The path to wholeness and healing is about soul work. There is a cycle to soul work that occurs. Marjory Zoet Bankson shares that the soul work cycle always begins with a willingness to stop, look and listen for our calls. 

While we have many calls throughout our lives, they are all a journey of faith seeking understanding in which we move beyond the mind – a connection of head and heart – a metanoia.

Marjory Zoet Bankson provides six stages of the soul work cycle for our reflection and deeper understanding:

Stage One: Resist

We experience resistance to the idea that we might be called to a larger purpose in life. Listening for call is about restoring our relationship with self, the world and with God or the Other. Here we enter into our “beginner’s mind” where we reconnect with the primal state of innocence that can form the basis for trust, reliability, hopefulness and optimism.

Stage Two: Re-Claim

We re-claim the unconscious collective of past associations that connect us with who we truly are. We discover a larger connect for our lives while reconnecting with family, tradition and re-claiming the sacred. We recall past connections, re-weave the story of our past history, recover gifts that connect us to family, to work, to nature and to God or the Other. As we re-claim our tribe and traditions, we begin to put our individual concerns in a larger context and discover a sense of God’s or the Other’s perspective as well as our own.

Stage Three: Revelation

Revelation opens the future like the night sky – it is full of stars. We see a glimpse of another dimension where possibilities abound and fear is, for the moment, overtaken. Everything is connected and we sense the whole. There is synchronicity. It requires our commitment to listening. We see glimpses of the big picture – like a hologram in which a small part reveals the whole.

Stage Four: Risk

New life, new forms, and new ideas happen. We shift from private prayer to public form. Risk turns energy of resistance into action. Risk requires us to be willing to fail as well as to succeed. 

Stage Five: Relate

We discover and build those surrounding relationships: parents, friends, grandparents, and local community. We connect with a larger community who can share our sense of purpose, find a common language, common symbols and a common story.

Stage Six: Release

This is about integration, endings, and releases. We weave the earlier stages of call into a conceptual framework that transcends the limits of individual accomplishments and opens us to the mysteries of birth and death. We begin to release control of what we have accomplished. We are able to let go of attachments. We practice awareness and detachment.  We are able to reflect deeper on: 1. Who am I, 2. What is my work, 3. What is my gift and 4 What is my legacy? 

We move in, out, around, above, below and through these stages of soul work. They do not always occur sequentially. We may begin to re-claim and move toward resistance. We may begin to relate and move quickly into risk. We must remember that soul work is a life-long journey that is fluid always moving us into a deeper understanding of self and something beyond ourselves.

A courageous heart will go forth and engage with life despite confusion and fear.

A fearful heart will be hesitant and will tend to hold back.

A heavy heart will make for a glommy, unlived life.

A compassionate heart need never carry the burden of judgment.

A forgiving heart knows the art of liberation.

A loving heart awakens the spirit of possibility and engagement with others.

John O’Donoghue

It’s early in the morning on Good Friday at Starbucks and Leonard Cohen’s voice is streaming through the speaker as two young Asian women speak softly while sipping their Venti dark brews. As I open the newspaper, I see a photo of a local clergy washing a woman’s feet in Monument Square on Holy Thursday. And then I hear Cohen’s deep voice singing: “…it’s a broken Hallelujah…” and I realize that Good Friday is a sacred day about a broken Hallelujah. 

I reflect on Good Friday, closing my eyes and I am brought to the place where Jesus is carrying the cross. I stand in the crowd watching, not wanting to step too close. I see a strong man who appears exhausted. He looks my way, smiles at me and I am afraid. I wonder why he is smiling – I don’t know him yet he looks at me as if he knows me. It’s a knowing look of a friend. He stumbles forward as a solider pushes him. He gives the solider a similar smile.

All of a sudden, I wish I had smiled back at him. I was afraid – but why? What was I afraid of – recognition – or that someone would condemn me? I behaved like everyone else; it was a broken Hallelujah.

The music brought me back to my coffee and I listened: “…your faith was strong but you needed proof…maybe there’s a God above but all I’ve ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you…It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah…”

It’s Good Friday… and I await the joyful Hallelujah of Easter.

Lord, do you wash my feet?

Jesus said to him: If I do not wash your feet, you can have no part with me.

So he came to Simon Peter, who said to him:

Lord, do you wash my feet?

Now you do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.

Lord do you wash my feet?

If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, then surely you must wash one another’s feet.