Noticing our Confinement: Cat Parenting and the Enneagram

Our cat Izzy is NOT an indoor cat.

When we first took Izzy and her brother Alex Valentino in three years ago, they had been living as outdoor cats for at least a year. We hoped to transition them to being fully indoors….Izzy had other plans.

And eventually, we ceded to her vision for life after enduring many months of persistent begging and complaining about her confinement.

Recently, Alex died really unexpectedly and we were so devastated. Alex was super sociable, sweet, easily scared, and really really fluffy. He was known to our neighbours as Tip Up because he had a habit of rolling onto his back and inviting a chin scratch as soon as you approached him. He was a sucker for tummy rubs.

As we grieved Alex, we were also trying to figure out what to do about Izzy. There was a possibility that Alex had died from exposure to rat poison so until we got the results from an autopsy, we decided to keep Izzy inside all the time. 

Let me repeat: Izzy is NOT an indoor cat.

One day of her confinement, she spent about 8 hours of that day loudly complaining, crying, petitioning, to be let outside. There was nothing pleasant about Izzy’s confinement for anyone in the household. 

 

Thankfully, rat poison was not the cause of Alex’s death and we decided to return to Izzy’s usual state of roaming freely between our indoor and outdoor spaces. 

This experience with Izzy got me thinking about the idea of protection. I’m sure any parents (whether of human babies or fur babies) can identify with those choices we make for the protection of our vulnerable charges even when they conflict with the desires of the one we are seeking to protect.

I have no doubt that Izzy did not feel protected. She felt imprisoned.

Like many protective acts, walls, fences in the world, it really depends on perspective. What one person sees as an act of protection, for another, it is an act of confinement.

We can find this dynamic within ourselves as well. 

 

The Enneagram describes our personality as a collection of coping strategies – defense mechanisms that develop in order to keep us safe. Especially when we are children, at our most vulnerable, we need to learn how to protect ourselves in the world. We begin to create a tough outer layer to defend the tender parts of our truest selves. 




And so Ones begin to perfect themselves, Twos start to shower others with care and kindness, Threes get busy, and so on. Each one of us believing that these strategies will keep us safe; will bring us love.

 

What I have found to be so beautiful about working with the Enneagram is that this development process isn’t seen as something that has gone wrong, or that these protective layers are to be judged in any way. 

As someone deeply formed and rooted in the Western Christian tradition (and with a strong dose of One perspective), there is a way in which I am always looking for what is wrong with me. Even though my Anabaptist tradition doesn’t teach original sin or the doctrine of human depravity, I think anyone raised in North American Christianity picks up implicit ideas about the fundamental ‘wrongness’ of humanity.

It has been incredibly liberating to be introduced to the Enneagram’s perspective on human development where there is nothing inherently wrong. 

 

The ways that we have tried to protect ourselves, the structures of our Enneagram type, are seen as necessary, natural, and good.

There is beauty, love, and power at work in the formation of our personalities.

I can now see the grace of God present in what, on tough days, I might describe as my worst qualities. 

And.

Just as our choice to confine Izzy was rooted in love, it was still confining!

 

Even as our personality formation is essential and marked by grace, these same traits and structures that have protected us can also begin to chafe. They begin to feel confining. 

Like Izzy, I have found myself at the closed windows of my being loudly protesting my confinement.

And this is where meaningful work with the Enneagram really begins. 

 

One of the purposes of learning about your Enneagram type is to begin to see these various coping strategies clearly, to notice when they become activated, and to develop the freedom to let these habitual patterns go. 

I find my home at point Nine on the Enneagram. One of my primary coping strategies has been to numb out – I dissociate from physical sensation and retreat into my  mind where I create an alternate reality where everything is peaceful and nothing can bother me. 

 

For many years this was a necessary habit to keep me safe. But of course as I have moved into adulthood, I began to realize how this numbness also was its own prison.

 

As I have started to become more conscious of my protective strategies, I have been able to leave behind some of my earlier patterns but I am noticing that this move to numbing still shows up in a more subtle form. 

 

Now, I can notice within minutes (usually with some help from my partner) that I am stuck. My confinement is much clearer, much more quickly. 

I want to be able to communicate with freedom with my loved ones but there are still moments when my system goes on lock down and I struggle to find my way out.

We ended Izzy’s confinement – with some anxiety and lots of breath work! We can’t remove all risks and dangers to her as she prowls outside – and ultimately, we’re all happier this way.

 

We do have some tools to try and keep her safe: a bright collar and bell, neighbours who also keep an eye out for her, and an early ‘bedtime’ to avoid encounters with nearby foxes. 

 

The Enneagram has provided these tools for my own process – helping me to become acquainted with my prison, and practices to help me feel supported as I risk venturing outside of my protective walls.

 

I’d be curious to know where you have noticed feeling confined by your habitual patterns.

How is Love inviting you to notice where what once protected, now imprisons?

If you are new to the Enneagram or would like to become more intentional in your engagement with this tool, consider joining me for a virtual workshop or individual coaching.

You can see my full offerings here.

What is Practicing Incarnation?

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“Speak the words you most need to hear.”

This lesson from my seminary preaching professor still lives within me over a decade later.

 

She was teaching us to pay close attention to our own deepest longings, to tend to those longings in our sermons, and that in doing so, we could trust that these most tender needs are shared with the people we are serving. That it is likely that someone else needs to hear those words too. 

 

This wisdom extends far beyond the act of preaching. And I return to it now as I share with you my work as a spiritual director and Enneagram facilitator.

 

I have chosen to ground my work in this phrase: 

Practicing Incarnation.

Discovering the Sacred where you are, as you are.

Practicing Incarnation holds many layers of meaning for me – beginning with the invitation to encounter God, to receive Love, right here, now, in this moment. And in my experience, this practice begins with the body.

 

Some of the words I most need to hear, on a daily basis, is that my body is where I belong.

 

That this life, this flesh I inhabit, is a doorway to the Divine; a doorway to deeper relationship with myself and all of Creation.

Looking back, it feels like my life began anew when my relationship with my body and the physical world changed. 

 

For those of you familiar with the Enneagram, I find my home at point Nine. Nines are masters of dissociation – floating our way through life just a little outside of physical reality (okay – sometimes quite a distance from physical reality!). 

 

My ideal state as a teen/young adult was lying on the couch, listening to melancholy music (Sarah McLachlan really fit the bill), and allowing my mind to roam in a daydream state. While I had physical activities like playing basketball, I was never really present in my body unless there was pain. In fact, I think that I mostly associated my body with pain, fear, and the feeling of limitation. When I would hit up against a limitation or even just an intense sensation, my story about how I can’t handle life would take over, I would collapse inwardly, and a feeling of worthlessness would arise. Of course, I wasn’t aware of any of this then. My body/physical activity simply became something to be avoided. 

 

I still love my time in the hammock – and I still struggle with my response to hard cardio exercise that takes me to my physical limits – but in the last decade, my body has become a more cherished companion. I am learning what it means to belong in my body – to encounter not just pain here, but pleasure, energy, strength, power, aliveness, and sensations that intrigue and invite me into new insight. 

 

But above all, connecting with my body has brought me clarity. I often struggle to know how I feel or what I think about something.

 

Now, when I am unclear, I head to the yoga mat or walk a labyrinth, and my body leads the way. 

My body leads me home.

The Western Christian tradition uses the word Incarnation to talk about how God entered our human reality when Jesus was born. Word made flesh. God with us. 

 

It’s always been one of the spiritual teachings that has resonated most strongly with me. I love the story of God choosing to be as close to us as possible, choosing to identify with our experience as fully as possible. 

 

But there was a piece missing in the version I was taught. 

 

What I picked up was that God enters the world – but really, only in Jesus. Incarnation was limited to this one man. Jesus was an external symbol of God’s presence. One that we are invited to believe in, model our lives after, and seek to have an ongoing relationship with through the Spirit still with us (a spirit that is largely ethereal…not so physical). 

Somehow, I missed that God might encounter me through MY body. And yet, this is exactly what has happened.

My experience of God came alive as I began to notice and listen to my body. In fact, my experience of God cracked open….exploded open….transformed me in ways I could not have imagined possible. 

 

It began with my hands.

 

I started to notice pleasant tingling sensations in the palms of my hands and along my fingers as I would sit in silent prayer. On one of my first silent retreats, the sensations grew more intense and my hands lit up almost like live sparks of electricity were emanating from all over my fingers and palms. Prayer became a more tangibly physical experience than I had encountered before. 

 

This warm, tingling energy in my palms began to contribute to my discernment. When my hands would light up, I would pay attention. Is God wanting me to notice something here? Where is this sensation leading me? 

 

At first, I was very uncertain what to make of these experiences. I hadn’t heard people in my church community talk about these kinds of encounters. Could I trust this? But as I began to talk about it with others, I began to hear more stories of these kinds of experiences. And I’ll never forget one pastoral colleague telling me to trust my hands…to follow the sensation. 

 

The intensity of sensation in my hands has subsided in recent years but still shows up now and again – like right now as I write.

 

My hands are helping me notice the holy. To root me to the ground when my ego wants to float away. 

My body leads me home.

It’s been a slow journey home, at times. I don’t want to give the impression that this shift in relationship to my body happened overnight, or that it is finished. 

 

It took two to three years of starting to practice yoga, and contemplative practices like centering prayer before things began to change and I began to encounter myself and God at a deeper level. 

 

I love how Parker Palmer describes this tender process of building relationship with our own hidden selves (he uses the term soul – I think this applies to our bodies or any unknown aspect of ourselves as well):

“The soul speaks its truth only under quiet, inviting, and trustworthy conditions. The soul is like a wild animal – tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy.

 

If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out.

 

But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.”

 

– “Let Your Life Speak”, p.7 –

After 30 years of neglect, it took quite some time for me to build trust with my body and inner being. And sometimes, I break that trust. I still return to old habits. Thankfully my body, heart, and soul are quite gracious with me (as is God!). 

 

Hence my invitation to you to practice incarnation with me. I am still practicing, and trust I will be practicing for the rest of my life. 

How is God becoming flesh in your life?

Where might your body be leading you?

 

Reading the Bible as a Settler

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***This blog post was originally published on the PiE (Pastors in Exile) website in 2017***

As someone who preaches on occasion, I am simultaneously consoled and dismayed by how little I remember from sermons I have heard at church.

 

But every so often, as the preacher’s words float by, there is a powerful moment of recognition.

A stillness falls over the people gathered, and the words spoken almost crackle with the energy of truth. Our collective heart stirs and there is a silent consensus – something significant just happened.

These moments stick.

These moments transform.

One of these moments has been rumbling around within me recently.

 

Two years ago, Dylan Siebert preached one of these sermons at Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church. He was reflecting on themes of despair, hope, and the cyclical decline of civilizations. The phrase that caught in in the vice grip of truth was this:

“We are the Romans.”

I don’t know about you, but when I read stories from the New Testament, I rarely identify with the Romans. I identify as a follower of Jesus so I most naturally align myself with the disciples, or whoever is seeking healing and liberation. Generally, I am drawn to the characters who lack social power and status.

 

Every once in a while I am challenged to identify with the older son in the story of the Prodigal son, but never the Romans. I mean, the Romans are terrible! I am quite good really! Or at least well intentioned!

The Romans are occupiers, my people are….

**Insert deep sigh here**

After learning to listen for the voice of the marginalized and oppressed in sacred texts (not that I am done learning to do this!!), I hear a new invitation calling.

 

A calling that requires me to look, with painful clarity, at the violent colonial structures of which I am a beneficiary; at the history of Turtle Island/North America that leads me to name myself a settler.

A calling that asks: What might I learn if I identify with the oppressor in our most sacred of stories?

How might the text read my life if I am honest about my social location, if I come to Jesus with full awareness of my position of power?

 

How do I read the Bible as a settler?

 

This is a particularly essential consideration for those of us who ancestors came to Turtle Islan as refugees or immigrants escaping persecution and violence. Many Mennonites of European descent recognize that our communal psyche is still largely shaped by a narrative of persecution. Given our history, it is easy for us to identify with the oppressed of the Biblical narrative.

But that is no longer our reality, and upon arriving in Canada, many Mennonites came to bear the terrible double identity of refugee and agent of displacement.

We have been a lot more comfortable with the refugee part of that history. And I imagine that this is true for most other non-Indigenous communities as well.

 

This is very understandable. Who wants to claim our place in a history of genocide – the intentional efforts undertaken in this nation to erase Indigenous Peoples from this land?

 

But here’s the thing, I believe that naming our position as settlers, as the inheritors of wealth acquired by violent means, is required for our liberation, for our healing. It is certainly necessary for the work of reconciliation.

The liberation of God is for everyone. But it won’t look the same. So what does the path of salvation look like for the powerful? And how might reading Scripture from a different perspective help us?

Jennifer Harvey, in “Wrongs to Rights”*, suggests that the story of Zacchaeus is a good starting point for answering this question. She suggests that rather than asking, “What would Jesus do?”, that settler Christians are instead in a “What would Zacchaeus do?” moment. 

 

Check out the story – Luke 19:1-10.

Harvey writes: “It is tempting to easily condemn Zacchaeus for agreeing to serve as the Empire’s tax collector, which meant he actively implemented and benefitted from the exploitative, grinding practices Rome exerted over the lives of the poor. But, we do better to admit, instead, how closely Zacchaeus’ life story resonates with our own.”

I love this proposal. We truly are in a Zacchaeus moment.

And Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus – making economic reparations to those he had exploited – offers hope that change is possible. That no identity is fixed. That there is always the possibility for reparation and restoration – for all.

 

*Check out: “What would Zacchaeus do? Repair sets Sinners Free” by Jennifer Harvey, in Wrongs to Rights, Intotemak, Mennonite Church Canada

Earth Community: We are not alone

**This blog post was originally published with PiE (Pastors in Exile) in 2018**

Last week, I spent a couple of days at a beautiful farm in Grey County. There is a little cabin nestled in the woods at the edge of a pond that I could use for personal retreat. A few days away for some contemplation and prayer.

 

I spent a lot of time walking trails through the fields and woods but I always found myself drawn back to one particular wood. It was full of silver maples, ash, and black cherry trees and even though it is the end of August, the leaves and forest floor are flush with the fresh bright green we associate with spring.

On my way out, I was talking about the forest with one of my hosts and he grinned as I spoke about this section of trees and said:

“Yes. When you walk into that forest, you just have a sense that the trees are taking care of you.”

He was spot on. There was a sense of being held in that bit of the woods.

 

I have been preparing for PiE’s Watershed Discipleship group to begin again by looking at a variety of books related to ecological theology and spirituality.

 

These books, and this experience, have gotten me pondering again the place of humanity in the world.

 

We have inherited a deeply problematic worldview that places humans above, and apart from, the rest of nature. It’s not news that we are deeply disconnected from our status as animals, as creatures that belong in nature.

A lot of ecological leaders believe that this human-nature divide is the spiritual crisis of our age.

That the only hope for healing our destructive way of living on this planet is if we humans can finally find some humility. That we might stop preaching the gospel of domination and take our place in the humus, the earth. That we might remember our identity as members of the Earth Community.

 

To be honest, I don’t have a lot of hope for the capacity of humanity (or more specifically Western European capitalist society) to change these days. I find despair is my most frequent companion when I think of the earth and our future in this place.

 

But as I listen to my despair for the world, I notice something interesting.

My despair tells me that I am alone in this desire for change, this desire for the world to be saved from the horrors of climate change.

And hidden in this false teaching, is a sense that the whole fate of the world rests on my shoulders, on the shoulders of my species.

 

Now, there is some appropriate responsibility taking here. We know that humans are the source of the ecological devastation facing the planet on so many levels.

 

But in this voice I also spot the spiritual heart of our trouble.

 

Thanks to the work of Thomas Berry, an ecological theologian, the lie at the heart of my despair has been exposed.

For to believe that we are alone in this, not only denies the power and presence of God in our world,

but also continues to enact Western European culture’s greatest spiritual error:

it ignores the power and presence of the rest of Creation.

My belief that we, as humans, are in this alone makes our larger Earth Community invisible.

 

Yes, we need to work our asses off on behalf of this Earth Community to which we belong.

 

But if we don’t challenge this assumption that we are alone, that we are separate, that we are a community of subjects relating to inanimate objects known as animals, trees, and rivers, then we will continue to replicate the mistakes of past generations.

 

Here is what Berry has to say about it:

“I would suggest that the work before us is the task not simply of ourselves but of the entire planet and all its component members.”

While the damage that has been done is immediately the work of humans, the healing cannot be the work simply of humans any more than the illness of one organ of the body can be healed through the efforts of that one organ. Every member of the body must bring about the healing.

So now the entire universe is involved in the healing of the damaged Earth in the light and warmth of the sun.”

Thomas Berry, “The Great Work”, p.20

 

My despairing heart needs to take this in.

We are not alone.

 

When we long for a way of being that sustains life rather than destroys life, we take our place in a vibrant, expansive, and powerful community that always promotes life over death.

I think I am going to try and spend more time allowing the woods to take care of me. Listening closely for how I might respond in kind.

 

Maybe, with God and the trees, my despair will find its way into hope.

Taking it Personally: Reflections on Jesus

*This was originally posted in 2018 on the PiE (Pastors in Exile) blog when I served as a community pastor with young adults.

About a decade ago, I was just settling into life in Goshen, Indiana where I was serving as one of the campus pastors at Goshen College.

 

One of my responsibilities was helping to plan and lead the college’s weekly chapel service. I remember very distinctly the day that one of the students asked to speak with me and explained that he was quite unsettled about chapel.

“We never talk about Jesus” he said.

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