Business and spirituality? What is that, you might ask, some kind of a joke? No, but this is:

When I was first seriously considering the ministry, I happened to share my interest in an area called corporate chaplaincy with a director at the software company where I worked. Ed, a former church organist, said that he felt that I would be a good minister because I’m "grounded" unlike most of the ministers he knows. [Shrug. Must be a Lutheran thing. :-) ] This was my first hint that people’s perceptions of ministers and of their practicality and perhaps relevance was a little bit different than what I had in mind.

Another eye-opener came after attending the First International Symposium for Spirituality and Business. From this pulpit our minister announced that I’d be available to speak about the symposium with those interested at coffee hour. Only two of you took up the offer – two of our resident atheists I might add (you know who you are! :-). And you know, you brought up some great points. One that I remember distinctly and repeat often was: "Why do we have to drag spirituality into it?" Why can’t we simply go to work, be good people and practice decent behavior? If we do this, then where is the need for a "spiritual" component? (Pause) It’s a great question and one I couldn’t answer. I do hope that those of you who feel strongly this way, will give me a moment to set the stage and show how practices taken from various wisdom traditions can help us survive the ups and downs and everyday challenges of a business community – regardless of whether the word "spirituality" works for you.

But first, I want to take you on a journey through the language of business and spirit, and into perceptions of religion and money. Because whether we are aware of it or not, language and perceptions surround and direct us. So getting back to that Symposium, now in its 5th year: To speak of business and spirituality in the same breath is certainly an oxymoron, that is: "a combination of contradictory or incongruous words" (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary). Yet business leaders such as Aaron Feuerstein of Malden Mills, Jeffrey Swartz of Timberland, Tom Chapel of Tom’s of Maine, and others continue to speak about it year after year. Their themes are similar and echo today’s Second Reading:

However, they are all quick to point out that businesses are hampered by a lack of a language that accommodates spirituality. And while businesses and human resource departments acknowledge that we bring our whole selves to the job – be it parent, caregiver, straight or gay, and so on, there’s an unwritten code that says: park your religion at the door – in fact, leave it in the car. As Jeffrey Swartz pointed out in a Symposium speech: there is a language for Wall Street and for board members to use to chart progress and business goals, but spiritual language doesn’t show up in the board rooms. The good news as Swartz and these leaders see it, is that spiritual language exists in the people who make up corporate boards. As he says, there’s a person behind a policeman’s uniform, and it’s no different with business people. Business leaders are now finding that customers, as well as shareholders, want more than return on their investment. It might be through socially responsible investing, or environment-friendly soy-based inks and recycled packaging, or by extending their efforts into the local community through a joint day care center. We know this as being a "good corporate citizen," so perhaps a language is evolving after all? Make no mistake about it, being a good corporate citizen isn’t always easy. When Timberland discovered that their boot glue was a carcinogen, they had to find another glue and then convert all of their factories in order to use it. Whatever the implementation, each CEO and company following this model insist that doing well financially and doing "good" as a corporation has a positive effect on the bottom-line.

Returning now to the problem of language, while "religion" and "spirituality" are bad words in business, it has been found that managers and employees alike can rally around concepts such as "company spirit." And in my own informal survey at an engineering summit, I overhead the following terms taken mostly from Western religions:

Management searches for the Holy Grail, marketing has a mantra, we bless the software build, sales evangelizes and every now and again a miracle happens. Shortly after compiling this list, our Vice President of Engineering was speaking to me about how to be successful. He ended his list of good business practices by saying that ultimately, you have step back and have "faith" that it will work. (Sadly, three days later, he was gone. Faith does come with a price.) And finally, my favorite: upon hearing I was to be ordained, a coworker said, "Oh good! You can do an exorcism! That’s just what this group needs!" And, you know, she was right :-).

By now, you can see that this sermon starts with a basic assumption that business and religion don’t mix. Perhaps it’s an assumption that you share? Yet if we look into the world’s religions we find that this is based on common misconceptions about money and generalizations about religion. Let’s start with the most common misconception: that spirituality and poverty go hand-in-hand – modeled so strongly by the monk who gives up all worldly goods for spiritual ones.

From our Judeo-Christian not to mention our Puritan roots, we Unitarian Universalists have picked up beliefs about what the Bible says about living a spiritual life and making money. But let’s remember that even Jesus had a job, he was a carpenter. In fact, it was something of a family business ... (as was his other job :-). Although he had a nomadic lifestyle and the religion based on his life stresses a spiritual afterlife over this physical one, the Bible actually has a different take on making money: It's OK to make money! Why, just look at the Hebrew Bible: it’s full of talk about "prophets!"

In The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, the Reverend Peter J. Gomes devotes an entire chapter to the Bible and wealth. In it he explores some of the differences between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament views of wealth. He concludes that no where in the Bible is making money considered a sin. In fact, it is "morally neutral," and in the New Testament, having wealth is often a sign of God’s favor. However, both books do frequently emphasize the redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have nots.

In Exodus (20:3), the second commandment "Do not worship any other gods besides me" does not mean you can’t make money. Yet, so often we take it to mean "do not worship money," therefore, money is bad and is the root of all evil. Again, in Proverbs (3:6), [attributed to the very wealthy King Solomon], we find "In everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you and crown your efforts with success." Notice that these and other quotes do not say money is bad, only that you must put God or the spirit first. And how, I ask you, is this any different from the New Age beliefs based on the late Joseph Campbell’s idea of "following your bliss?" This belief holds that if you put your energies where your love and interests are, success will follow. There’s an entire self-help industry built around books to help you do just this. Some may call it "bliss," others may call it "God," but the belief is that if you can figure out how to do this, a more successful and more fully integrated life will be yours.

Today’s First Readings, one the story of a rich man from the Bible, the other a story told by a contemporary shaman illustrate this. To me, the point of these readings is that you have to be willing and able to let go of your attachment to money in order to free yourself enough to develop the skills that will bring you more money. It’s this that the rich man and the millionaire were unable to do. Had they not turned down the Way, their bliss, who knows what either might have accomplished. And this is precisely what the CEOs at the spirituality and business conferences are saying.

Now that we know that money is OK, let’s return to our original question of business and spirituality. What all religious traditions and spiritual trends have in common is the closest I have to an answer to our humanist and atheist friends. All traditions come down to the "Golden Rule" that is, do to others as you would have them do to you. In other words, do the right thing. When stripped of its religious trappings, The Golden Rule is a very humanist approach. At its core is a technique for relating successfully to others. Business leaders and religious leaders alike will tell you that everything comes down to being in community with others – whether it’s to produce and sell a product or to connect on a spiritual level. And the one way to work successfully in a community is to work on yourself. And that takes me to the very point of this sermon: that is the practicality of a seminary education and what it can teach about surviving in business with your values and sanity intact. To save you time and expense, I’ve summarized my education into four practical tips. (Smile.)

Some of you know that I half jokingly refer to my job as [TV announcer voice] "the job from hell, where you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t." Now, hell is a wonderful place to practice for the ministry (and there are lots of traditions about gods spending some time there), but it’s not a great place to spend forty to fifty hours a week. It was in this environment that a pivotal business and spiritual experience occurred for me. It came about through a performance review – a time when peers and managers rate you on a variety of work areas. My group had just gone through three managers in two years and had just hired number four when I went out on disability for nearly half a year. I returned just in time for a performance review. I was sure that several vocal coworkers would use the fact that my new manager hadn’t worked with me in order to dredge up old information from years prior. Call me "psychic" or just a darn good business woman; either way I was right. For weeks my boss dropped in to tell me how bad my review was going to be, and week after week he kept putting off delivering it. Finally, the day for my review arrived. Now, I’ve had good reviews and I’ve had bad ones, let’s just say that I didn’t recognize the person described. What was different during this review, however, was that I had a series of new skills at hand. To my surprise in the midst of all this drama, there was my seminary training providing me with valuable skills. I got through the meeting, and not only that, as my manager walked out of my office, he turned and said that mine was the review he dreaded the most and it was the one that went the best. And you know, I felt the same way. For the first time in this company, I felt I had a manager who I could work with for our mutual success.

So, I started to write down the techniques that I used and it became clear to me that spirituality is relevant in business after all. Maybe not in ways I originally thought when I considered being a corporate chaplain, but the world’s wisdom traditions are full of techniques which can help you in business or any other community within which you find yourself. The teachings which came in so handy that day were: live life in the moment, view the world and others with compassion, learn to listen, and be honest.

Now, I’m a "type A+" personality and something of a workaholic. While my boss was telling me what a terrible worker my peers thought I was, I was reminded of all the other times my 120% effort was misinterpreted – whether in a non-profit or for-profit setting. I could have easily slid into a belief that I was no good, that there’s a pattern of misunderstanding, and that I will never be successful. Heaven knows, my poor body felt the same way as in times past – clenched and tense. Yet this time, because of my training, I immediately noticed the connection to these past feelings and experiences and dismissed them. This was after all, not the rare book library where I used to work, nor was it Digital. It was 2002 and had nothing to do with any prior experience, nor any experience yet to come. It was unique and required my full attention.

This realization immediately shutdown the possibility for escalation. It prevented my current feelings from getting tangled with those of the past and with the dread or fear of a future doomed to repeat both past and present. And that’s what living life in the moment is. It’s accepting the moment for what it is, in this case, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.
It means being open to trust when you may not feel like it. It may be trust in the business process, in the moment, in yourself, or in your feelings. For me, it was finding myself trusting a boss I barely knew, but that’s what seemed most appropriate.

How can you stay in the moment when the moment, like my performance review, is uncomfortable? One thing that helped me was to listen – to truly listen to what was being said – by being what is called an "active listener." An active listener hears what is actually said; not what those words might evoke. They stay focused on the speaker and not on what they’re going to say next. As an active listener, you are better prepared to address the true issues and not the emotions and baggage that can so easily slip into a conversation that’s not going the way you might like. Listening means that you have to accept that other peoples’ views are valid to them. For example, I was able to hear the fear of some coworkers who felt they wouldn’t be heard by a new manager, and so used my performance review to voice their interests. Because I listened, I didn’t take their words personally and the truth of the matter made itself known in my behavior. I didn’t have to say or do anything special. And this brings me to the topic of compassion.

Have you ever struggled with someone in your work or family life with whom you just can’t get along? You try to do the right thing: you tell yourself that maybe they had a bad day, or you know their child is home sick, so maybe they’re distracted or stressed, but still ... if only they didn’t make you so upset all the time! The internal dialog never goes where you think it should; try as you might to have compassion, you end up angry. They just "push your buttons." [Can you relate to this?]

If you are angry, defensive, or emotionally upset about something, someone has moved you from your center, you do not have compassion. Telling yourself to "love others as you wish to be loved" is not going to get you there. There’s a saying that if you see something in another person that bothers you, you are reacting to something within yourself that you don’t like. Compassion can see how others are hurting or scared, and what motivates them to do what they do and how they do it. But there’s a twist: compassion shares in what it is to be human. It does so without judgement, and without getting involved. It is a practical application of the Golden Rule: you are loved and the other person is loved – period. The beauty of compassion is that you can start anew with each person, each day. Just like living in the moment, you can choose to set aside past experiences with a person and start with what exists now.

While you may not have the compassion of the Buddha, this practice removes the all too human tendency to take things personally (even in those cases where they are meant to be personal). If I don’t play the game, it’s harder for you to play. With compassion, everyone in this dynamic becomes accountable for him- or herself. Not only does it once again avoid compounding a problem, but it keeps our relationships as "honest" as possible.

Honesty? – in business!? (Smile.) Perhaps by now, you’ve noticed that these skills are circular. They are related to one another. Each skill deepens and supports your ability to practice each of the other skills. And while they build upon each other, you in turn are building a more honest, more authentic self. Your dynamics with people will be more direct and therefore your communication will be clearer and more, well, business-like. Let me share with you an example from a sales situation at my company. A product manager met with a customer who could approve a software purchase. Going into the meeting he knew that a competitor’s product was favored and that this customer had a long list of requirements that our product couldn’t possibly satisfy. In fact, nobody’s product could satisfy it. For whatever reason, this woman kept insisting meeting after meeting that all her requirements be met.

The breakthrough came when our product manager was able to get her to admit that what she was asking for doesn’t exist. Once that was set aside, they were able to look honestly at what could be accomplished and, by the way, our product turned out to be the better choice. We got the sale. Doing "good" does result in doing well financially. When the customer set aside that which wasn’t real and considered what was possible, everyone moved forward. I will bet you anything that some of the techniques used to shift her focus included staying in the moment, listening, and acceptance.

This sermon started with a discussion of language and how the language of spirit is not present in the world of business, and we considered the definition of "oxymoron" as a fitting label for the concept. But did you know that one feature of a strong religious and spiritual life is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas comfortably in ones mind and in ones daily life? It means being integrated inspite of contrasting experiences. So, let’s ask ourselves, is there something which can or should be integrated when we speak of business and spirituality? And how can we do it?: By being present, by listening, by having compassion, and by living with honesty. This isn’t rocket science, but it is hard to truly apply these techniques. That’s because they require us to be honest with ourselves and to often stand centered squarely in territory that is new to us and where we find ourselves often alone. A place where we must fight off memories of the past, the discomfort of the present, and fear of the future. But it is from this very place that we can build true human relationships be they business or personal ones, and it is from here and only here, that we can be our most successful. May we all follow our bliss. Amen.