Integrating Our Gifts 

How do we integrate all our gifts in service to others? In this moving reflection, Rose Feerick of Wisdom & Money reflects on the endless possibilities of service when we align our financial decisions with a powerful and equitable vision for the future. 

In my memory, Father Bruno stands at a white board drawing a vertical and horizontal axis.  I am on a Wisdom retreat at New Camaldoli Hermitage in 2008 with the mystic monk whose sermons captivate me. Full of passion, Father Bruno animatedly explains the distinction between two dimensions of Christian Wisdom.  

One focuses on the inner relationship between the individual and God. This dimension of Wisdom he portrays on the vertical axis. The horizontal axis represents the movement of Christ historically. Father Bruno explains that matter is in an evolutionary process of becoming spirit and love.  

Part of this includes a shift from individual and tribal senses of identity to a global consciousness in which individuals do not lose their unique identities, but find them by participating in a greater whole, which is the Body of Christ. The task, he explains, is to integrate “all of your abilities, all of your experience, everything you’ve learned how to do, and everything you’ve acquired into the journey towards the Kingdom of Heaven, in a creative way.”   

I sit at the edge of my seat, eager to grasp what Father Bruno is saying.  I sense that he is describing something about the contemplative path that I have long known to be true – the fact that it is not only about what happens on the prayer mat, but also how we live in the world and move into the future.  

This is what I have been trying to do in my work with money – bring the radiance of monastic spirituality to the flow of money. I am also thinking of a project I am engaged in to give away land in Mississippi. My organization’s commitment is to make the gift “in the Holy Spirit” by which we mean outside of divisive race, class or power dynamics that are present in mainstream philanthropy and in service of healing and justice.  

We are creating a circle of people from different cultural, economic and racial realities who together will discern who will receive the land. The process involves working through divisiveness and fear in this culture to build trust and listen to each person’s insight. 

As I listen to Father Bruno talk about Christian Wisdom’s insight that Christ is bringing people together into a union that embraces differences, I hear him describing what I have been experiencing in the Mississippi Land Project. The energy of the Mississippi circle is palpable, radiant even. Our work to build trust and community outside of learned divisions does indeed feel like participation in the Body of Christ.     

Father Bruno confirmed an intuition that is a foundation of my work with money and Spirit.  Money and financial resources can bring people together in service of justice for all people when offered in flow of the Spirit. It took us nine years in Mississippi to create the trusting circle I imagined when I participated in Father Bruno’s retreat. I call that lightning speed evolution time. 

Reflect with Us 
How do you align your spiritual principles with financial resources? Share your reflection with us. 

Rose Feerick is Co-Director of Wisdom & Money, an organization that invites people of wealth and people from a culture of wealth to engage with money as a doorway to spiritual transformation at the personal, communal and systemic levels.  

We Conspire is a series from the Center for Action and Contemplation featuring wisdom and stories from the growing Christian contemplative movement. Sign up for the monthly email series and receive a free invitation to practice each month.