We share a common need, that of love. We need to be acknowledged and wanted, to be of use and esteemed for ourselves alone. Conversely, we all share a basic insecurity, that in essence we do not really matter at all, that our contribution counts for nothing, that the world could get on well enough without us, that, if we were to disappear even for a short time, we should be neither missed nor lamented, and that our absence would pass to total oblivion in the memories of those among whom we once worked and played our part.
We have already seen that St Augustine diagnosed the human condition as one of restlessness until the soul rests in God, Who made mankind for Himself alone. The natural mystic is not far from the knowledge of God, but most people grope ineffectively for the divine presence throughout their lives even if they are loyal members of a worshipping community. We might believe that to know God is to be eternally nourished by His presence and comforted by His embrace so that our journey in life is virtually over even before it has really begun. But even this is questionable. God may want us for Himself alone, but He demands that we bring our fellow creatures with us to Him. Life is not a simple communion between God and the individual; it comprises a trinity of God, the individual and the community.
The natural mystic, through his very closeness to the divine essence, feels his great separation from the multitudes around him. This separation does not engender an attitude of spiritual superiority, as in the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, where, it may be remembered, the self-righteous Pharisee thanked God that he was so unlike other men, for instance, the despicable tax-gatherer beside him in the Temple (Luke 18:9-14). The separation that spiritual sensitivity brings with it makes the mystic yearn for human solidarity and fellowship. Jesus says 'Foxes have their holes the birds their roosts; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head' (Matt. 8:20). This statement does not emphasise the material hardships of the spiritual life so much as its emotional isolation. To lay one's head in tranquil sleep after a heavy day's work requires an environment of trust and caring even more than a comfortable bed and decent lodgings. The natural mystic has difficulty with the language of mundane aspiration; he cannot thrill to the desires of the common man, for his head is up in the cloud of unknowing where God's presence lies concealed. Nevertheless, he has to master the vernacular also, just as Christ did at the moment of His incarnation and especially when He was baptised and led out into the human wilderness by the Holy Spirit to experience the full range of temptation prepared by the forces of evil that rule the distraught passions of unredeemed men.
It may be thought that all the giving comes from the mystic, as from Christ, who though rich, for our sake became poor, so that through His poverty we might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9). But in fact the mystic increases in spiritual stature as he gains other insights into holiness from the common man. He has to come to understand the spirituality of sweat and toil, of self-sacrifice on behalf of his family, of hope in the face of obviously impending failure. Christ himself, though the pre-existent Son of God, grew into an even greater glory than before through His time in the world with us as a man among men. Though innocent of sin, yet for our sake God made Him one with the sinfulness of men, so that in Him we might be made one with the goodness of God Himself (2 Cor. 5:21). The full mystery of the Incarnation is beyond rational analysis just as the Atonement wrought by the suffering and death of Christ is something that becomes increasingly lucid only as the life of enforced renunciation is followed in trust and fortitude. But if the one on the path can be supported by a counsellor who knows something of the way, his progress can be greatly facilitated. In the end he too will enter the ranks of those who understand and therefore can be of help to his fellows.
It appears therefore that the spiritually gifted person has to learn the parlance of everyday life in order to do the work set out for him. On the other hand, the common man has to attain a knowledge of things eternal so that his personal concerns may be extended to communal, and ultimately universal, service. It is in self-giving service that freedom can alone be known. The work, those served and the One Who provides, namely God, take over the life of the servant, who loses himself progressively as he attains a true selfhood in God. This is indeed the way of the mystic reduced to a simple formula, and it is my belief that we are all called on to know something of the mystical path, the path of direct apprehension of God, even though in any one generation only a few seem to be consciously on the way. Jesus says 'The gate that leads to life is small and the road is narrow, and those who find it are few' (Mat. 7:14). The work of the counsellor is to direct the client on to that road and encourage him on a way that is hard because of its loneliness, but is itself the ultimate reward in each step taken. He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6) - not merely the destination but each step on the way. We know Him even now when we lose self in service, and in the end we shall know Him in our brother and in every aspect of the world around us. This means that the true counsellor must also be on the road.
One of the revealing aspects of spiritual counselling is that each step of the way is concealed until we make the inward movement in faith. In the adventure of life we all share a common ignorance, unlike some rather assured protagonists of the various schools of psychodynamic theory who can place people summarily in various predetermined categories. They often seem to know the problem even before it is fully enunciated and to have the right answer already prepared. But in fact there is seldom a completely right answer to any human problem. Often one special area of difficulty may stand out so clearly that it obviously needs immediate attention, but underneath there are sure to be many other factors that may also need investigation and healing. The cloud of unknowing leads to the kingdom of heaven where healing is consummated in self-giving love to the neighbour who becomes oneself also. For when we love our neighbour as ourself, the barriers that separate us drop and we see ourselves in the other person. This is a precious fruit of mystical illumination in practical living.
The need to be wanted is the outward assertion of our inner identity. Identity is itself somewhat pallid and unformed until it asserts itself, proclaiming its existence and its need for manifesting itself among its peers in the world. The infant cries to bring itself and its needs to the attention of its parents and attendants. The unloved child will resort to exhibitionistic gestures and even criminal activity to the same end, while the unacknowledged adult may show a range of bizarre behaviour patterns to make himself heard and heeded. These patterns may extend from anti-social actions on the one hand to hysterical outbursts and physical ill-health on the other. To be acknowledged as a person we need caring relationships, work to afford material sustenance and also to provide us with a basis of self-esteem and an interest in the wider world, and a well-disposed society as a member of which we can play our part in the flow of life around us. Thus we are acknowledged firstly by those close to us in love, secondly by our working companions, and finally by those kindred spirits who share our private interests in such social fields as sport, the arts, politics or philanthropic endeavour. A well-balanced life should be fairly equally poised on this threefold support. As we grow older our dependence on employment declines, whereas relationships form an even more essential basis of meaning in our life than they did previously. The character of our friends and associates sheds much light on the quality of our own identity, whether it is warm and elevating or cold and grimy.
The three needs to be satisfied for our own identity to be firmly established are, to repeat them once again, personal love, a fulfilling livelihood and creative participation in the wider community. How does one acquire these and work towards their maintenance and growth, remembering that anything ceasing to grow starts to die? We have already considered the deep springs of love. Though love is of God, we too have to play our part by developing our capacity to receive it, contain it, and give it to those around us. In other words, God provides love, but it is our work to use it and distribute it to those around us. By prayer even those far off, whom we have never met personally, may gain love from us. The wonder of spiritual attainments is that they endow the agent with ever more proficiency and power; the gifts he bestows on others are returned to him, renewed in spiritual power and illuminated in wisdom. As Jesus said, 'Give, and gifts will be given you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap' (Luke 6:38).
The type of person who has difficulty with relationships has to be taught to look inward to his own deficiencies. When one misfortune follows another, whether it is ill-health, a breakdown in family relationships, an accident, or some shattering blow whether in love or in one's career, one is being told to examine one's own life and its priorities carefully. One will never receive constant affection until one has learned to bestow at least some measure of concern on another person. Some problems of relationships, as we have already noted elsewhere, are due to the poor opinion the person has of himself; the ego-structure can be blighted if one is denied proper acknowledgment, acceptance and love early in one's life by virtue of an uncaring, if not hostile, family background. It must also be said though that some of the most remarkable people it has been my privilege to know have come from such appalling backgrounds that psychological and sociological theory would have condemned them summarily to delinquency and irreversible emotional breakdown. Instead they have shown me the way of love and sanctity.
There is another type of person who has a strong awareness of his ego, but requires a constant flow of stimuli to satisfy it. He flits from one thing to another, floats from one person to another, sullying everything he touches and bringing no creative impulse to any work he may perform or any relationship he may initiate. His promiscuity is not so much malicious and predatory as instinctive and insensitive. When his numerous ventures collapse - whether these be business undertakings or personal relationships - he feels let down and disillusioned. If he has tried to stabilise a sexual relationship by marriage, this too disintegrates and adds its tale to the horrifying statistics of marital breakdown. He seems to have no difficulty in initiating new ventures, but lacks the staying power, the constancy, to maintain them. With the advent of years, he has to face the threat of a lonely, unfulfilled middle and later life. The circumstance that often brings such a person - no less tragic than the Prodigal Son - to himself is some catastrophe. This may be a serious illness, the death of someone who meant more to him than he would previously have admitted, or the collapse of some professional or business venture which had been the mainstay of his life. The growing menace of redundancy adds greater bite to this threat of personal annihilation.
Such a calamity tears the false image away from the previously heedless person, so that, for the first time in his life, he can see himself clearly. And what is seen is stark and terrifying: a focus of enfeeblement surrounded by the dark threat of non-existence. One way out of this terrible vision of imprisonment and impenetrable hopelessness is suicide, but an intuitive understanding will show the person that such a course of action would serve to perpetuate the condition rather than end it. But if he can be still like the Prodigal Son, the voice of God will address him incontestably from the hidden depths of his own soul, and he will be led back to life and the people he had misused, now, however, in abject humility. To confess one's sins to God is to be forgiven provided the will is dedicated to making an honest new start. The counsellor acts as an intermediary, almost an intercessor, in this act of repentance, and he is the means by which a new directive of living can be addressed to the benumbed client. As soon as the emptiness of the shriven, cleansed soul is filled with the divine presence, love enters the life of the penitent and the way of service can be broached. Paradoxically, this service will be the first taste of freedom, the first inner liberty, the person has experienced in his life. In due course that freedom will be fertilised and fulfilled by many relationships of outflowing warmth. These will no longer depend on the pleasure derived from the other person but on mutual respect and service offered and later by the intensity of the love that flows between them. Furthermore, this is merely the prelude to the love that will circulate among many other souls on the path of life.
When there is no dramatic event to point incontrovertibly to the person's selfish, heedless past, but only a series of unsatisfactory relationships that seem always to end on a muted note of futility and gathering hopelessness, that person's own life must be probed and his motives analysed. The work of self-analysis is facilitated by the crisp contributions made by the counsellor, but the action must be undertaken by the client himself. As he begins to acknowledge the superficiality of his relationships with others and the perfunctory use he made of their emotional vulnerability to gain control over them, so he has to face the spectre of his own dark sinfulness. Once again a candid admission of guilt confirmed by a vow to live a very different type of life in the future guarantees forgiveness. Then a new life of service is born where previously there was only selfishness and lust.
The important spiritual law of healing, whether on the level of counselling or on a more obviously charismatic basis, is that no person can heal us, whether that person is some marvellously gifted minister of healing or simply ourselves. The same applies to the more orthodox channels of medical care and psychotherapy. God alone is the healer, but all the agents of healing can help to put the patient in the best situation for the healing energies of the Holy Spirit to do their reparative work. This truth about our own impotence, except in unstinted co-operation with God, to effect either our own healing or that of anyone else, is a fundamental Christian insight. We are justified, or brought into right relationship with God, by faith and not by our own merits and calculated works, and it is the same faith that leads us to a full encounter with the healing power of the Holy Spirit.
The very fact that we cannot heal ourselves is a source of infinitely great relief, for otherwise our growing feeling of guilt at continued ill-health would be unbearable. But if we are still and trusting and our will is dedicated to a new life of service, healing will come to us, either apparently directly from God, or more probably through the mediation of some minister of healing, of which the counsellor is a central representative. This applies especially to the work of counselling, for even if the 'thorn in the flesh' is not to be taken away, as in the case of St Paul, we will be given a double measure of supernatural strength to cope with the difficulty by rising to an unaccustomed height of endeavour and spiritual freedom. God's power not infrequently comes to its full strength in weakness, since His grace is all we need (2 Cor. 12:9).
Our need for personal love is the central theme of life. How many people do we not all know who, despite their considerable talents in everyday living and even their great intellectual or artistic gifts, feel inveterate outsiders in the arena of life! They long for acknowledgment, to be told that they really do matter in their society and that they would be genuinely missed if they were to depart. Many such people hold responsible positions in their particular professions or skills, and many are apparently suitably married and with families of their own. But they simply cannot relate on a deep level to anyone despite the fact that they themselves have unexplored depths to their own personalities. If they were shallow people, their contact with their families would cease quite spontaneously and satisfactorily at the level of genital sexuality on the one hand and mutual support in material matters on the other. But they are sufficiently aware of the great issues of existence - of life and death - to know that inner fulfilment is to be found only at greater depths than these. They are, in fact, longing for God, in Whom alone their restless souls can find peace, but they will not know Him until they know themselves in self-abandoned love for a fellow human being -and ultimately a large number of human beings. In Christ this love is universal, and we are all destined to become Christs, to partake fully of the divine nature, to come to share in the very being of God (2 Pet. 1:4).
To attain personal love we must first of all cease striving for it. Love cannot be grasped. Any predatory action has the immediate effect of lifting love out of our grasp, so that all that is left to us is the illusion of caring that evaporates like an early morning mist. Love is delicate and vulnerable, self-effacing and shy. It comes quietly to us when we are quiet and undemanding, but evades our importunate cry when we are obsessed with its necessity in our lives. It is the great privilege of the counsellor to give the yearning soul of his client its first taste of real love, to make the person feel that he really does count for something in the world, and that at least one other person does care for him and look forward to his visit. The great work of the counsellor is to flow out in love, a love of acceptance garnished with wisdom. This love is not the same as affection; it is altogether deeper and more constant. Affection is also a beautiful quality, but it depends on one's temperament and one's capacity to flow out in gestures of warm welcome to other people. Affection can easily be aroused, and it soon can become an automatic response to any appealing newcomer. To the one who is less attractive the flow of affection soon dries up and is succeeded by subtle aversion that cannot so easily be masked. The value of gestures of affection is that they break down barriers of reserve and diffidence, but if they are not accompanied by a deeper caring, they are as likely to lead to seduction as to a flowering of the personality of the one to whom they are directed.
Love, on the other hand, is calm, constant, undiscriminating and penetrating. It may be accompanied by gestures of affection, such as kissing and embraces, but in its depth it is silent, concentrated and undemonstrative. But it will never relinquish the other person, for, as St Paul writes, 'Love will never come to an end' (1 Cor.13:8). This unfailing quality is the criterion of love. Even if the beloved fails miserably, the lover bears with him in prayer even if direct contact may, for one reason or another, have to be discontinued for the time being. To be able to flow out in constant love is the pre-requisite of effective counselling. Since love is of God and we love because He loved us first (I John 4:19), the counsellor must be in a state of inner contemplation with God as he flows out in love to his client. This love is not sentimental or effusive; it is cool, deliberate and wise. It does not seek to ingratiate itself, but to heal that which is broken, to bring into proper alignment that which is crooked and perverse, to restore sight to that which is blind, and to infuse new life into the disconsolate soul of the despairing person. Love will never let the other person down even if it is severely disappointed at his poor showing. If, for instance, one who loved us heard unpleasant reports about our private life, his intuitive response would be to disregard them and to defend our reputation against the calumny of our detractors. Even if this report proved in fact to be an accurate assessment of the situation, his love would flow out to support us in the trial of our humiliation. It would know that this present aberration was not the quintessence of our personality or even a summary of its main trends; on the contrary, it would see the truth of Christ enshrined in its deepest recess, which is the spirit. St Paul says, 'There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope and its endurance (1 Cor. 13:7). This is the love which must infuse the counsellor in all his relationships, not only the professional ones, but also those of his private life.
There cannot be two classes of loving: the simulated concern for the client and the all too obvious insensitivity to those with whom we live and work day by day. Likewise true religion is not relegated to Sabbath observance only, but to every moment of our life in eternity. As Jesus points out, 'The Sabbath was made for the sake of man and not man for the Sabbath' (Mark 2:27). The object of the discipline of prayer is to put us into such perfect silent relationship with God that we may carry that heavenly peace with us as we pursue our daily work in a world that is neither heavenly nor peaceful. Our presence should bring God's peace to whatever situation He has called us to witness and to whomsoever He has directed us to serve. For His is the spirit of healing while we are His agents. When we are open in love to God and our fellow men, His divine wisdom enters our heart and mind, and the words spoken are of timeless import and priceless value. It is then that the treasury of the Bible becomes fully available to us, and we can say, in a spirit of illumination, that scripture is indeed God's word spoken through inspired prophets and sages. Truth, in other words, is timeless: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8). This is in essence the nature of the spirit of counsel.
Therefore, when a person needs desperately to be wanted, he must first of all be accepted and welcomed by the counsellor. His story, common as it may be on one level, is a unique document of a soul's stumbling progress in a life of trial and triumph. As we listen, so the spark of God's compassion radiates from us as warmth, caring, concern and, finally, love. Once the person has experienced this love that will never betray or relinquish him, he must be taught the secret of love, which is availability to God's grace at all times and in all situations. Only as we can bestow love do we ourselves become more and more wanted by others. The steps in learning how to love are as follows: first, silent meditation on the course of one's own life, followed by a confession to God (through the mediation, if need be, of the counsellor) of one's past insensitivity, cruelty and selfishness in whatever relationships one may have had. Then comes the silence in which God can begin to heal both the memories and the resentments, while restoring one's image of oneself to something of the quality of Christ Himself. The end of this inner renewal is a return to the world in peace, with a willed intent to serve others in love for the remainder of one's life. There are two supports in this resolve: God's unfailing presence that can be approached at any time in prayer, and His representative here on earth, the counsellor. The process, as outlined, seems childishly simple and its results extremely rapid. In fact, it will occupy the remainder of the person's life as well as that of the counsellor, for 'love is patient; love is kind and envies no one' (1 Cor. 13:4). Constancy characterises the devoted counsellor, and even when the client has moved effectively into his own private life and no longer needs the counsellor- a movement always to be encouraged - the link of prayer will bind both to God in the upward movement of both souls to the eternal knowledge of love.