Tom Bushlack, PhD, Senior Director of the Center of Theology & Ethics in Catholic Health, joins Inside Out to discuss how his spirituality impacts those he works with and the difference between spiritual practice in the left and right sides of the brain. Producer's Note: At the time of recording, Bushlack served as the Vice President of Mission and Formation at Mercy in St. Louis, Mo.
Darren Henson (00:13):
Hi, I'm Darren Henson, and this is Inside Out a podcast series by the Catholic Health Association on the Inner life and spirituality of Leaders across the healing ministry. I'm joined today by Tom Bushlack, Vice President of Mission and Formation at Mercy. And soon to be at CHA,y the time many of the folks will hear this episode of Inside Out, Tom, you'll probably be in your new role at CHA at the Theology and Ethics Center. Yet we started these plans several months back while you've been with your current role leading formation at Mercy. And really the beauty of these conversations is that the inner life or the spiritual life of executive leaders across the Catholic health ministry goes far beyond just our professional titles, our professional accomplishments, as important and interesting as those are. We want to dive into and explore other dimensions that sometimes are unseen, overlooked, or perhaps more frequently or less fluently discussed amongst us as leaders in Catholic healthcare. And so, to start, Tom, I maybe would just begin with what does spirituality mean to you, if that's even a word that you use and associate with your own self?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (01:33):
Yeah. I'm glad you picked a light topic to start with that's easy to discuss. No, I have really enjoyed, appreciated, used Ronald Rolheiser's approach to defining or thinking about spirituality. And it doesn't immediately go to theology or even religion at Cannes, but he talks about how spirituality is essentially what do we do with our spirit, our life energy, that life force that we all have. We all have it. And then our spirituality is determined by how and where we choose to direct that in different ways. And he actually goes so far as to say it's closely tied to that what the Greeks would've called Eros. That for him, and I agree, is not just sexual energy. It's this sort of life force that we all can tap into. And so, he would say, and I agree, that we all have a spirituality whether we would use that term or not, and what we choose to do with our life is what determines that spirituality. So, for some people, that is going to explicitly go into the realm of religion or theology, but even somebody who would self-proclaim to be an atheist still has a spirituality. We all make choices and we all have relationships with people. And so, where we choose to put that energy to me is what defines our spirituality.
Darren Henson (03:02):
Yeah. Wow. Rolheiser, I'm sure, has touched many people's lives that might be listening to this. Even for myself, I remember years ago that classic book that he wrote, The Holy Long -
Tom Bushlack, PhD (03:14):
The Holy Longing. Yeah.
Darren Henson (03:15):
Yeah. It was just really critical of identifying, boy, we all have this longing within us... maybe similar to what you're talking about, this life force that can be life giving to us, but also kind of that sense of wanting more, seeking more longing for a greater sense of fulfillment, a greater sense of purpose, longing for something larger than myself.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (03:40):
And you brought out a piece that I didn't mention is that desire and longing, that there's always something more and there's something essential about that that drives us on the path for spiritual, whatever you want to call it, fulfillment or connection. And that connection can be directed towards God to something bigger than ourselves, and it drives us towards our human relationships and how we connect with family, with friends, and with community. So again, that can take explicitly religious forms. I use part of Rolheiser's work in our advanced formation program for our most senior leaders.
Darren Henson:
How so?
Tom Bushlack, PhD:
Well, I have them read the opening part of his book where he describes all of this. But what I love about it, and I do love using it a lot, is the reason I brought it in into the curriculum when we redesigned that program was I think many of our leaders do come with their own confirmed or commitment to a spiritual tradition or practice, but some people don't always.
(04:54):
They come into the ministry because of certain skill sets that maybe have nothing to do directly in their mind with the fact that we are a ministry or the spirituality of leadership. So I want to introduce people to that in a way that is invitational and gentle and feels aligned with wherever they come from. And so starting from that notion of like, well, we all long for something more, we all have desires, we all have energy. And so it sort of levels the playing field and opens up the possibility of, oh, I could learn from formation even if I'm not say Catholic and or Christian. And then I can develop that in different directions based on ways that are aligned with my own spirituality, even if I've never used that term before.
(05:44):
But the other piece I love about it is that I didn't see this coming because I just read Rolheiser and totally agreed with him, but I've been formed by similar traditions as he has. So it made intuitive sense to me. But what I found actually in using it in formation programs is that I got a lot of pushback, not just me, but the facilitators for advanced formation. And the first couple of times I went through it with some of our leaders, I thought, well, maybe we should change this. But now I'm like, no. The fact that they're reacting against it means that they're engaged, it's touching on something, and it's giving them thinking and feeling about where they come from. And so in that regard, I think it works great.
(06:24):
Now I have fun with it because as a facilitator, a coordinator, or in my other hats as an educator, there's nothing worse than somebody not engaging. I'd rather have somebody vehemently disagree with me than sit there and not react.
Darren Henson (06:42):
Right?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (06:43):
Right.
Darren Henson (06:44):
So it's hard to go. It's good, but it's also, as you're saying, can be prickly to go back to some of the ancient Greek understandings of things because their whole view of the world of the cosmos where so much is interconnected.
(07:00):
That as you stated earlier, it's this perhaps sense of energy way deep down, that then gets expressed in all sorts of ways in physical ways through our own bodies, through the activities that we do, whether it's gardening or running or fitness or knitting or baking. I mean, there's just all sorts of ways in which we direct our energy. And what you're saying too is that spirituality is yet another way through which we tap into, and then perhaps I'm reading into this a bit, but intentionally directing some of our own energy in, let's say, a mindful, deliberate way.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (07:43):
You're not reading into it. You're going exactly where we go. And this is why I love using it, because it sets it up for them. Now that you're in formation or doing formation in a program, let's say, at work like we're doing in health care within a ministry setting, now it opens the question, how have I been using that energy? How do I want to use that energy? Are those two aligned? And if not, what do I want to do about it? And giving people the tools like mindfulness and self-awareness and some of the other things that we also introduce in formation, to have those tools to bring some greater attention and control is too strong of a word, maybe intention and desire to move that in particular ways.
Darren Henson (08:33):
What's been the feedback from folks after you take them through some of that journey of reflecting on their own inner energies, if you will, their spirituality and how then once you help them to see that no, this is probably at play in your own leadership in moral decision making that we're doing perhaps every day all the time. To some degree, as one of our forebearers in Catholic health care used to say, there are no ethics free zones. That's true. So, our leaders are making decisions talking about strategy that have moral implications to it. And you're saying their own inner spirituality, whether they recognize it or not, hopefully they are recognizing it has something to do with the way that decisions are being had in the systems.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (09:24):
Yeah.
Darren Henson (09:25):
How have you seen their reaction after the fact? Have there been light bulb moments?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (09:31):
That's what I'm thinking of is those light bulb moments that people have come back to. And again, you keep going exactly to the next step of where we've actually intentionally designed the curriculum of our programs to move towards. Because I think, and I'm talking particularly here about say, non-mission leaders or people who haven't studied theology or maybe don't have that kind of broad humanities background, you were talking about that exposure to Greek forms of thinking or things like that. If we just wander into formation and start talking about Greek understandings of eros, I mean, operational leaders are going to, not only are they going to shut down, they're going to kick me out of the room. But we can bring those things in and have those "aha” moments where people start to understand, oh, that's an important piece of what we do, and make that connection into how I am showing up as a leader and as a coworker in this ministry is impacting all of those things.
(10:37):
So then we get, I think, the funnest part of my job is as a formulator is to bring those questions in, but in a way that isn't just like, Hey, let's talk about Aristotle. What are you wrestling with? And then start to draw those connections so the light bulb moments go off and say, oh, this actually does matter how I tend to my spirit. My spirituality matters for how I show up with my team. It matters for the decisions that we make. It matters for how well we function together. And even on the things that the operators really care about, it matters for the results, it matters for the numbers, it matters for the outcomes. And ultimately, if we're doing our formation well, they can make the connection between all of that to, it matters for the patient, it matters to the family, and it matters for our coworkers. When we talk about justice, we talk about, well, what's owed to the patient and the family and the community, but also what is owed to each other as coworkers? And I don't need to overstate the obvious, that burnout and overwhelm and stress is a huge challenge facing healthcare, not just Catholic health care, but health care in the United States.
(11:57):
So I have found that the more we bring that in as well as a touchpoint, the more ears perk up and they start to think, oh, theology, ethics has something to contribute here. Even if I'm a hardcore numbers person, that matters because people who aren't well make bad decisions, and that affects everything.
Darren Henson (12:19):
Yeah. Tom, I'm really curious. You have a lot of energy and excitement over just this topic, you're spirituality, and I'm wondering where did that come from for you? You mentioned family earlier, spirituality can impact family, and in your upbringing in your younger years, was there some exposure to spirituality or was there something that maybe was a touchstone for you?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (12:46):
Yeah. Well, even the idea that spirituality could be separate from religion came later. I grew up in a very, very traditional Catholic, Polish-Catholic, family and rural Minnesota. The original family farm that was homesteaded in the 1800s, it's still there. And my family, some of my cousins are still farming that land to this day, which is really cool, neat. Got to take my kids back there recently and visit and see their roots or as we say in Minnesota, their roots. So that was very much a part all the, I mean, if you can think of a traditional Catholic practice, fish fries on Friday and Lent. I mean, my dad still talked about the pre-Vatican II days of no meat on Fridays ever. And so that was the rhythm of our family. Life was very tied up in the liturgical calendar and season, and church and school was the main focus for community. In addition to family and friends, I also was exposed to what I can see as some of the pieces that have created challenges for me as an adult and wanting to cultivate a mature adult spirituality.
(14:15):
Some of the, what I would call the sort of bean counting of sins, the overly active conscience against myself being overly self-critical and hypervigilant about making mistakes. And despite the many ways all of my family showed love, I'm not blaming anybody. It's just the tradition that we've inherited can include elements of this sort of angry God who's just lurking around the corner waiting for us to make a mistake and make us feel bad about it. And I've had real struggles with that, that have manifested in anxiety and depression and struggles. So I think that's important that we recognize that and talk about it.
Darren Henson (15:03):
Yeah. I don't know what you think about this, but for me, I see it kind of as having done a little bit of music when I was younger, starting with piano, and then I took up saxophone and did that for a number of years. But in music, you kind of have to learn the scales. You have to learn, and there's just certain tasks or drills that you have to do. Or if you're a sports player, you have to do dribbling drills and you have to do certain movement drills to learn how to move this way and then move that way. But then at some point you kind of have to go beyond that in order to play a beautiful piano concerto or something. You have to go beyond just the scales and the arpeggios and the different rudimentary pieces that are there. And then eventually, if you want to be a jazz player, you have to learn how to improvise. You have to learn how to take these things, but then play with it, if you will, in a way that makes sense in that context. And I wonder if that's kind of what you're talking about in the spiritual life. For a lot of folks, like you said, we maybe grew up with particular religious traditions that had very prescribed practices, and there's something good and wonderful about those things. But what happens is we get so latched onto the practice that we forget the bigger reason as to why we're doing this practice
(16:40):
Or what it's leading to or what it might even open me up to. We forget about what I would call, and thanks to another forebearer of ours in some ways, Andy Greeley of referring to the Catholic imagination. Well, we forget that there's a whole imagination behind these practices that we've done, and at some point we have to outgrow the particular, I think why we fast on certain days, I still maybe do that, but I can do that with a sense of freedom now.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (17:15):
Yeah. Oh, what a beautiful metaphor. So to quote from our Buddhist friends, the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. So the whole purpose of all those things that we teach our kids, and I taught my kids forms of prayer, forms of fasting, whatever the case might be... we need structure. We need practices. I really love your metaphor of music or sports because no one would ever say, go be Michael Jordan, but you don't need to worry about practicing how to dribble or shooting free throws or going to the weight room. It would be absurd and similar to draw it back to formation, what we then introduce after this sort of broad concept of spirituality. It's like, oh, now we're going to introduce you to some practices from the tradition. We're going to introduce you to some traditional forms of prayer. We're going to introduce you to some contemplative forms of prayer, meditation, mindfulness, other types of journaling, writing, other types of reflective practices. And the goal is to get a taste and develop something that works for you and eventually to play with it on your own. And that's just a beautiful metaphor for how we cultivate a mature spirituality.
Darren Henson (18:42):
Yeah.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (18:43):
So yeah, I'm going to use that now.
Darren Henson (18:45):
Oh, thanks.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (18:46):
Yeah, thank you.
Darren Henson (18:47):
Feel free anytime. What are some of your practices?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (18:54):
Yeah, they are sort of evolving. I had what I would consider the very traditional things that I learned. We prayed the rosary every night before bed and memorized the prayers and things like that. And then in college, I went to a Benedictine college for undergraduate, and we had monks living in the dorms with us, and I got to know some of them. And we had sisters at St. Benedict's, and so I learned centering prayer and Lectio Divina very early. So centering prayer is a form of contemplative prayer that has ancient roots in the tradition but has been sort of developed since that ‘70s or '80s into a practice that could be a doorway into contemplative prayer and silence for people who are not in a monastery. And it's been intentionally developed in that way as a very simple method that anyone can learn.
(19:56):
And then Lectio Divina is an ancient monastic way of praying with scripture. So, it's a Latin phrase, Lectio for reading. Divina meaning sacred or holy. So, it's like sacred reading. It's a way of slowly meditatively reading with scripture and not in a way to gain knowledge or facts, but to really reflect on this understanding that in the Christian tradition, the word of God is it's alive. We can study it with our rational minds. And we do that in academic scripture studies, but we can also literally, and some of the monastic authors talk about chewing and digesting the word of God and taking it into ourselves just like food and assimilating it into our bodies and into our spirits and into our minds. So, I was fortunate to learn some of those practices in college and have kept with center prayer. I was also fortunate that the same monk who introduced me to many of these things gave me a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh's, beautiful, incredible book, The Miracle of Mindfulness and Thich Nhat Hanh as a Vietnamese Buddhist teacher. And I still tell people to read that book. So, I've always been deeply rooted in the tradition that I grew up in and informed by and have appreciated input from the world's great traditions and teachers.
Darren Henson (21:22):
Yeah. You said something really important I think, Tom, that in the tradition for example of Lectio Divina, the individual, you are reading the scriptures, the sacred scriptures, whether it's the gospels, whether it's the Hebrew scriptures, but you're not doing it for an intellectual reason per se. And so much of our world today, and especially in healthcare, it ought to be informed by deep knowledge and the mind and the rational side of our mind. And yet these spiritual practices tap into another part of us. And so what you said, the scriptures are a living word, and when you're in Lectio Divina, my understanding is you're opening yourself up to see what part of this word is going to speak to me right now and really trusting that, not necessarily the mind, but more so the heart -
Tom Bushlack, PhD (22:23):
Heart, yes.
Darren Henson (22:23):
... will gravitate towards something in that reading and then you just kind sit with it and observe yourself or just see what comes up. Or is that kind of what her experience is like with Lectio Divina and or centering prayer?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (22:38):
Yes. And oh boy, there's so many pieces I want to capture. And what you just said, you touched on so much that's important, and there is a kind of a structure, but I always say it's a loose structure for Lectio because it's not meant to be in a container. But to the extent that there is a structure, it often ends with now based on what I've heard and I say hearing at the deep level as the proverbs talk about listening with the ear of the heart, listening at a very deep embodied spiritual level, then where do I feel called to act at the end of that process?
(23:20):
And then of course that brings you into the realm of discernment. And we actually spend time in formation talking about, I like to think of decision making, strategic decisionmaking and discernment as a Venn diagram. They each have their own sphere. They're not the same thing, but there is this part in the middle that overlaps, and that's where spirituality of leadership becomes really key. We might want to come back to that one. There's a couple other things you said that I don't want to miss. You reminded me, you used the word integration and you reminded me of another piece that Rolheiser talks about, which is the choice about what to do with that life energy can lead towards integration and health, or it can lead towards disintegration and lack of health. And then another piece that you touched upon that I think is really important is there's an integration that happens by bringing, the other piece I love about doing formation with these leaders is they are so smart.
(24:22):
These are wicked smart people who know things about finance and healthcare and data management that I will never in my wildest dreams understand. And they're super smart and they care about people and they care about the work that we're doing. And so you've got that substrate to work with, right? It's amazing. And now you start bringing this stuff in about integration. So we're also looking then at kind of a broadly understood how do we integrate what we typically think of as the left and the right hemispheres of our brains and our nervous systems? I sometimes have this image of we're all walking around with our heads dragging to the left. Our left brain is so overdeveloped, our rational critical thinking mind is so overdeveloped. But some of the research that's been done out there, like Antonio Damasio is a brain scientist who studied people who have had different parts of their brain destroyed and accidents and things like that.
(25:22):
And they can prove that if you lose parts of your right brain that we don't typically think of as having to do with critical thinking, you lose your capacity for thinking too. We need both. And so I think of a lot of what we do by cultivating a leadership spirituality is bringing greater balance and integration to that right brain, left brain type of thinking. At the end of the day, I think the dichotomy is, it's important, but it's not as strong as we think it is when you get to that level of integration. But when you're first coming into it and all you've been exposed to perhaps, or most of what you've been exposed to has been kind of the hypercritical rational left brain type thing, the right can seem scary foreign, even something that we should avoid at first or fear. But then once you start to realize like, oh, this actually brings me together into the wholeness of who God created me to be, and then both for me individually, but we also know that brains can't develop outside of relationship and community. Now you're unlocking a kind of synergy that I think is an extremely valuable skill for leaders.
(26:41):
In any field. But of course Catholic healthcare in particular.
Darren Henson (26:45):
So when you talk about the right side of the brain, usually that's my sense is it's creative, it's spontaneous, it's much less calculating, if you will, in part because some other folks, like Carl Jung would say, the left brain is more of our egoic, our egoic side, and what sum of term the right brain might be more like our deeper, more authentic self wants to come forward. But that left brain gets in the way because it wants it to be linear, strategic, it wants to put its best foot forward, if you will, and always look good. I don't know if any of that resonates.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (27:28):
It did. And what it brought me back to was you had asked about emotional intelligence.
Darren Henson (27:33):
Yeah.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (27:34):
And you're right, that's a big topic or there a lot of trainings on that. And so I think that's where I want to start.
Darren Henson (27:42):
Yeah. What's the connection between this idea of emotional intelligence and spirituality?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (27:48):
I think that emotional intelligence is one component of what I would think of as that broader integration of right brain and left brain. Because it's true that the right brain tends to be a little more connected to the embodied sense that we have on a moment-to-moment basis. So emotional intelligence I think is really helpful for, and an essential skill for naming what I'm experiencing as a leader but also being able to see and name what other people are experiencing because a really important point, part of creating psychological safety on teams. And we know that you get more ideas and better ideas generated from your team and better results when you have that sense of safety and people feel seen and heard and respected and supported. So, all of that I think is a big part of it. And I think what you touched upon, and maybe this is where spirituality can go a little bit deeper than say corporate psychology or something, or maybe deeper isn't the right word... but go in a different direction, bingo, to that core of the human person that the ancient Christian monastic authors called the heart, that by which they actually don't when they use that term, yes, they do mean that center core of our being that is physically located in the heart.
(29:19):
They don't see any distinction between that and the brain and their critical thinking faculties for them, the seat of human thought and willing and emotion. Spirituality is in the heart. And so the more we can get into and access that physical part of our being that includes emotions, the more integrated we're going to be able to be. I dunno if that answered your question. I kind of went off.
Darren Henson (29:47):
No, what I was hearing you say is this integration, if you will, between mind and heart and yeah, there's all this neuroscience that's helping us to appreciate this deep integration. And I don’t know about you how you view this, but for me, I think have, at least I have to disavow myself of this sense that, oh, I'm going to get there. I'm going to stay there. That the whole point for me at least of spiritual practices is no, I have to keep practicing and keep growing to then really pay attention to when I might at times perhaps even get a tiny bit closer to an experience like that of integration for myself, first of all as an individual, and then integration with my relationships with my coworkers, my department, with people that I'm sitting across the table with chatting.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (30:55):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. There's no end point. Yeah, there's no perfection, which as a lifelong recovering perfectionist, I have to keep reminding myself of not really, there's no static point to arrive at. And in fact, we wouldn't even want that.
Darren Henson (31:17):
Oh, beautiful. Say more.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (31:18):
Well, if we want to go theological here for a second, if the goal is to grow into union with God, which is the sort of classical way of describing the purpose of the contemplative of life and the Christian tradition, and God is infinite and infinite love. Yes. At what point do you say, I'm now infinite and perfect? You don't right. There's a great little meditation. Well, this is bringing me way back to grad school days, The Life of Moses by Gregory of Nisa, very early church Cappadocian father, theologian. And at the end of that book, he talks about Moses after he dies and receiving the vision of God, but he actually says that Moses' journey continues on for infinity, even after death from this body because God is infinite. But I think maybe to speak a little bit more for myself as a leader, having grown in the last few years, I hope, and I mentioned being a lifelong recovering perfectionist, a one on the Enneagram, if that means anything to folks listening, that perspective is helpful for me because then it's not about showing up and being perfect or getting it right, but it's about always listening.
(32:49):
And I mean, even the great leaders, you go listen to speeches on YouTube from Steve Jobs and everybody in between. It's like most often they talk about their failures as being some of the most important moments in their careers or personal lives, because that's the only way we we ever change course is if we realize the one we're on is at working.
Darren Henson (33:15):
And there's a certain humility to that that I hear in what you're saying. And it seems to me that that humility comes from even this spiritual life. It comes from one's own spiritual practices whereby one can – you, myself - we can recognize more deeply who we are and where and how we want to grow. And as you were just saying, being more like God or growing into and even greater expression of the image and likeness of Christ and God who we reflect
Tom Bushlack, PhD (34:00):
And doing that, and I do emphasize this in formation as well, makes you more you, because I think some people, you've talked about authentic self and genuine desire and drawing that out. I think some people think, well, religious formation is going to make me more like me or what I want you to be, or this executive leader or in a religious context, I have this idealized image of who I think Christ is or should be, and therefore I'm going to try to make you like that. Whereas the real great formators and spiritual directors that I've had in my life and that other people have had don't necessarily have an agenda other than helping you to stay on that path towards authenticity and integration. Now, of course, if you start doing things that are harmful to yourself or others, a good director in that regard is going to name that right and call you back. But they don't have a preset idea that, oh, this is what needs to be the final outcome of that.
Darren Henson (35:07):
Exactly.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (35:08):
Yeah.
Darren Henson (35:08):
Exactly. It's calling us to reflect on, I liked what you said earlier about the spiritual life helps us into a sense of integration, but we also have to reflect and be honest with ourselves of are my actions what I'm doing in life? Is it leading to a sense of disintegration, if you will, or in the Ignatian tradition, that notion of, okay, did this decision lead me to consolation desolation? And to be really honest about that, and then like you said, this is all a journey. So alright, now maybe I take a different approach now.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (35:49):
So important, and this is something that I've taken, it's taken me a long time to learn. And if I had learned it earlier, would've saved me a lot of suffering. Integration is about bringing in the disintegration or what I might call the mistakes or if we want to use traditional language, the sins, it's not about getting rid of them or transcending them and becoming perfect. That would be back to your image of an idealized state that I'm supposed to arrive at. But that's a game changer if we can make that shift. And I'm much easier for me to sit here and talk about it than it is to go do it because there's that constant desire to overcome my faults and instead, and maybe this is why it's so important that our image of God is defined by mercy and forgiveness, that it's about integrating that and loving what is. It's even when I might not want to look at it.
Darren Henson (36:54):
A quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, overly simplified, but, "No mud, no lotus."
Tom Bushlack, PhD (37:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Darren Henson (37:02):
You need the mud, you do. And then from that, the beauty emerges. But Tom, I'm wondering if an approach is to not get rid of it, what do you do with it?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (37:21):
I'm still figuring that one out. I still squirm when I look at it. So apparently it's -
Darren Henson (37:30):
Maybe you just love it. I think you need to bring yourself to it.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (37:33):
You do. And there's a particular, a psychologist who I've been both reading some of her work recently and actually have participated in some of her online courses. And she talks about the paradox of entering into a situation, trying to understand and resonate with either something internal to myself or if it's in a relationship with what's going on with that other person without any desire to change it.
(38:06):
But simply to understand and bring compassion or love. But then the paradox is that when you do that, suddenly you have the freedom to change. It's like, so the answer is like you don't change it, you love it. And then by doing that it changes.
Darren Henson (38:26):
Or you may have the freedom to change or you might notice that you are changed in that process of simply loving it. That's a great way of putting it and bringing compassion to it. You don't have to throw out the mud, but I can begin to love the mud and bring a softness to it because getting rid of it is, it could almost always be a violent act like, oh, you don't belong. No, this is a part of creation. The mud is necessary, for if we get rid of the mud, there literally is no flower like Thich Nhat Hanh says, no mud, no lotus. But how do I then shift perhaps my perception of what this is rather than this is something undesirable. There might be undesirable aspects of either some of my own actions or whatnot, but the love and the compassion might just shift me enough to where then I can more fully become the image and likeness of God to allow my Christ self to come forth more fully rather than this shadow side really taking main stage.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (39:47):
That's beautifully said. It did make sense. And what I particularly appreciated was your recognition that the desire to get rid of it can be a form of violence that we inflict upon ourselves. I think that's where a lot of the spiritual angst that some people experience, myself included, can come from, it can be a form of violence, and this is wrap our arms around something.
(40:20):
And then again, to go back to what all the great spiritual treat teachers and history have said is that all the external forms of violence that we see in the world originate in some form of internal violence. And so if we doing this work is an effort to lessen that violence in the world. Not that we don't have other external work to do alongside of it, but I think if we don't do the internal work, then we just perpetuate the internal, which again, it comes back to leadership. This is why helping leaders cultivate and integrated not perfect, but it integrated spirituality that really radically affects the culture of the organization and how people show up.
Darren Henson (41:13):
I think what I've noticed sometimes in that desire to bring compassion, to bring love to a difficult aspect of myself to a problem, rather than getting rid of it, as we were saying, rather than excising it, throwing it out, what I've learned is sometimes I just have to sit with it and like you said, do nothing perhaps, but just simply observe it, acknowledge it, and not just acknowledge it and move on, but acknowledge it and sit with it. It goes back to what you were describing earlier with the practices of either alexio, Davina or centering prayer. It's almost like a form of a contemplative action to just contemplate in an observational way, whatever this struggle is. And that takes discipline, I mean that takes... and it goes back to what we were talking, a sense of humility of simply allowing it to be. Someone used to say just an old phrase, but name it and tame it.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (42:41):
Yeah. Dan Siegel, I think is who came up with that.
Darren Henson (42:44):
Yeah. And so just acknowledging it and observing it is a way of naming it. And then just by being with it, we will tame our own reaction and our own perceptions of the challenge of the struggle. And in that sense, it might even begin to just a little bit,
Tom Bushlack, PhD (43:10):
And that's a beautiful takeaway for anybody listening, is to just observe if I name this sensation and that's it, and just watch how does it change?
(43:25):
And then what you talked about I think is probably one of the hardest things in the spiritual life, if not the hardest, which is to sit with what I don't want to see anymore, what's painful. And I don't know about... if this is, I speak for myself, I can be motivated by my own desire to no longer suffer. That's a motivation for me. But I don't know if that would be enough for me to keep going. I could be like, you know what? This is hard. This is painful. I think I'm just going to go back and go back to sleep. Take the blue pill from uh...
Darren Henson (44:03):
The Matrix!
Tom Bushlack, PhD (44:03):
From The Matrix. I dunno if it's the blue or the red one, whichever one puts me back in the matrix. But if it's for the people that, if it's for my kids and my parents and my partner and my family and my community, then there's a little bit more to stand on or to be motivated by, to keep going.
Darren Henson (44:26):
I'm really glad that you mentioned the suffering because that was coming to mind for me as we were talking about this. And that often does is a typical session that many of our ministries have in a formation program is this notion of suffering. And then how we understand that from within the tradition, both from a theological intellectual perspective, but also from this level of spirituality. How do we bring a spirituality to the suffering in such a way that helps us to understand it, to integrate it, to maybe ease it at times to help us dance with it, if you will. So I'm glad you named that. Thank you. And I'm really glad that you named community. Say just a little bit more about then spirituality and its relationship to community. What are some of the communities that have fed your spirit?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (45:28):
Yeah, that's an easier question for me to answer than the abstract one.
Darren Henson (45:33):
Exactly.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (45:33):
I mean, it started with what I got from my family and my community that as a child growing up was like we went to Catholic school and the parish, that was the community that was broadened. I think I've been extremely influenced by the Benedictine community and tradition and relationships that I've developed with them over the years. And then it just kind of keeps expanding. So there's the decision we make as adults about what kind of spiritual community we want to belong to, whether that's a church or other form that can take, and it can take a lot of forms actually in the modern world today. Not just traditional mosque, synagogue, church type temple type situations. You asked what ones I've been formed by. It's interesting because each Catholic health care system or ministry has its own community, its own culture and sense and feel. And we're nourished by that in different ways,
(46:48):
And that definitely has been a big part of it. I really have to give a lot of credit and props to the team that I work with currently at Mercy because we were just kind of looking back, it's annual review time for many of us as we record this at the end of the fiscal year. And looking back at, we have a very small formation team for a ministry of 55,000 coworkers and four states, very small, only three full-time people and two part-time people. And we have accomplished a ton in the last year that we celebrating very intentionally recently. And what we recognized was it was that synergy of intentional community that we had come together, and it's three years in of forming this community. We didn't start out doing, and you'd say producing. I'm putting that in air quotes, the same number of things in that first year. And it speaks to the way in which community builds over time. And if there's trust built up in the community that you do get that synergy that the sum is bigger than the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Darren Henson (48:09):
Well, Tom, as we wrap up, maybe just one more question or curiosity. Early on, you started by referencing how you grew up and your family, you mentioned your kids, and here we're talking about community. And in this Catholic tradition, at least the first communities we say, and even our first experience of church is in the home, the domestic church.
(48:36):
But I'm wondering for you, with being a father, how does that impact your own spirituality or how do you bring your spirituality to the reality of being a parent?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (48:49):
I mean, the simple, my first thought is there's no dimension of my being that isn't transformed by becoming a father of three now, thank God. Healthy kids watching their digesting of the tradition that we've introduced them to and the questions that they're asking and the practices that they either are taking up for themselves or maybe wrestling with. That influences my own understanding. And certainly I try to bring a contemplative stance into being a parent.
Darren Henson (49:36):
What does that look like?
Tom Bushlack, PhD (49:37):
Well, I always say that the core, and I didn't come up with this, I'm taking it from lots of other teachers, but the core of the contemplative of life is listening. And there are times as a parent and as a leader, where you just have to make a decision and say, this is what we're doing. But even then, I strive towards that, being informed by listening first. So if we have a major decision for the kids or the family, I guess the big one we're looking at right now is my kids are just getting to that age where they're choosing high schools. And for those of you that don't live in St. Louis listening, they might not know what a big deal that is in St. Louis more than other places. It really, there's a whole -
Darren Henson (50:22):
A lot of parents struggle with that.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (50:23):
That's true. So really listening to what are their desires, what are their movements of their heart, what do they want from it? And then having the practical discussions about all that entails. And at the end of the day, and we said this from the beginning, at the end of the day, we're the parents, we're going to make the decision, but we want to make that decision together and have it be influenced by what is ultimately best for you as the student, child, future career person, person being formed holistically, not just for career, but for being a whole human. So I guess even the fact that we asked that question in that regard is significant. I do have to share one story, it's from a while ago now, but, and I won't say which of my children it was, but temper tantrums that just happens.
(51:22):
There was one time where I was in a room with one of my children having a pretty severe meltdown, and it's clear that talking isn't going to work until the person calms down. And I actually just sat in the corner and sat as if I were sitting to do my centering prayer and closed my eyes and went into the practice. And it was fascinating. Eventually it took a while, but eventually this child came and sat in my lap and I did nothing. And that was a one-time thing, and maybe I got lucky, but it was pretty remarkable. And then we were able to process it. But I think often as parents, and again there, there's a leadership component to this when people are in what psychologists would call a hot state.
(52:22):
We're not capable of processing. We're not capable of talking out how we're feeling or what we want. We have to relationally connect, calm, then we can have that experience. So bringing that into parenting or teams, I think is really, really powerful.
Darren Henson (52:41):
What a great image you just gave us and you helped us end with there. Tom, is this notion of you could only listen deeply to your child. And as you're reminding our listeners here, even as a leader, we can only listen deeply to our colleagues when we have taken the time to listen, first of all to ourselves. So you sat and literally began your own contemplative practice to ground yourself or as the practice is sometimes called literally centering prayer to center yourself. And by you being that center for yourself, it enabled you to also become the center for your child in that moment, to help them become centered, to become in a more stable, grounded place. Thank you for that image. It's really, really helpful and really rich and to help us appreciate all these ways that tending to the spiritual life sends out these ripples all around us, to the people that we work with, to the people that we love, to the work that we're all about being the healing ministry of Jesus. And we can't do that without tapping inward to our core, uniting heart and head as you told us.
Tom Bushlack, PhD (54:14):
I couldn't possibly add anything to that. Thank you.
Darren Henson (54:17):
Thanks, Tom, for your time here today. This was so rich.