caring

Fulfilment

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“I must do something worthwhile with my life, achieve my potential.” I think that’s a common feeling, but so is “I want to feel needed, liked and appreciated.” And these two feelings don’t always fit together easily. We may feel pressured to fulfil other people’s expectations of us, although part of us would rather “do it our way”. Some of us also wonder “But what does God expect from me?” How can we best find fulfilment?

Emanuel Swedenborg assures us that we will all find it in some way eventually. Whatever character we choose to adopt is capable of endless development, of filling out with more and more depth and detail, bringing us an increasing sense of completeness.tower of babel

Our chosen character is sure to be unique. It will be “our way”. Still, the more it involves of really caring for others’ happiness, the greater will be the potential for beauty, the finer our sense of fulfilment.

The Bible pictures some negative kinds of fulfilment. One is people trying to build the ‘Tower of Babel’ up to the sky “to make a name for themselves” but bringing on themselves total confusion. (Genesis 11:1-9)

Another is a rich man storing up wealth for himself, but dying before he can enjoy it. (Luke 12:13-21)

<love wisdom activity

A fulfilled character cannot be all love, nor all thought, nor action alone. True love will draw wisdom to itself, like a marriage partner, and their offspring will be good actions. The three make completeness.

Many people feel wonderful fulfilment in producing children, while others are distressed that they cannot. In spirit we all are equally children of God, but can feel our achievements of sharing light and love as our children.

So it is reaching our potentials for creativity, for being useful, and for actively caring for others that cause us to feel ‘filled full’ and complete deep down inside.

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Charity

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You do so much for me, thank you

People who read Swedenborg’s works will – in most translations, anyway – frequently encounter the word “charity.” In many cases, it is paired up with the word “faith.” This can cause a fair amount of confusion, because the way Swedenborg uses them is rather different from their common modern meanings.

At it’s simplest level, “faith” to most people means a belief in the existence of God. But the idea of “faith” rises from there to an intensely emotional state: a feeling of peace and euphoria arising from belief in God, trust in His salvation, and a transporting sense of personal relationship. “Charity,” meanwhile, is used to describe physical acts: contributing money or effort to service organizations or specific causes. It’s something that’s done, not a state of being.

In Swedenborg’s works, however, “charity” is usually the English rendering of the Latin word caritas, which is also the root of the verb “to care.” If we think of “charity” as “a state of caring,” we can start seeing what Swedenborg was trying to convey.

“Caring” does not necessarily have to be emotional. You can take care of someone you don’t like, you can take care of business or errands or duties that really have no emotional content at all. Swedenborg would call these “acts of charity,” things done from a desire to be a good person. But the idea of “caring” can elevate, too: When you “care about” someone it involves real affection, and to “care about” an idea or mission implies a deep commitment – it is a feeling, an emotional state. The ultimate state of “caring,” of course, would be caring about all of humanity, wanting what’s best for everyone on the planet. This is what Swedenborg would call “true charity,” and it is marked by love – the love of others.

Or as Swedenborg puts it in Arcana Coelestia number 8033: “Charity is an inward affection consisting in a desire which springs from a person’s heart to do good to the neighbour, which is the delight of his life.”

At all these levels, though, charity cannot act on its own. It needs tools.

Imagine, for instance, a young mother falling and breaking her leg. Her four-year-old might love her desperately, but cannot take care of her. A paramedic, meanwhile, might see her as just a case number, but will get her stabilized and delivered to a hospital. The difference, obviously, is knowledge. The paramedic has a bunch of tested, true ideas in her head that give her the capacity to care for the mother; the four-year-old does not.

That knowledge is actually part of what Swedenborg would call “faith,” though he’s referring to spiritual things rather than medical ones. In general, “faith” in Swedenborg’s works refers to things we accept as true because they come to us from the Lord and the Lord’s teachings. If we take them and apply them to life, we can do works of charity – we can use knowledge to take care of people and things, to actually do something good.

And just like the idea of caring, these items of faith can elevate. “Thou shalt not murder” is a good low-level matter of faith, and should certainly be applied if we want to be charitable people. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is a bit higher, a bit more internal, and will help us be charitable on a deeper level. The idea that by loving others we are loving the Lord will take us to a deeper place yet.

And perhaps most beautiful of all is what happens when we reach a state of true charity. If we work to be good because we want to serve the Lord, the Lord will eventually change our hearts, transforming us so that we delight in being good and delight in loving and helping others. At that stage the ideas of faith change from being the masters over our evil desires to being the servants of our good desires. From a loving desire to be good and serve others we will seek and use knowledge that lets us fulfill that mission.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 809, 1994, 8033, 8120; Arcana Coelestia 1798 [2-5]; Arcana Coelestia 1799 [3-4]; Arcana Coelestia 916 [2]; Charity 11, 40, 56, 90, 199; Divine Wisdom 11; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 121; True Christian Religion 367, 377, 392, 425, 450, 453, 576)

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Achieving Work and (Spiritual) Life Balance

Swedenborg Foundation

 

By Morgan Beard

If your goal is to live a spiritual life, then you may also have thought about ways to bring more meaning into your working life: a job that helps people in need, teaches those who are looking for knowledge, creates beauty or inspiring messages, champions truth and fights corruption. Maybe you feel called to make a difference in the world in a way that suits your unique talents. Then reality sets in. There are bills to pay and obligations to fulfill, and the jobs that are most rewarding for your soul are often the least rewarding for your bank account.

work+spirituality

How do you balance a mundane but financially sustainable working life with a desire for spiritual fulfillment? Does choosing one mean sacrificing the other?

When Swedenborg talks about working for a living, it’s usually in the context of charitas, a Latin word that’s often translated charity, but carries a broad sense of caring for or loving other people. In the following excerpt from his writings, the term is translated goodwill.

Goodwill itself is acting justly and faithfully in our position and our work, because all the things we do in this way are useful to the community; and usefulness is goodness, and goodness in an impersonal sense is our neighbor. As I have shown [elsewhere], our neighbor is not only individual people but also our community and the country as a whole.

For example, if monarchs lead the way for their subjects by setting an example of doing good, if they want their people to live by the laws of justice, if they reward people who live that way, if they give all people the consideration they deserve, if they keep their people safe from harm and invasion, if they act like parents to their countries, and take care for the general prosperity of their people—these monarchs have goodwill in their hearts. The things they do are good actions. . . .

Business people who act with honesty and without fraudulence are caring for the neighbor they do business with. So are workers and craftspeople when they do their work uprightly and honestly rather than falsely or deceptively. The same goes for everyone else—for ship captains and sailors, or farm workers and servants. (True Christianity #422)

There’s a real value in doing your job and doing it well, even if the job itself isn’t very spiritually uplifting. You may not have a very high opinion of politicians (and maybe justifiably so!) but if someone in a position of power acts the way that Swedenborg describes above, it could make a tremendous difference in people’s lives. Even people who don’t seem to have much power or influence—farmers, cab drivers, janitors, waiters, admins—can have a positive impact on other people just through the way they do their jobs and how they relate to the people around them.

In the passage above, Swedenborg mentions another key idea: usefulness. Some jobs are useful in big ways: doctors, for example, save lives. But every job has the potential to make someone’s life just a little bit better or easier, or to bring some small joy where there was none before. Think about the people around you. How many people do you help by doing your job well? How many people would you hurt if you did it badly? That’s why Swedenborg says doing things that are useful to others, or to society as a whole, is the same as doing good in the world. It can be that easy.

Ultimately, Swedenborg’s message is that it’s not what we do, but how and why we do it:

Goodwill is doing good to our neighbor daily and constantly—not only to our neighbor as an individual but also to our neighbor collectively. The only way to do this is through practicing goodness and justice in our position and work and with the people with whom we have any interaction, because these are the things we do every day. When we are not doing them, they still stay in our minds all the time; we think about them and intend to do them.

People who practice goodwill in this way become better and better forms of goodwill. Justice and faithfulness shape their minds and the practice of goodwill shapes their bodies. Over time, because of their form, they get to the point where everything they want and think about relates to goodwill. (True Christianity #423)

So maybe the question is not “How do I get a better job?” but “How do I do a better job?” Can you help someone in your workplace, or use good humor or a good attitude to brighten someone’s day? Can you appreciate the usefulness in even the most ordinary tasks? When you start thinking in terms of how to make other people happy instead of how to make yourself happy, Swedenborg says, that’s the first step to finding spiritual fulfillment—no matter where you are or what you do.

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