Food and Belonging
From a talk given to a newly formed men’s group
Inner work doesn’t work without a group. We should be as intentional as we can about this. Of course it’s also said, “No one can do the work for you.” But these things go together.
Jesus Christ himself formed a group, as it were, and in any real working group we are like disciples coming together. As we’re told, where two or three are gathered, there I Am also. So the possibility here is very high indeed. We’re talking about creating a container—something magnetic—something larger than ourselves: a container that not only makes possible but actually attracts the Higher, the Holy, the Presence of God. We can share that aim, this possibility.
Group work capitalizes on shared aim. There were twelve disciples and they had ten times that many opinions and bickered constantly. But they shared an aim to be with this teacher. The shared aim of a group is in some ways, very simple to arrive at. We share an aim now simply by virtue of the fact that we’ve taken time out of our complicated lives to be here, now, together. That sacrifice of time and intention to be present to one another already constitutes a shared aim, even though we don’t know one another that well. And at a deeper level we know each other very well, as brothers who share in this spiritual search. We have this possibility to deepen things, to both rely on and uplift one another at the same time.
Periodically, during the week, we will vividly represent each member of the group. I will visualize them clearly, even see the environment they are in. The mess on your desk; the organized books in your background; the painting above your mantel. Each of us will look, see into that environment and representing this person within it, send our good wish for them. Our wish for their good. This is something like prayer, but very concrete, a form of energetic maintenance.
If each of us does that for each of the others, we draw lines in a constellation connecting one point to every other point. This is of primary importance to strengthening into real Group, into which a higher intelligence, a finer energy, can flow and move. And because we are all parts of this larger body, we’re all included in the results of our effort. Let no man think of himself more highly than he ought. Or less of himself, it’s the same. Warming at one point in the network, warms the Whole.
Because we share a common aim, and are under a common influence, we have great reason for hope in our adventuring together. For being knuckleheads in the same boat.
So, taking an intentional posture, in right relationship to the space that I’m in, I stop now and set an intention. Like lighting a candle. I wish to be clean and open, that a finer holy energy can flow through. There’s a possibility where two or three are gathered, of an energetic field opening. The possibility of a higher presence, a higher intelligence. And the further I relax, the better I can allow this finer energy. There’s no tension returned to the face. I’m present to each of you. And there is Higher also. We can call it Holy Spirit, that which is in and through all things. I decontract at a fundamental level to allow more of this indwelling.
This is belonging. This is bread, food. We make an embodied prayer. I ask the Lord to dwell within, to build a Home.