Margaret Benefiel, Ph. D.

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Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Clergy Conference

Margaret Benefiel, Ph. D. Mbenefiel_at_ExecutiveSoul.
com www.ExecutiveSoul.com November 6-8, 2007
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• Soul at Rest (Tues)
• 2) Healing the Soul (W)
• 3) Soul at Work (Thur)

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Discernment (Individual in Community)

• Dip into core spiritual experience -- foundation
  for discernment
• Spiritual community -- deepen and test
  discernment
• Obstacles to discernment boiled frog
• Clearness Committee
• Everyday discernment

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Are You the Boiled Frog?

• Dying of love, joy, freedom
• Growing powerlessness, hopelessness, sense of
  being trapped
• Drop in health and vitality, bodily symptoms
• Addictive behavior alcohol, drugs, food, TV
• (Wuellner, Release, 75)

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Released to Stay or Released to Leave?

• Is the choice made in freedom? Do I feel drawn
  toward the relationship or community in love?
• Have I named the problem of the relationship or
  community, seeing it clearly for what it is?
• Have I begun to experience deep healing and
  freedom?
• Am I capable of truth-telling, of loving, firm
  confrontation when needed?
• Do I let Christ carry the main weight of the
  cross?
• (Wuellner, Release, 72-73)

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Discernment (Communal)

• First Baptist Church -- Jamaica Plain (Boston)
• Rebuilding the church (storytelling process)
• Reell Precision Manufacturing -- St. Paul,
  Minnesota
• No layoffs (3 co-founders pray together)
• Mercy Medical -- Mason City, Iowa
• Preadolescent mental health (mission
  discernment process)

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Prayer for discernment

• From the cowardice that dares not face new truth,
• From the laziness that is contented with
  half-truth,
• From the arrogance that thinks it knows all
  truth,
• Good Lord, deliver me.
• -- Prayer from Kenya

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Outside Inside

• Individual
• Group

• Pray in chapel
• Journaling
• Walk in nature

• Ask colleague
• to pray
• Pray in office
• Stone in pocket

• Poetry at board meetings
• Mission discernment

• Centering prayer group
• Yoga class

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Bibliography

• Benefiel, Margaret. Soul at Work Spiritual
  Leadership in Organizations (Seabury Books, 2005)
• Farnham, Gill, McLean, and Ward. Listening
  Hearts (Morehouse, 1991)
• Franham, Hull, and McLean. Grounded in God
  (Morehouse, 1999)
• Linn, Linn and Linn. Sleeping with Bread
  (Paulist, 1995)
• Loring, Patricia. Spiritual Discernment The
  Context and Goal of Clearness Committees (Pendle
  Hill Publications, 1992) (Pendle Hill Pamphlet
  305)
• Loring, Patricia. Listening Spirituality, Vol 2
  Corporate Spiritual Practices Among Friends
  (Openings Press, 2003)
• Olsen, Charles. Transforming Church Boards
  (Alban, 1995)
• Whitmire, Catherine. Plain Living A Quaker Path
  to Simplicity (Sorin, 2001)
• Wuellner, Flora Slosson. Prayer, Stress, and Our
  Inner Wounds (Upper Room, 1985)
• Wuellner, Flora Slosson. Release Healing the
  Wounds of Family, Church, and Community (Upper
  Room, 1996)