Creative Contemplative Leadership
by Ann Dean
Mary Oliver's poem "Goldenrod" includes the phrases "glittering pandemonium" and "the pure peace of giving one's gold away," which describe my experience of creative, contemplative leadership so well.
To be a contemplative leader, one must be intentionally living at the center so that leadership flows from within. An ancient mystic, Empedocles, said, "God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." Contemplative leadership is dependent on a deep desire for spaciousness, flexibility, and openness to the True Leader, the Spirit. It is creative, compassionate and collaborative.
Emerging from a deep awareness of multiple dimensions of reality, contemplative leadership becomes social artistry: imaginative, free, and illuminating. Prayerful and discerning, creativity is the agent of present-moment possibilities for shalom.
Let me begin my thoughts on creativity with a look at one of the dimensions of reality to which we normally have an aversion: darkness. Darkness and creativity are deeply interconnected.
The Hebrew Scriptures open with that connection:
In the beginning...Earth was formless and empty, darkness
was over the surface of the deep, and
the Spirit of God was hovering... (Genesis 1:1-2)
The biblical story of creation describes a Divine Presence "hovering" like a great mother bird over a formless, chaotic void. Yahweh's spirit was the animating force creating form, breathing life into it. The Genesis story emphasizes the possibilities of darkness. In the beginning, empty darkness held the fullness of potential. "Darkness was over the surface of the deep." Out of the darkness, the Hovering One formed creation, and all that came into being was inspirited.
This is the mystical heart of cosmology. Holy creativity requires darkness. In the contemplative tradition it is the apophatic way. It is the way of befriending depth, of going home to the place of deepest mystery and truth-into the dark, away from the light. New beginnings emerge there, but they first require letting go of old forms, detachment from what is known or familiar, and waiting in the dark womb for the knowledge of unknowing.
Darkness and creativity go together. I learned about the science of this when studying cosmology a few years ago at the University of Creation Spirituality. If you take any space-for example, when you cup your hands together-and remove all the atomic and subatomic particles, as well as the radiation energy of invisible particles of light, nothing remains but a vacuum, or emptiness. Yet quantum physicists have investigated that vacuum and shown that there, precisely there in that emptiness, new particles come into existence.
Meister Eckhart speaks of dwelling with Unnamable Mystery as nowhere and nothing. In the mystical tradition it is often named the dark night of the soul, the oscura noche John of the Cross described. Psychologically, the dark night can be confused with depression because there is confusion and lack of control as one flounders in emptiness, or negativity. Certainly there is vulnerability. But I believe that much of the negativity today is not depression. Rather, it is the dark night of Mystery in which the Creating One's originating power is manifesting in hidden ways. It is evident in many of the people I have the privilege to companion on retreats, in spiritual direction and counseling. Lured by the Beloved to trust in the deep hidden silence of darkness, the autonomous self, which an era of individualism has promoted, can be transformed. A unitive, creative consciousness is given.
A friend told me about meeting a humble Benedictine sister visiting from Mexico City, who said to pray "Our Father..." is to pray knowing that we are all sisters and brothers sharing one house-that house is the planet Earth and our house is coming apart through floods and other global warming problems. Neil Douglas-Klotz, reflecting on the many-layered meanings of that Aramaic prayer, says:
O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos...In the roar and the whisper,
in the breeze and the whirlwind, we
hear your Name.
Radiant One: You shine within us,
outside us-even darkness shines when
we remember...
Create your reign of unity now-
through our fiery hearts
and willing hands...
Your rule springs into existence
as our arms reach out to
embrace all creation.
Come into the bedroom of our hearts,
prepare us for the marriage of
power and beauty.
From this divine union, let us birth
new images for a new world
of peace.
Create your reign of unity now!
One of the images that I like to pray with is of a watered garden, from Isaiah 58. To be an unfailing spring of water would fulfill my deepest longing to be unfailingly linked to the divine Wellspring. To be a watered garden would be to have a life with many areas and purposes, all dependent on, and continually relating to, the Source of Living Water. The medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen experienced that ever-watering Source this way: "I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life. I am the yearning for good."
Since the living water of God's empowering love, yearning for good, is faithful and trustworthy, what I am really praying for, of course, is my own availability-receptive and responsive-for a contemplative stance in the garden.
Contemplation is often defined as simple open presence, continually renewed immediacy, and direct awareness of what is. These are good phrases which describe our intent. Yet when we take the adjective "contemplative" and put it with something else, in this case "leadership," does anything change? I think it does. The noun "leadership" takes on new definition. It is reinvented from the inside out; we become active, present-moment agents of another creative Mind. God's vision breaks through and finds expression because the divine Wellspring is flooding the territory. Our inner and outer realities are in alignment. Suddenly the realm of God is at hand in the situation of the moment, being realized through alternative, creative Spirit-led leadership. This is sacred activism.
Authentic, contemplative leadership is always embracing hope because it is co-participating with the Source of all hope. Hope is on the prowl-ever-creating, offering and nourishing seeds of possibility through us which will one day bring wholeness and harmony, peace and justice, to all creation. God's dream of shalom comes closer as we respond. Now these are profound words describing our core theology. The question is, do I, do you, believe it? Does it fit our experience?
My own heart kneels in awe and utter humility. And isn't awe itself a creative pathway of transformation? Sudden new beginnings grip the heart. There is a fresh falling in love with patterns of possibilities for this time of planetary peril. That falling touches a deeper power which can become a force for repairing the world.
It is wondrous, and sometimes terrifying, too, that the Birther, the Beloved Creating Energy of the Universe trusts us to share this creative work. In Christianity, this is part of what is meant by putting on the mind of Christ. Put another way: sharing the mind of the Cosmic Christ-the one through whom and for whom the whole Universe has been created, the one in whom all things are held together.
We are made to express that mind, the insights and guidance of unitive contemplative awareness, according to our gifts and calling in the immediacy of the present moment. That is radical creativity, rooted in holy Wisdom. It shimmers with the vision of shalom, and co-creates with the Beloved in the healing of the world. That is why creativity is a core component of contemplative leadership.
Some would argue, "I'm not a leader!" I think we need to expand our understanding of leadership. Everyone is a leader at the point of his or her gifts. I am a leader at the point of my gifts and a follower at the point of yours. Community is essential for evoking, confirming and celebrating every person's gifts. All are needed.
Leadership may be momentary or ongoing. Creative, contemplative leadership may take the form of a question or pause, as is so often experienced in spiritual direction. It may take the form of a new idea or different direction, as in leading a retreat or any meeting. Or it may be simply offering a different way of being together to listen for wisdom.
We can open the door for creativity by letting go of grasping agendas; valuing silence; welcoming fears; and encouraging imagination. Peter Senge, MIT guru of corporate process and business planning, writes of the necessity of letting go and listening for wisdom. He calls it presencing. Probably every one of us has had the experience of being guided by the presence of wisdom in the moment, making one or more of these suggestions, then being surprised at suddenly being in a position of "leadership" because authority is intuitively recognized by others. Another Author, the true Leader, is present and active, co-creating.
How could our leadership be truly transformative if it is not grounded in a unitive consciousness, the realm of ultimate creativity? How could our contemplative leadership, then, be anything but creative?
Creativity, at the deepest level, is holiness. Therein lies our hope that humankind and Earth will move forward together in a mutually enhancing way, with the Radiant One whose dreams emerge from the sacred dark. It is our task, and our unutterable joy, to further those divine dreams through our creative, contemplative leadership.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Douglas-Klotz, Neil. Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
Eliot. T.S. Collected Poems 1909-1962. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963.
Fox, Matthew. Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet. New York: Tarcher, 2002.
Hildegard of Bingen. Illuminations. Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co., 1985.
Kelly, Thomas. Testament of Devotion. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1941.
Loder, Ted. Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle. Minneapolis MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1984.
Oliver, Mary. New and Selected Poems. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1992.
O'Donohue, John. Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.
Senge, Peter, et al. Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society. New York: Random House, 2004.
Uhlein, Gabriel. Meditations with Hildegard of Bingen. Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co., 1982.