Divestment: A spiritual process

Spiritual Life, Winter 2000 by Casey, M Therese

WHEN I WORKED IN BUSINESS, I participated in what was called "corporate divestment." The divestment process required that the people in the company participate in a rational decision-making activity. In the first phase, the people in the company reflected on why the company was founded and on the company's unique mission, asking the question, "What is our mission now?" Often the mission was reformulated in the light of present concerns. In phase two, the managers subjected each area of the company to scrutiny, asking the question, "Does this area or activity contribute to our present mission?" If an area were judged a poor fit with the corporate mission, the area was separated or divested from the corporation. Finally, the people and resources that were freed up by the divestment were incorporated back into the company in the service of the mission.

Divestment in business is a rational, cognitive process that follows a somewhat predictable course. While it requires honesty, integrity, and courage, its goal is the repositioning of the organization on a more profitable path. I was amazed to discover recently that divestment was a process that I was beginning to use in my own spiritual life. Like the divestment process used in business, the one used in my spiritual life also requires honesty and courage. Unlike the business version, however, divestment in the spiritual life is an intuitive Spirit-led process into which God leads the mind and heart. The corporate divestment plan comes from poring over the company's books and sales figures. Spiritual divestment comes from listening to God in prayer.

This type of divestment begins with looking at the purpose of life, the mission of one's life. It continues with a re-evaluation of the areas of one's life. When energy is freed up by less emphasis on some areas of life, that energy is reinvested in areas that are seen as newly important.

Beginning oF Divestment What is My Mission?

Corporate divestment starts in one of two ways. A company may be hit with a crisis, e.g., a competitor develops a new technology that will make a treasured product obsolete. Alternatively, in the normal process of reviewing its products or services, the company may decide that a specific product or way of doing business no longer fits with the present company mission. In either case, the people in the company ask the question, "What is our mission?"

My personal divestment experience started with a crisis. In March 1996, my husband, Larry, had a heart attack while driving on a California freeway. He injured no one else in the incident and remained in a coma for eight days before he went home to God. During those days, I began the process of giving him back to God-a God he had cherished more and more deeply during his last years with me.

Watching Larry die shocked me into asking, "What really matters? What is really important in life (and death)?" I questioned my mission in life, not just in a general way but specifically. I began looking again at such things as the ways I used my time, my mind, and my energy. The life I had lived with Larry was over. What was my new life really about?

During my grieving time, I began to notice within me a process of giving up, a withdrawing from concerns and activities that had formerly been very important to me. Part of this was simply the natural grayness that mourning brings, but certainly part of my withdrawal was in response to the questioning I was doing of and in my life. Many concerns did not seem important to me in the light of a newly dawning sense of why I was still living. I was painfully aware that much of the time I had spent in constructing our life together was now free.

As I was preparing for the first anniversary of Larry's death, I went to Mass one weekday morning-this was a place I felt close to him. That morning I found that my anger at the Church for its neglect of the gifts of women, its use of all male references to God, and its all-male clergy seemed to dissolve in the wonder and comfort of the Mass. I began going to daily Mass.

Though I had always maintained an eclectic spiritual practice, I went back to reading the masters of prayer and meditation. I incorporated into my practice the light and guidance of Scripture. The divestment that I had experienced enabled me to begin to re-examine and recommit myself to the mission of my life. I began to use the time and energy that had been recovered from my life to focus on my core relationship-the one with the Spirit of God.

Areas of Divestment

When a company begins reflecting on its mission in the first stage of divestment, it is not immediately clear which areas may prove to be the least in accord with the newly reformulated mission. Some areas may have brought little gain to the organization for long periods of time. Others may have drained off resources needed for the main work of the company. It is only after asking the question, "What does this area contribute to our overall mission?" that managers can decide which areas can be divested.