Practical

I recently read a little book by the late, well-loved, Catholic spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, called The Spirituality of Fundraising. Odd enough topic that I couldn't help but pick it up. My first thought was that the book is so short because there's not much to say about the topic. Fundraising isn't exactly the most spiritual of endeavors—or so we tend to think. It's not exactly writing a requiem mass, or hiking the Camino, or discovering deep community when sharing life together, or feeling a peace deeper than circumstance come over you during prayer or a kind of meditation that slows your heart and focuses your attention and connects you to the divine. It's fundraising—the worldly, strategic, salesmanship of begging. It's the practical side of the spiritual, like reserving rooms or setting the table or emptying the trash, or making sure the live streaming works. You know, . . . that stuff.  Compared to the spiritual practices or mission endeavors you're trying to pay for, the fundraising part is the practical side—we tend to think.  

But it turns out that this little book is little only because it's a transcribed talk, which Henri never actually wrote. The talk so inspired its hearers that it became a seed, and folks committed to sharing Henri's insights after his death transcribed it and published it—as a seed to bear fruit.

Which is exactly what he wanted to say about it. The practical and the spiritual are not separate in God's vision, he writes. They're seeds for each other, bearing fruit when they nourish each other. What we do to support what we believe, how we make time and prepare space, where we live and when we move, why we spend what we spend or save what we save—all of these are expressions of our values. They show a little of what's inside. And they're signs for others of who we're bound to and what we love and how we want to live.  We're intrigued by them in others, too, and sometimes even inspired (and sometimes not).  

It's a holy thing for you to invite me to participate in things that matter, in stuff of the Spirit, in projects that have a chance of making life better for people, in ways of giving and doing and creating that bring joy! And it's a holy thing for me to invite you to do the same!  And to pray for you as I do, and for you to pray for me. To join together in a circle of concern and care for the things and people we support. To take pleasure in building something that's good or organizing the things of Life well. That's spirituality, for sure.  

So "spirituality" and "fundraising" can go together, I've learned. As can spirituality and house painting, or barn raising, or room arrangements, or staff meetings, or family dinners, or accounting, or basketball, or care for the elderly, or rearing a child, or other stuff. Bring them together!