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May 21 - June 4, 2018
Many of us don’t know how to hear from God in the present, so we make the mistake of believing God is somehow waiting for us in the future.
Fours are constantly looking to be rescued by someone who can see them for who they truly are.
Fours can be guilty of oversharing their pain and angst or, conversely, repressing it or hiding it, which leads to further isolation and pain.
Idealists relate to the world through their dreams for a better world. And there’s no greater dreamer in the Enneagram than the Four.
The sixteenth-century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross wrote, “Silence is God’s first language.”
It’s not enough to just become an Enneagram enthusiast. Real transformation takes place when we pair the self-awareness that the Enneagram stimulates with the silence of contemplative practice.
This, I believe, is the true nature of conversion: it happens not in a single moment or pivotal event but in a lifelong series of minor deaths. It is what Jesus spoke plainly of: “If you wish to come after me, you must deny your very selves, take up the instrument of your own death and follow in my footsteps” (Matthew 16:24).
Solitude, silence, and stillness are the quintessential qualities of contemplative prayer and practice.
In our digital age, contemplative practice is not only wildly subversive but wildly life-giving—a counter to the noise and frenzy that dominate our lives.
Somehow I thought it was my Christian duty to sacrifice my own needs, even my own well-being, in order to serve others better. As you can imagine, this fueled a harmful martyr mentality that I would often rub some Bible on to justify. But I don’t believe God is ever honored by our burnout, even on behalf of the worthiest of efforts.
Sabbath is for rest, retreats are for reflection, vacations are for recreation, and sabbatical is for renewal.
When we don’t honor our rhythms and neglect caring for ourselves, then the luxury of sabbatical ends up being wasted on recovery.
God is love, and therefore God can be trusted. In silence, God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Ultimately, faith is learning to rest in mystery.
Resting in solitude, silence, and stillness restores these frustrated souls’ lost idealism. It remedies the immature naïveté in Ones, Fours, and Sevens who are the Enneagram’s most fatigued fanatics and frayed advocates for a better world full of integrity (One), beauty (Four), and freedom (Seven).
