CENTER FOR SPIRITUALITY & ACTION:

ACTION & SERVICE

Action/Service Plan for the First Year

(subject to adaptation by the Intentional Community that forms in Fall 2024)

Starting place: Not “what,” but “why?”

Premise: Action/Service is a lived reality arising from contemplative practice.

Our first question to engage: Why do we do what we do? This is important work for the group (intentional community) to do together, rather than rushing to the action itself…

 

Why do we do justice work?

    • not about “fixing” the world’s problems
    • not a “noblesse oblige” that relies on our skills, power, position, resources to make the world a better place
    • not about meeting some metric of “success”—not outcome-oriented, focuses on the offering as vocation
    • it is bound up in the spiritual life of contemplation that leads to action (discerned, prayerful, individual and communal)

 

Justice work as spiritual work is:

    • Incarnational (embodied, practical, contextual, local)
    • Tangible connection to the Holy and to others (relational)
    • An antidote to despair, cynicism, nihilism
    • Prioritizes the offering (not the outcome) as faithful expression of contemplative life
    • Engenders our own transformation through God’s mercy and grace and love
    • An act of hope—not outcome-oriented, but simply the well of spirit the arises from deep within that gives us a capacity to be present and strong in the face of a broken and hurting world.

 

As we gather in the Fall,  additional questions to consider in that process:

    • Can we see the journey toward something together unfold over time rather than rush to engage the Action in a matter of a few short weeks?
    • Where is the ego in our efforts?
    • How does the Action foster relationships, among us and with those whom we may serve?
    • What does action in “church adjacent” settings look like?
    • What are we already doing?
    • How do we open ourselves to learn and understand the realities of injustice/need and why they exist?
    • How do we ground this effort in prayer?
    • How do we frame this effort as an invitation to which Jesus is inviting us?