors: farming, building, industry, offices, ICT, services, business, the free sector, et cetera. They do so primarily to earn a livelihood, but work is much more than that. A lot of people look for work that suits and satisfies them. Work has to do with involvement, ability, vocation. Because work is more than just ‘working for a living’ the theme of ‘taking pleasure in work’ is high on the CNV’s agenda. Its ideal is that work should be something from which everyone derives pleasure and satisfaction. That goes beyond just making work ‘nice’. It means aligning work to workers’ personal motivations. (…) We want to deal with the quality of work and the attunement of work to the individual.73 The Dutch Christian National Federation of Labour (CNV) focuses on pleasure derived from work. Pleasure is the thrill one experiences when something is fun and satisfying. Pleasure has a certain lightness, less ponderous than enjoyment, even though both are agreeable. Pleasure may be ephemeral, a passing feeling, but it may also be fairly lasting. For example, someone may play a guitar for pleasure, an absorbing hobby. But what does pleasure – pleasure derived from work – have to do with spirituality? Is spirituality not more serious, enduring, profound than something as ephemeral and frivolous as pleasure? What is ‘spiritual’ about this comment by a worker: ‘Work is not the most important thing in life to me, but I have decided that if I have to work anyway,

73 Bert van Boggelen, ‘Woord vooraf’, in: Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 7-8.

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I’ll make it as pleasant as possible. Get as much satisfaction from it as I can and be a pleasant colleague to other workers’.74 Without blowing up this observation into the most profound wisdom of the age, it has some interesting overtones. Firstly, work is not absolute, not the most important thing in his life; there are other more important things – he does not specify what, it is left open. Secondly, work is unavoidable: ‘if I have to work anyway’. That reveals a certain realism. Some things are not of one’s choosing, they simply come one’s way: you have to do them, like it or not. Thirdly, inasmuch as work is a mandatory part of life, one can ‘make it as pleasant as possible’. One can also treat it as a burden, pity oneself, grouse about it. One can become embittered. Fourthly: making it as pleasant as possible means deriving maximum satisfaction from it. That is interesting, for it reveals an active attitude: doing something in such a way that its agreeable aspects emerge. Evidently these can also be pushed aside and overlooked. Finally, this worker does not only think of himself but also of his colleagues: they can enjoy having such a pleasant co-worker. I repeat, I don’t want to blow up a modest statement into an earth-shaking pronouncement. But it does not detract from the fact that this comment, for all its simplicity, affords insight into what goes on inside the head of a person to whom ‘work’ is an everyday reality. We call it ‘what goes on inside a person’s head’ for convenience; we could just as well speak of mental space. There appears to be a mental space where people assess what is important, all-important, less important and so forth. That is also where they experience what is inescapably part of life. There they feel gratification and pleasure, things that irritate and fester, embitter and cause pain. There they also step outside themselves and empathise with others. We will now explore the mental space of working people. What counts there? How do they move around in it? How open is it? What is its width, height and depth? Our exploration is based on three familiar perspectives in spirituality: that of the subject, the perspective of values and the perspective of means and practices where subject and values meet.75

The Subject’s Perspective In the foregoing example the ‘I’ announces himself explicitly: ‘Work is not the most important thing in life to me, but I have decided that… et cetera’. There is an inner point where one weighs up pros and cons, chooses and decides, feels pleasure and gratification. When one reads the extensive literature on work and

74 Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 33. 75 For a description of this theoretical framework, see Waaijman, Spirituality, 641-688.

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spirituality, one keeps encountering this subjective sphere. There authors speak about energy, motivation, vision, creativity and learning. It is where the crisis in the industrial world is happening: people are unable to tap their human potential. It is expressed in complaints like: my energy dissipates, I am burnt out, my resources are silted up; there is no passion left; creativity is shattered by a rock of objectivity; bureaucracy is experienced as soulless; there is lack of vision; it’s all hard work and no fantasy; do, do, and keep doing mindlessly. It is not surprising that spirituality is sought in the area of human potential: freeing energy, strengthening motivation, developing vision, stimulating creativity, deepening knowledge. It is one of the main things that emerges from interviews with workers in the profit sector. Their inner motivation is not money, excellence or recognition from their superiors; exploring their mental space is what affords pleasure and gratification. ‘Viewed spiritually, they discover in their work and the pleasure they take in it who they fundamentally are and how they can attain personal “perfection”’.76 Exploration of mental space assumes various forms. People want to gain knowledge: know what they are doing, how it works, what they can learn from it. That enhances their self-worth and their capacity for operating independently grows. So does the desire to assume responsibility: Spiritually the lives of people who are barely able to assume responsibility are narrowed down to sheer functionality. Their work has nothing to do with their personal lives, so it remains extrinsic to the person – instead of being a spiritual space within them in which they can blossom as human beings.77 Traditionally the mental space in and from which we work is known as soul, spirit or heart. Hence it is perfectly logical that many modern studies of workplace spirituality spontaneously use the words ‘heart’, ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ in their titles. Here are a few examples: – The spirited business: Success stories of soul-friendly companies78 – Heart at work: Stories and strategies for builing self-esteem and reawakening the soul at work79 – The power of spirit: How organizations transform80

76 Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 31. 77 Ibidem. 78 G. Lamont, The spirited business: Success stories of soul-friendly companies, London: Hodder & Loughton, 2002. 79 J. Canfield & J. Miller, Heart at work: Stories and strategies for builing self-esteem and reawakening the soul at work, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996. 80 H. Owen, The power of spirit: How organizations transform, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2000.

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– Creating enlightened organizations: Four gateways to spirit at work81 – Soul work: Finding the work you love, loving the work you have82 In the traditional view soul is multifaceted, but basically it is a space that can open up or close itself off. Needy and sensitive as it is, it is the wellspring of our lives. It desires fervently and is capable of surrender. In its unfathomable depths it has a sense of the Infinite.83 A farmer said: ‘I have a feeling that here I achieve my essential self. I want to keep growing as a person and a human being. The farming industry provides me with a kind of nourishment to cling to my deepest motivation, the good that one does’.84

Inspired by Values When one studies workplace spirituality, one encounters not only a subjective sphere (soul, motivation, spirit, human potential), but also values that provide direction and guidance. One hears words like ideals, mission statement, objectives. Values are discussed: quality, sustainability, dignity, community. Traditional virtues are also mentioned: simplicity, helpfulness, trust, courage, wisdom. These ancient and new values conflict with goals like short-term gain, profit, productivity, up-scaling, grab culture and the like. Interviews with staff in the profit sector show that the most important thing is to produce an optimal product, a fine piece of work: ‘When I make and send off a product I want to know, actually for myself, be sure that it is a hundred percent, otherwise it’s just won’t do. Then I’d rather execute the order all over again; I throw out the product that I had made myself and make it again rather than send it off’.85 Since time immemorial goodness has been a core value, the guideline for all virtues: doing good. To many, many people it is their principal value in their work. A farmer said: ‘You don’t mess up your own land, you look after it. You have to cultivate it well, otherwise you can grow nothing on it. Every farmer takes pride in cultivating good crops’.86 Goodness not only determines the manufacture of products; human relations must also be good. An interviewee said: ‘I’m a worker who concentrates on conversations that put people back on their feet’.87 Another said: ‘My

81 J. Neal, Creating enlightended organizations: Four gateways to spirit at work, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013. 82 D.P. Bloch & L.J. Richmond, Soul work: Finding the work you love, loving the work you have, Maleny: EContent Management Pty, 2007. 83 See Waaijman, Spirituality, 435-446. 84 Mertens & Blommestijn, Boer in hart en ziel, 32. 85 Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 33. 86 Mertens & Blommestijn, Boer in hart en ziel, 21. 87 Mertens & Blommestijn, Anders kijken naar werk, 35.

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colleagues are what make me carry on … So that is the main motivation, getting on well with your colleagues’.88 The organisational scientist Hans Doorewaard considers this positive, affective orientation to others vital, hence the title of his inaugural lecture: ‘The other organisation (…) and what does love have to do with it?’89 It takes guts to mention the word ‘love’ in the context of work and organisations. But actually this value is not just good, it is also beautiful: ‘That is what I find most beautiful of all, the riches of life are not money but love (…) Spiritually love comes from your heart, what wells up there for your fellow beings. And there is nothing more beautiful’.90 A good product and good relations – both centre on the core value of goodness.91 Traditionally it was the same. The sages of ancient Israel saw goodness as the prime value: ‘Israelites experienced goodness as a power in its own right, something that determines life, is experienced in everyday living and operates there’.92 God is the source of this goodness: ‘To Israel this-worldly experiences were experiences of God as well, and experiences of God were this-worldly experiences’.93

Concrete Embodiment Spirituality only grows when what lives in my soul and the values that inspire me take concrete shape. Otherwise there is a real danger that ideals and motivations will simply evaporate. This applies to business spirituality as well. That is why there are models, methods and courses, guides and mentors. Spirituality looks for a way in concrete processes. Which processes are involved? At this stage we discern four lines. The first is broad based: building a business culture on an explicitly value- oriented mission statement, thus releasing forces in the staff and making values like sustainability and solidarity concrete experiences.94 The second line is inter-

88 Ibid., 36. 89 H. Doorewaard, De andere organisatie… en wat heeft de liefde er nou mee te maken?, Utrecht: Lemma, 2000 (inaugural lecture). 90 Mertens & Blommestijn, Boer in hart en ziel, 37. 91 Also see P. Chauvigny de Blot, Business spiritualiteit als kracht voor organisatorische vernieu- wing: Op zoek naar de mystiek van het zaken doen, Eemnes: Nieuwe Dimensies/ Breukelen: Nyenrode Business Universiteit, 2007 (inaugural lecture), especially 71-79. 92 Von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, 106. 93 Ibid., 87. For a more detailed description of this wisdom spirituality, see Waaijman, Spiritual- ity, 48-51 and 167-171. 94 An example is the long-standing project (12 years) of a Canadian food chain, based on classical values like human dignity, responsibility, fairness, truth and love. For a description, see J.R. Ouimet, Reconciliation of human well-being with productivity & profits, Quebec: Ouimet Cordon-bleu, 2003.

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vision processes, in which staff can share their inhibitions and hurts, their visions and experience of values. That gives work a human face and fosters good relations.95 The third line focuses on the learning community. A work community benefits in every respect by encouraging acquisition of knowledge and creativity through courses and seminars. A learning community provides fertile soil for questions about meaning.96 The fourth line is the most concrete and, from a traditional point of view, the most identifiable: space for meditation and silence. Thus CNV advocates meditation as a condition of employment, with three spearheads: a professional course in meditation, a room for silent contemplation, and twenty minutes time off for meditation during working hours. The first pilot projects are tentatively getting under way, and CNV will soon lead the way with a meditation room of its own.97 The four lines have something in common: they are looking for concrete ways in which values and virtues centring on goodness can touch workers’ hearts and souls so that they can take and maintain pleasure in their work. Gradually – just sometimes – soul may then expand to its innermost essence: feeling and experiencing that goodness and pleasure flow from an infinitely good Source.

4. WELLBEING – AN EXPLORATION OF SOUL

Ultimately wellbeing is about feeling good. If a person enjoys every material and mental comfort and is in reasonable health, but is at odds with herself, she can forget about wellbeing. For reasons that are not obvious beautiful things always lose their lustre in such people’s experience. Wellbeing appears to be associated with the state of the ‘self’: how people feel and whether the are truly at ease with themselves. And these are not things that hit you in the eye – indeed, often they are not readily discernible. Wellbeing is not just the way people strike you at first glance but also concerns what they have (yet) to become. That is undeniably a key orientation in spiritual traditions. It points – both beyond and in relation to the directly observable – to the mystery of soul. We shall explore this orientation.

95 See e.g. H.-J. Hoefman & L. Schuijt (Eds.), Het menselijk gezicht van werk: De integratie van professionaliteit en spiritualiteit, Rotterdam: Asoka, 2004. 96 For interesting ideas in this regard, see T. Hardjono & H. Klamer (Eds.), Breng spirit in je werk! Hoe doe ik dat? Handreikingen om geïnspireerd te werken, Zoetermeer: Meinema, 2005, 107-210. 97 See interview with Liezelotte Smits, manager of CNV Public Matters, in P. Pronk, Hart voor de zaak: De spiritualiteit van het dagelijks werk. Gesprekken met inspirerende leiders, Kampen: Ten Have, 2007, 110-119. Also see B. van Baren, Sprankelende stilte: Bron van vernieuwend leiderschap, Rotterdam: Asoka, 2008.

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How a person is is something one feels rather than reasons about. After all, reasoning can put the person on the wrong track altogether. The importance of objectifiable circumstances can easily be overestimated compared to those that are less readily observable. That is what many – both mentors and others – have discovered in recent years: rationalisation does not bring you closer to yourself; on the contrary. Secondly, one can reflect on that immediate feeling. That leaves the feeling at the centre, but one takes, as it were, a step backwards, looks at it and tries to differentiate. That is what happens when trainee spiritual advisors are asked to write their autobiographies. To guide others one has to know one’s own motives, one’s own bright and dark spots.

4.1 Two Dimensions of Wellbeing – The Familiar and the Unknown Self In such an autobiography one tries to articulate what one senses to be one’s true self. One records one’s personal history, the family one comes from, the home atmosphere, the social environment in which one grew up, one’s schooling and work experience, one’s character, important life experiences (both painful and happy), one’s ideals, difficulties, special talents, et cetera. Thus one gradually forms a picture of factors that contribute to what one is. While these factors are interwoven in a complex whole that may be difficult to disentangle, they can be explored, as can the complex context. Does that tell you who you are? In a sense it does, for it offers a picture of your individual, unique configuration of genetic, characterological, historical and social profiles. It is a portrait of your ‘self’. Yet not many people will endorse that portrait as exhaustive and complete, and not only because it always needs to be augmented with new elements from familiar profiles. As in the case of intuition, many will realise: on the one hand that is what I am, on the other I’m not like that at all. It is as if the portrait lacks something that nonetheless appears profoundly important when it comes to what I fundamentally am. Apparently there is a sense of something that does not obtrude immediately but tends to remain in the background, as if there is a mystery within each human being that is greater than the aggregate of all his idiosyncrasies, however expertly collated. Maybe one can specify the mystery more closely, for instance by inquiring into a source more original than the genealogies of parents and earlier ancestors, or into a destiny more ultimate than one’s most distant future visions, or into one’s deepest relationship with all reality. Traditions, both religious and philosophical, had a name for that mystery all along: soul.98

98 Cf. Visser, Niets cadeau. This book stimulated our thinking about the connection between wellbeing and soul. Herman Andriessen also dealt with soul in virtually all his publications, notably in his Een eigen weg te gaan: Ouderen en spiritualiteit, Kampen: Ten Have, 2004.

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Soul Forced into the Open For a long time speaking and thinking about soul fell into abeyance. That taboo has lapsed for some years now. The awkward thing about it was the supposed knowability of soul. For although its essence could not be determined – in the same way as that of other components of identity – people undeniably sought to pin down in words, images, even concepts what it actually was: soul. After all, if they did not, its reality would evaporate into mindless indifference, for things that one does not bother about are not worthwhile, hence do not exist. Constantly trying to say something about it and being cast back on it are what keep the unknowability and the mystery alive. Great thinkers have done just that. At the same time this probing often leads to incorporation into a system, a coherent overview: we know what we’re on about when we speak about soul. That makes soul a known quantity like any other factor. Those who grew up in a practising Catholic environment in the 1950s knew only too well what soul was: something inside you, immortal, corruptible but purifiable through confession and penance, et cetera. But not only in folk piety; in scholastic theology, too, soul was a known quantity that not only had to be taken into account but also had to be reckoned with. Soul appears not to be up to the pressure of so much demarcation and clari- fication. Its mystery retreats into unspokenness and silence. This silence is also the result of another mechanism that regularly features in Western history: that of reduction to another known phenomenon. Whether in reaction to the sometimes know-all presumptions about soul or not, both the human and the physical sciences have sought to explain soul as a product of the natural, familiar course of events. Currently such a reduction is happening in neurophysics. In that case soul is nothing but a material tangle of neurological cords. Religious experience is reduced to specific excitations in specific areas of the human brain. The unknown is interpreted in the framework of the known. Once again: exit soul as a human being’s deepest mystery.

Again the Two Elements – Uniqueness and Soul One might say that interest in soul has lapsed, partly as a result of a surfeit of generalised demarcation in theological and philosophical systems, partly by being reduced to a scientifically explicable mechanism. Both developments require sustained reflective effort. But if we dispense with that for the moment, the foregoing results in the statement that what we fundamentally are – the self – comprises two elements. The first is the complexity of unique attributes such as those depicted in an autobiography. Secondly, there is something that eludes such a defined picture yet is intrinsically tied up with it – after all, we only come up with the notion of soul by realising that we don’t simply correspond

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to what emerges from definable factors. There is more than that: that which escapes us is vulnerable and impalpably strong, ‘the soul within me / a glowing thread / a fiery straw’, ‘a miniscule unknown’. That is how Huub Oosterhuis improvised on ‘The song of the dark night of the soul of John of the Cross’ about the soul that ventures into that night and finds love.99 To become what we really are – that which, at bottom, makes wellbeing possible – both the ascertainable peculiarities and the unknowable soul are indispensable, hence both the known and the unknown component of our identity. Being alright, the condition of wellbeing, involves both components of our identity. They belong together: no soul without properties or attributes, but the latter reach out for more. Besides, ‘component’ is not an apt word to refer to soul, for it suggests something that can be demarcated, whereas what we have in mind is something not immediately definable. ‘Ultimate perspective on identity’ might be a better definition of soul. In an eminently readable book on soul Gerard Visser quotes the ancient Greek, pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus: ‘In your quest you will not find the limits of soul, though you follow every path: that is how deeply it is integrated’.100 That indicates the interwovennness of the otherwise indefinable soul with the clearly demarcated features of our identity.

4.2 Three Articulations of Soul From the foregoing we conclude that when it comes to soul there are two dimensions: the known and the unknown. The unknown can be approached via the known, though the picture is incomplete. Indeed, the reverse needs to be accentuated: an approach via individual attributes does not make soul knowable; instead the attributes are relativised in the perspective of soul. We now offer some sketches of this complex interrelationship: a theological and a mystical outline plus some more extensive biblical illustrations.101

Soul as the Form of Body In the traditional scholastic language that marked Catholic theology for many centuries soul is referred to as ‘the form of the body’ (anima forma corporis). The term was coined by Thomas Aquinas. It harbours both Platonic and Aris- totelian elements. One might say that the aforementioned duality of known

99 Huub Oosterhuis, Hoe ver is de nacht, Bilthoven: Ambo, 1974, 74-75. 100 Visser, Niets cadeau, 17. 101 Even these sketches are very schematic; for more, cf. inter alia E. Scheerer, ‘Seele’, in: J. Ritter (Ed.), Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Vol. IX, Basel: Schwabe, 1995, 2-89; L. Reypens, ‘Âme’, in: Dictionnaire de spiritualité. Vol. I (1937), 433-470.

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and unknown can be classified under these two schools of thought.102 Both Plato and Aristotle inquired into soul because they wondered how the body, a material entity, can move of its own accord. It happens via the psyche, the body’s organisational principle in its physical, historical and social existence. To Plato soul moves in order to fulfil bodily needs (food, procreation), social needs (honour, justice) as well as intellectual needs (knowledge of reality). In Plato’s work soul as the driving force of intellectual needs gets by far the most attention. Knowledge puts humans in touch with a higher plane, with ideas and ultimately with goodness. Thus soul, in its supreme capacity, is directed to the eternal world of ideas. At the same time its lower regions remain directed to the person’s physical, mental and social development, hence the observable individuality of every human being. To Aristotle, by contrast, psyche’s main function is on these ‘lower’ levels. In contrast to Plato’s more transcendentally and spiritually oriented soul, Aristotle’s orientation is this-worldly. Humans are pre- eminently the organisers of the polis, which makes the good life and justice possible and promotes these. Aristotle likewise distinguishes between different levels at which soul activates humans (vegetative, animal, human), but at these levels he sees soul as the principle that shapes human life, functioning mainly in its immanent dimension. Thomas takes up both schools of thought and combines them in soul as ‘the form of the body’. He takes Aristotle’s causal thinking and links it with Plato’s participatory approach. Soul is the cause of humans’ multifarious development – physical, social and intellectual. Soul gives that development a form and introduces unity into the multiplicity of distinct features: it constitutes the uniqueness of the actual person. Soul is the principle that gives earthly life its form. Thomas incorporates Plato’s spiritual orientation into this: the formative principle is drawn by the transcendent One Good, God; it strives to be God’s image. To Thomas the Aristotelian formal cause is also the Platonic exemplary cause that offers access to transcendence. Soul as the formal principle of concrete life is linked with an exemplary original reality distinct from itself, as an image relates to an archetype. That makes the immanent organisational principle an openness to something other than itself, to God. Hence on the one hand soul as the form of the body, which Thomas imprinted on the whole of scholasticism, unifies the diversity of material and social life in space and time in terms of Aristotelian thought. It is the immanent identifying principle: the multifarious forms, ideas, actions and aspirations are seen as peculiar to ‘one and the same’ person. Hence as the form of the body soul is primarily knowable and traceable. At the same time it is oriented to and

102 However, Gerard Visser argues that in this term the Platonic legacy has again culminated in a metaphysical knowability of soul; cf. Niets cadeau, 21.

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part of its origin, God, hence as unknowable as that source itself. Within each particular human being it is the point of contact with something beyond itself, with a perspective that humans themselves do not have. The ‘beyond’ cannot be objectified. In that sense soul, too, cannot be objectified or controlled. However interwoven it may be with the particular uniqueness of this concrete person, its home is elsewhere.

Letting Go of the Particularity and Being at Home in the Soul This twofold dimension of soul also features in mystical traditions. But here the provisional nature and relativity of individuality are heavily emphasised, put- ting the accent on soul’s openness to God. This relativisation is known as the via negativa, or the way of purification. It means that the person detaches herself from her individuality, the orientation to personal growth. This is very evident in John of the Cross. The Ascent of Mount Carmel is a way of negation: non-honour, non-pleasure, non-experience, non-solace, non-peace. The accent on negation implies that John of the Cross knew only too well what enjoyment, pleasure, solace and the rest mean. He was perfectly familiar with these qualities, these forms of self-development and identity. His entire oeuvre attests it. Thus he was a lover of nature par excellence. There is nothing wrong with that, only when it comes to openness to God that should not be the prime consideration. Receptiveness to God happens only in the space created by relin- quishing these forms of identity. This is comparable with Meister Eckhart, three centuries earlier. In him we find the same duality of individual particularity and soul. Particularity is not wrong, but it is a mistake to think that it ensures an abundant, fruitful life. Those who are in touch with their souls, who recognise soul as inextricably tied up with God, such people are ‘life itself’, he maintained. Meister Eckhart is pre-eminently the theologian of mysticism who influenced Western spiritual history. Research shows that in the late Middle Ages, in the early 14th century, he already anticipated what was generally recognised in modernity: the era of the subject, the power of the autonomous self that operates fairly independently of authoritative institutions and lives a life of its own. That accords with Eckhart’s Beguine legacy of religious vitality: people find the germ of religious growth within themselves and are not wholly reliant on the church.103 Eckhart champions the irreplaceable uniqueness of the individual.

103 Cf. K. Ruh, Meister Eckhart: Theologe-Prediger-Mystiker, München: Beck, 1985, 95-114; W. Trusen, Der Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart: Vorgeschichte, der Lauf und Folgen, Paderborn etc.: Schöningh, 1988, 19-62; D. Mieth, ‘Gescheitert und doch fruchtbar: Gründe und Hintergründe des Prozesses gegen Meister Eckhart (ca 1260-1327/28)’, in: H. Häring &

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Yet his readers don’t find an ego culture in his writings, any more than in those of other mystics. On the contrary: one has to give up self and everything else that self likes to identify with in order to radiate one’s particular individuality. People are so eager to be Somebody, someone with many possessions, a lot of power, an important person, a person with a past or plans and projects for the future. People want to represent something, but the danger is that they will identify with these things, with their Eigenschaften, what we now call their identities. These are not bad in themselves; besides, they are inescapable, for growth implies acquiring a profile. But one can – and it happens only too easily – incarcerate oneself. To monks and nuns, Eckhart’s usual audience, this danger is not so much at the material level as at the level of the religious culture, for instance inner inspiration, devout concentration, fasting, vigils and prayer. One can commit self (ichhaft) to these things as well, in the sense that one believes one can’t do without them and derives one’s meaning from them. That is a continuous concern in Eckhart’s lectures and writings. Not nailing oneself to specific practices, experiences or beliefs, however worthwhile and meaningful they may be: that is his theme of detachment and Gelassenheit. One is so prone to tie oneself down to projects that have to be accomplished, reputations one has to live up to, roles one has to perform. Not that such identities are worthless; they form part of our individuality. But they need to be steeped in and nourished by a deeper layer if they are not to run dry bit by bit and their vacu- ity becomes an enormous burden. That deeper layer is soul. Those who are not chained to these qualities and in that sense are selfless, have ein lediges Gemüt, are not obsessed with everything one is, is capable of and knows; these people are in touch with their souls. They find a power within themselves that far surpasses their own. Eckhart expresses it in trinitarian terms: ‘From the same ground that the Father bears his Son, soul, too, generates’.104 Humans are given the task of being the face, hands and feet of the eternal and the infinite in this world. That is also their true self, their soul. Being yourself, finding your unique identity, your own strength – to Eckhart that is not a matter of cultivating a particular secular or religious identity of some kind. It is a matter of soul, of getting in touch with its ground. Hence soul is primarily negation, negation of everything that purports to be relevant and asserts itself. Soul is somewhere beyond, a space not regulated and defined by significant profiles (structures, personal attributes, life story, ideals) of living. It is the potential, the latitude which permits these profiles to be possibilities rather than dictates. Those who relinquish ich-hafte identities are in touch with

K.-J. Kuschel (Eds.), Gegenentwürfe: 24 Lebensläufe für eine andere Theologie, München: Piper, 1988, 81-95. 104 Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke: Die deutschen Werke. Band I, 22.

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soul. To Eckhart soul is contact with God, the potential par excellence of all life’s factual realities and blueprints. It is an open space, untouched by factual- ity and creatureliness – increate, he calls it – in which humans are connected with God and all things. This broader context has great significance for people’s dealings with objective reality. They are no longer dictated to, regulated by personal identities: they are free. That is what qualifies the personal identities. At the start of this section on wellbeing we characterised these identities as those of biographies: life history, capabilities and knowledge, future plans and descriptions of the past. Even though Eckhart says that in the end one has to give up these things in Gelassenheit, the identities are not nonsense. They are observable facts, what makes one immediately recognisable as this particular person. On cannot belittle them from a spiritual point of view. Eckhart posits soul as their opposite: no fixed entity, nothing factual. Soul is a vantage point that gives factual realities potential. It offers a new perspective on the factual world. Soul is the non-objectifiable counterpoint of what one in fact is and plans to become. It evokes an unsurmised perspective on factual reality – one in which factual identities are not pushed aside as worthless, but into which they are incorporated and renewed, transformed by the new perspective.

4.3 Biblical Illustrations We find the same idea, albeit in a different context, in Scripture. There, too, soul shares the remarkable duality that characterises human life: enclosed yet homeless, living yet precarious, always moving on, sometimes secure.105

Defined and Homeless Soul is a vulnerable interior space set apart from the environing outside world. It comes into focus vividly when it is threatened from without. The psalms express it graphically: ropes, chains, shackles. Sometimes evil penetrates the inner space, as if breaching a wall (Ps 17:4) or breaks down the walls of a vine- yard (Ps 80:12). The worst is when the very enclosure is demolished: soul loses its home. There are any number of images for this homelessness: being torn from one’s tent (Ps 52:5), a coal snatched from the fire (Ps 52:7), uprootment

105 For views on soul in Scripture, see: A. Johnson, The vitality of the individual in the thought of ancient Israel, Cardiff 19642; H. Seebass, ‘nefesj’, in: G.J. Botterweck & H. Rindggren (Eds.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament (TWAT). Vol. V, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1986, 537-538; D. Lys, Nèphèsh: Histoire de l’âme dans la révélation d’Israël au sein des religions proche-orientales, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; H. Wolff, Anthropologie des Alten Testaments, München: Kaiser, 1973, 26-48; C. Westermann, ‘nefesj’, in: E. Jenni & C. Westermann (Eds.), Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum Alten Testament (THAT). Vol. II, München: Kaiser, 19792, 71-96.

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(Ps 52:5), being cut off (cf. Ps 109:13,15), laid in the dust (Ps 22:16), a slain body in the grave (Ps 88:5), a leper shunned by others (Ps 88:8). The interior space of soul is demarcated from the exterior, the external soul that Scripture calls flesh.106 This fleshly soul is depicted movingly in the book of Job. Satan has robbed Job of his livestock, servants, sons and daughters (Jb 1:13-19), but he is not satisfied: he wants more. God goes along with Satan: ‘Behold, he is in your hand, only spare his soul’ (Jb 2:6). Amazing! Satan asks for Job’s soul (Jb 2:4). God agrees (Jb 2:5a), but adds in the same breath, ‘Only spare his soul’ (Jb 2:5b). How should we interpret this remarkable communication? We can only do so if we bear it in mind that soul has two sides. One is exterior, facing outwards: Job’s social image. Satan has set his cap on this soul: Job’s property, his servants, his children, his bodily person. For the rest it is inward. This inner soul escapes Satan, but it is what God has in mind when he tells Satan: ‘Spare his soul’ (Jb 2:6). And that is what happens. For while the exterior soul is being broken down, the inner soul grows to with- stand the pressure. Job keeps the inner space of his soul open to the end. However enclosed and protected soul may be, its inner space is empty and asks to be filled. It wants to absorb things. Because of this insatiable hunger soul is likened to the subterranean sheol. ‘The vault enlarges its soul, opens its mouth beyond measure’ (Is 5:14). A rapacious person is described thus: ‘He opens his soul as wide as the vault, he is as insatiable as death’ (Hab 2:5). Soul is a craving, hungry, thirsty cavity (Prv 13:4). Whatever the cost, soul wants to fill this vacuum, otherwise it is wretched. Yet it is equally miserable when it is replete! For when soul identifies with what fills and satisfies it, it feels alienated from itself. Accordingly the Ecclesiast says: ‘All the earthling’s toil is for his mouth, but it does not satisfy his soul’ (Eccl 6:7). Jesus, speaking in the same tradition, said: ‘Do not be anxious about your soul, what you will eat or drink (…) Is soul not more than food?’ (Mt 6:25) He asks the sapiential question: ‘What would it profit a person is he gains the whole world but dam- ages his soul? Or what shall a person give in return for his soul?’ (Mt 16:26)

Warm Blooded Living – And I? What soul says, life says too. Soul means seminal power, growth, spontaneity (cf. Jb 6:11). Soul is the crux of life. Thus one might say soul lives in a person, but can also depart from her (Gn 35:18). It returns to its original home (cf. Ps 19:8).

106 N. Bratsiotis, ‘Basar’, in: THAT I (19783), 850-867: 860.

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Breath is one of the most unmistakable signs of life.107 God breathed into people (Gn 2:7) and it is peculiar to each person (Dt 20:16). When a person is out of breath from hard work or an exhausting journey, he needs to ‘re-soul’ (2 Sm 15:14-30). When someone dies, she exhales her soul (Jer 15:9). Another sign of life is warm blood.108 The way breath and blood invigorate life is illustrated by the son of the widow of Zarephath. The lad was mortally ill, ‘there was no breath left in him’ (1 Kgs 17:17). Elijah stretched himself out on the child (1 Kgs 17:21). The meaning of the expression becomes clear in a parallel account of Elisha: ‘He laid his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, his hands upon his. (…) The child’s flesh then became warm. (…) The child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes’ (2 Kgs 4:34-35). Warm blood and breath returned, so the child came to life (1 Kgs 17:22). Blood is the same as life. Soul as the crux of life is exposed to three kinds of destruction. The first is decay: soul is like a plant that fades (Ps 88:16), withers (Ps 37:2), shrivels and dies (Ps 102:4.11). The second kind of destruction is being eaten: by predators (Ps 44:11.22), like slaughtered sheep (Ps 44:11) or like bread (Ps 14:4), as spoils of war (Ps 27:2). The third form of destruction is vanishing: soul is like water that is poured out (Ps 22:14), wax that melts (Ps 22:14), decays to the dregs like a snail or a moth (Ps 39:11), smoke that vanishes (Ps 37:20), an all consuming fire (Ps 21:9), a blazing thorn bush (Ps 58:9). The warm blooded life that is soul is not the same as self. One might say that self looks for a way through soul. Self desperately wants to manifest itself, show its face. Soul is so close to self that it acquires some of its characteristics. Self makes it personal, worthy, unique, irreplaceable, precious (Ps 116:15; cf. v.8). In its turn soul gives self latitude and mobility. In Psalm 131 soul is likened to a child that has outgrown its mother’s breast. Sitting on its mother’s shoulder, it regards the wide world (Ps 131:2).109 Mother is the one who supports, nourishes, cares for it and brings it up (2 Mc 7:28). She is the image of self. In relation to the mother-self the child-soul is depicted as being born, growing, vulnerable, inquisitive. As ‘my only child’ (Ps 22:21) soul demands care and attention. When self is unable to provide these, its vulnerable insecurity comes to light: ‘My soul lies in the palm of my hand’ (Ps 119:109). Sometimes self is the enemy of soul. It harms soul: by contradict- ing wisdom (Prv 8:36), by exempting soul from all discipline (Prv 15:32), through angry outbursts (Jb 18:4), by consorting with prophets of doom (Prv 22:25). But self can also watch over soul: to live an upright life

107 H. Lamberty-Zielinski, ‘Nesjamah’, in: TWAT V (1986), 669-673 . 108 B. Kedar-Kopfstein, ‘Dam’, in: TWAT II (1977), 248-266. 109 K. Waaijman, Psalmen 120-134, Kampen: Kok, 1979, 93-100.

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(Prv 16:17), to avoid evil ways (Prv 22:5), by caring for others (Prv 11:7), by watching one’s words (Prv 13:3). Soul is where self actualises itself (Prv 23:7). It is the fruition of its strength (Song 6:12). But it can also be the reverse: it may spoil life with its sorrow, embitter one’s utterances: ‘My soul is the bane of my life, I utter my complaints, I shall speak from the bitterness of my soul’ (Jb 10:1). It embitters my life, my words, indeed, it may pine away with sorrow inside me (Jb 14:22). Self and soul constitute a relational whole. I can address my soul: ‘Why are you cast down, my soul, why do you overwhelm me? Look to the Almighty, yes, I keep looking to him, freedom of my countenance, my Mighty One’ (Ps 42:6; also see Ps 62:6; 103:1-2). Soul is where I deliberate on my situation (Ps 13:3). My soul and I are well matched. They can oppress and broaden, constrict and immortalise each other.

Soul Goes in Search of Security Round 200 BCE the wisdom preacher Koheleth coined this proverb: ‘Good is the sight of my eyes, better than the wandering of the soul’ (Eccl 6:9). The Ecclesiast associates wandering with soul as naturally as sight with eyes. Appar- ently it is inherent in soul to leave its home and wander (Hebrew: go) abroad.110 Soul goes out, goes forth, goes on high, goes down below, roams far and wide, goes deep. That is its nature. One observes that all these movements are ambiv- alent. When soul goes downwards it may be out of humility, but also because of depression. Its upward movement can be either prayerful or arrogant. Its sideways movement can open up the width of freedom, but also that of avarice. It can be driven onward by love but also by murderous rage. When soul rises aloft111 and elevates itself112 it is often pride. Those who elevate themselves think they are God (Ez 28:1-10), they end up in the delu- sionary world of religious hubris (Ps 24:4), a source of unscrupulous behaviour (Ps 73:8-12). The only permissible way of elevating soul is to lift it up to the Most High himself (Ps 25:1). Soul descends into the depths of the vault through oppression (Ps 44:26), illness or sin (cf. Ps 16:10). But it can also be self-humiliation: ‘I bow my soul down in fasting’ (Ps 35:13), ‘I weep from my soul’ (Ps 69:11). It can also be depression. Soul empties itself over self that sustains it: ‘My soul pours itself out within me’ (Jb 30:16). It is so downhearted, it comes down like rain: ‘My soul drips with sorrow’ (Ps 119:28).

110 The Hebrew word ‘go’ literally and figuratively means travelling a road from a starting point to a chosen destination. See F. Helfmeyer, ‘halak’, in: TWAT II (1977), 417-420. 111 R. Hentschke, ‘gabah’, in: TWAT I (1973), 890-895. 112 U. Dahmen, ‘roem’, in: TWAT VII (1993), 425-434.

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Soul can travel sideways and measure the width.113 This journey into the width is prompted by the Lord: ‘From constriction I called on the Lord; the Lord bowed down to me and brought me to the width’ (Ps 118:5). He gives them a wide space under their feet (Ps 18:36). Go into the wide open space and broaden your soul (Is 60:5). Again there is ambivalence. Soul can broaden itself so as to swallow up everything (Is 5:14). Soul can go forth for various reasons: to find a partner (Gn 34:2-3), eating and drinking (Dt 12:15,20), royal sovereignty (2 Sm 3:21), secret council (Gn 49:6). The Lord may draw someone out of himself (Is 26:9). Sometimes soul is bent on destroying the other: ‘Aha! Our soul! (…) Aha! We devour him’ (Ps 35:25). The sad thing is that the malicious soul is after the soul of another person (Ps 35:4). Stepping outside oneself incurs homelessness (cf. Ps 142:4) and nakedness (cf. Ps 141:8). Soul is at risk of being brought low by evil. It is trodden on, trampled into the ground (Ps 147:6), made to bite the dust (Ps 7:5), humbled to the dust (Ps 113:7). It serves only to fertilise the land (Ps 83:10). Above all soul wants to be with the other,114 ‘the one whom my soul loves’ (Song 1:7). The bride in the Song of Solomon movingly portrays what this going forth is about. She rises in the middle of the night to look for the one her soul loves (Song 3:1-2). She asks the watchmen: ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’ (Song 3:3). Finally she finds her soul’s beloved (Song 3:4). Yearn- ingly soul steps out of herself and goes out to her beloved to be met by him (Song 5:6). Above all soul seeks God: it thirsts for the Mighty One (Ps 63:1), reaches out to him as a parched, barren land thirsts for water (Ps 143:6), its entire longing is fixed on him (Ps 33:20). It lifts itself up to him (Ps 25:1) and clings to him (Ps 63:8), takes refuge in him (Ps 57,1), exults with joy in him (Ps 34:2), rejoices and glories in him (Ps 35:9), indeed, it lives in him (Ps 119:175). It loves him (Dt 4:29). Scripture refers to being with the other as personal contact, fellowship, inti- macy. One proverb says: ‘Without feeling things don’t go well with the soul; he who rushes by on his feet misses the way’ (Prv 19:2). Feeling characterises not only intercourse between man and wife (Gn 4:1), but all family ties (cf. Ru 2:1). Feeling is familiarity, such as experienced sailors have with the sea (1 Kgs 9:27) and a zither player who knows his instrument inside out (1 Sm 16:16,18; cf. 1 Kgs 5:20). The flipside of such empathic association is rushing by on one’s feet: blindly forging ahead and missing the way. The love between Jonathan and David illustrates what feeling means to soul: ‘The soul of

113 R. Bartelmus, ‘rachab’, in: TWAT VII (1993), 449-460. 114 Westermann, ‘nefesj’, 82.

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Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. Jonathan loved him as his own soul. (…) Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, as well as his armour, even his sword, bow and girdle’ (1 Sm 18:1-4). Jonathan’s clothes symbolise soul as a personal existential sphere. Giving one’s clothes to someone means giving him one’s soul and inviting him into it. He loves the other ‘as his own soul’. Loving someone ‘with the love of one’s soul’ (1 Sm 20:17) is to admit the other into oneself so intimately that he is oneself, and vice versa: feeling uncon- ditionally at home with the other. How this attachment of soul operates in relation to God is evident in Psalm 63. It starts with God’s absence: ‘My soul thirsts for you, my flesh pants for you in an arid, weary land without water’ (Ps 63:1). This longing that extends ever further as all supports collapse ultimately reaches its limit (see Ps 84:2), but soul keeps hankering. And ‘so I beheld you’ (Ps 63:2). Exceeding one’s own perspective is the precondition for theophany – God who can now be welcomed as a blessing and food for soul: ‘So I will bless you all my life. (…) My soul feasts on marrow and fat’ (Ps 63:4- 5; cf. Is 53:11). The centre of soul’s life has shifted to the you-pole: ‘My soul clings to you, your right hand holds me’ (Ps 63:8; cf. Gn 32:30).

5. SYNOPSIS

The story of the soul is amazing. Whilst we are tying ourselves down to relationships, learning processes and care practices, soul pulls us from within into a wide space and a yearning that cannot be filled or fulfilled. Yet we cannot do without each other. We want to be who we are and know our identity; at the same time we are not totally satisfied and reach further – often not knowing for what. In caregiving we know a little of what we are. When we learn we get to know a bit of ourselves. When we work we actualise a small part of ourselves. And that is as well, for otherwise we would evaporate and vanish. At the same time something inside us keeps everything open and is not content with any achieve- ment. Looking back on our explorations of spirituality in education, care and work it is remarkable how much attention we devoted to the qualities of the teacher, the competencies of the nurse and the input of workers. Sometimes it positively buzzes with competencies and expertise, skills and values, motivations and humaneness. Much of wellbeing has to do with these. But fortunately the infinite width of soul also features here and there in the preceding pages: in the teacher’s inner space, the unassuageable humaneness of care and the other’s wellbeing in the workplace.

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Soul is a bird (Ps 11). It traverses the boundless expanse of the heavens, free and sovereign. It searches space, wants to breathe and move freely. It looks for God. That is its delight. But sometimes it has to fold its wings and settle in its nest, to feel secure, know where it belongs and how things must be. That, too, is its happiness. But never for long.

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