Reflections
LESSONS LEARNED BY A TEACHER
By Sarah Stockton
Can the Spirituality of Work be taught? We found an interesting article from a 2005 edition of the newsletter from our friends at Faith At Work, that addresses that issue.
Lessons Learned by a Teacher
By Sarah Stockton
I teach a university course called Spirituality at Work. My students are all working professionals, holding full-time jobs in challenging careers. Most of them also have families and other responsibilities. Yet they have dedicated themselves to earning a bachelor’s degree— which says something about their motivation and something about how busy they are, as well. Their job descriptions range from internet technology (IT) administrators to corporate managers, to healthcare providers. Their day jobs are firmly embedded in the secular culture, and I can tell from our discussions that these students are successful, competent, and generally interested in their work. Yet they have all been surprised at the way spiritual practices and values can be integrated into their working lives, despite the fact that they attend a Catholic university. I guess I had expected a more informal —if you will— co-mingling of faith and work on their part— an assumption that all areas of our lives are open to the spirit. Yet while these students have a strong understanding of ethics and social justice issues in the workplace, they tend to connect with their own personal, spiritual identity and practices only while at home or in their churches —not in their offices. Fortunately, the material we read and the discussions that ensue, help change that.
When I worked at a public university a few years ago, conversations about the spiritual life might take place in the faculty/staff dining room, but not in a classroom or an administrative office. So I was glad that at USF I had the freedom to propose a course that directly addressed the integration of spirit and work, without having to defend or justify the topic of spirituality to the curriculum committee.
This spring we began the course by reading and discussing Spirituality @ Work (Loyola Press, 2001) by Gregory F.A. Pierce, then some excerpts from a new book by Rev. Whitney Roberson, called Life and Livelihood (Morehouse Publishing, 2004). We also visited several websites devoted to the same topic from the perspectives of various faith traditions. We discussed the differences between modeling one’s spiritual values and evangelizing in the workplace, and the issues surrounding questions of religious pluralism, personal ethics, and vocation. The most interesting insights concerned the concept of “calling.” While some students explored feeling called to working in a certain profession with obvious religious aspects such as direct care for the underprivileged, others felt called to working in a certain way, i.e. embodying and modeling their own spiritual values in every aspect of their work, regardless of the particular profession they are in or may find themselves in, in the future. After all, as one student pointed out, the spiritual life doesn’t baulk at job titles or descriptions of duties. Nor does it stop at the border of the kinds of work we all would accept as being “spiritual” in nature, such as religious life, the helping professions, or missionary work. To help my students see that their work as an accountant or a technical support person held as much potential for spiritual practice and spiritual fulfillment as someone who worked as, for instance, a hospice nurse, was an outcome of the course I hadn’t necessarily expected, but I certainly welcomed it.
In my own chosen profession as a writer, I can easily pinpoint the intersection between my spiritual identity and work. After all, I write books about spirituality; I teach a course on spirituality; I work as a spiritual director. My latest book, A Pen and a Path, invites people into a deeper connection with God through the spiritual practice of writing. Writing a book about writing as a spiritual practice gave me the incredible gift of being able to completely focus on my own calling. So many of us who work in the field of religion and spirituality are blessed to enjoy this kind of immersion in our calling; we don’t have to reach very far to make a connection between work and spirit. If anything, we can run the risk of becoming immune to the very meaning our work, caught up instead in the day-to-day details of schedules, tasks, and responsibilities. Yet I learn from my working-world, corporate life students every day how I can better extend my own spiritual practices into every corner of my working life, from the way I interact with editors, to the role I play as a workshop leader or teacher. They have taught me that vocation transcends the duties, the title, or the monetary rewards of a working life. As I tech my students, so they teach me, how we are all called into a deeper spiritual connection amidst the daily grind and joy that makes up a working life.
Sarah Stockton MA (Education) is an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Francisco, where she teaches in the College of Professional Studies. She offers workshops in the creative process, both online and in person. Sarah received her training as a spiritual director from the Spiritual Director’s Institute at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA. She is a member of the Spiritual Director’s Institute International, and has received basic and advanced training in creativity coaching. She maintains her own website at www.centeredpath.com. Sarah can be reached at sarahstockton@centeredpath.com.
This article was reprinted with permission from the author and Faith At Work, Inc. www.FaithatWork.com.
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