Pray Your Way: Books

Bruce Duncan Pray Your Way Your Personality and God l993 Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd London
ISBN 0-232-52019-4. 134pp
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Mainly because not only does it do a really good job of relating the way that MBTI relates to our praying but it also gives a really accessible way into the theory that underlies it. This meant for me that I now grok the way that dominant, auxilliary, tertiary and inferior functions 'work' in the MBTI dynamics. For that alone, a great deal of help to my using insights from MBTI in my pneumacultural work. In addition the examples of how the shadow functions may irrupt into our lives in times of stress were very helpful. There were also some nice generally helpful things said about prayer as the quotes may show.

A quirk of this book is that the author uses different colours for the different styles of prayer: green for sensing; yellow for intuitive; blue for thinking and red for feeling. While I quite like to have pictorial representations, I wasn't sure whether this actually did much except add a further set of terms to be learnt. I suspect it is a hangover from retreat work which doesn't really suit this kind of a book format. It feels like a metaphoric framework waiting to be developed but it isn't. I found myself wondering whether we might talk about colour mixes, but the ones we would want to use we can't: NT, yellow and blue is green but that's S already ... pity. But it is only a quirk in a really helpful book. -Next are my favourite...
Quotable quotes.
(The numbers at the end of the quote refer to the page number).

From our human perspective, we say that we are praying when we are consciously aware of our relationship with God and deliberately attending to it. 8

All ordinary human longings for happiness, every spontaneous response of love and joy, every striving towards goodness , every impulse to serve, our sense of guilt and sorrow - all this, and more, is prayer. If only we can learn to recognise as true prayer the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed, the people who say they never pray can be brought to recognise where prayer is already in their lives. Instead of feeling divorced from the whole religious enterprise, or guilty about not praying, they can be immensely encouraged by recognising that they pray much more and probably far better than they ever imagined. 8

dogmatic approach of the influence of psychological type on any individual's spirituality s naive and unhelpful. The reported prayer experiences of hundreds of people, covering the whole spectrum of personality type is subtle and best understood in a descriptive and suggestive way rather than a prescriptive one . 10

he difference between lung's theory and all other attempts to classify Personality is that he focused on the inner dynamics of human life and recognized that each individual is a unique and mysterious person. Jung described his theory as a compass, an instrument that can help us orientate ourselves in the psychological world . Properly used, it can help us to see where we are and where we should be going and it can point us along our journey towards that maturity of personality that he called 'individuation'. The cross of Jung's compass is made up by two fundamental human processes, that he called perceiving and judging. 13

Whenever we are awake we are either gathering data (perceiving) or we are dealing with it (judging) . We are either becoming aware of information, of ideas, people, things, happenings; or we are in some way handling that information by forming opinions, making decisions, reaching conclusions. 14

At the four points of Jung's compass are the four mental functions. The opposing poles of the perceiving process are sensing and intuition. hey are called the perceiving functions. The opposing poles of the judging process are thinking and feeling. We call those the judging functions. .... These four functions of the personality are different expressions of Psychic energy or libido created by dynamic tensions between the opposing functions of the personality. In Jung's terms the libido is not limited to sexual energy. It is our God-given life energy . God loves us into life, breathing life into us. All life is Love's energy. The goal of this energy is the glory of God, which is man or woman fully alive with his or her inborn potential fully realised. 15

For Jung the most fundamental division of types is between the Introvert and the extrovert. These are opposite attitudes, focuses of attention on either the outer or the inner world. Each function It the four points of Jung's compass may operate in an extraverted way, attending to the external world of people, things and events, or it may operate in an introverted way, attending to the internal world of thought, refection and ideas. 15-16

Extroversion and introversion are your God-given ability to live beyond yourself in the breadth of life and live within yourself in the depth of life. We all extrovert and introvert, every day . For balance and harmony in our lives we need to do both. Both ways of directing and renewing our psychic energy are good and valu- able, but one rather than the other will be your particular gift. The Important question for discovering your own personality type is, 'What is my natural, easiest and usually preferred attitude? Is it extroversion, or is it introversion?' 19

You are travelling along the T route whenever you handle your S or N perceptions in an objective, logical and analytical way - when you stand back and ask, 'Is this decision right, or is it wrong?' You are on the F route, using your feeling function, whenever you make a judgement based on your personal, subjective values. F preferring people will characteristically ask, 'How do I feel about that? Is it a good decision or a bad one?' 23

Be careful to note that regardless of our preference for extroversion or introversion, this J or P preference refers to the way we like to behave in the outer world. Everyone has a lifestyle that betrays a natural preference for either the perceiving process or the judging processes .Given the choice , would you rather take in Information (P) or deal with information (J)? Those who prefer P will live their outer lives with their preferred perceiving function, which will be either S or N . Those who prefer I like to live their outer lives with their preferred judging function, either or F. 27

J types are organised and decisive in their extroverted lives, which they live with their judging function (T or F). However, Inwardly, in their introverted lives, their opposite perceiving function (S or N) holds sway, giving a complementarity and balance to the personality. In their inner world, Is will often surprise themselves by being very open, receptive and flexible . Similarly, P types like to 'go with the flow' in their extroverted lives, which they live with their perceiving function (S or N) , However, inwardly, in their introverted lives, they are much more planned, organised and clear about their goals. The introverted life of a P type is run by the J function (T or F), giving balance to the personality . 28

The four letters reported to you by the Indicator are a good working hypothesis, nothing more. Some, probably most, people are comfortable with their indicated type and as time goes on are increasingly convinced of its accuracy . Others are uncertain about one or more of the indicated preferences and it could take years for them to grow into a confident knowledge and acceptance of their true type. 33

The surprising fact is that all the subtleties of taste and favour are appreciated by us through a combination of just four kinds of taste. Our taste buds recognise only sweet, sour, salty and bitter . The vast range of tastes can be traced back to four basic qualities, .just as each one of the immense variety of personality types is a dynamic and developing interaction of just four mental functions, Sensing, iNtuition, Thinking and Feeling. 35

That mother-tongue of your personality, whether it is sensing, intuition, thinking or feeling, is called your dominant function . If you are an E, an extroverting-preferring person, that favourite dominant function of yours will be extroverted. In other words, you will use it to relate to the outer world of people and things . On the other hand, if you are an I, an introverting-preferring person , that favourite dominant function of yours will be introverted. You will use it to relate to your inner world of thought and refection. There is a golden rule here, which is that you always use sour favourite function in your favourite world . Your second-best language will not be quite as fluent but by the time you are adult you will probably have learned to read and speak it very well. It supports and supplements your dominant and is called your auxiliary function. he tertiary function, always the opposite of your auxiliary function. If your auxiliary is N your tertiary is S, if your auxiliary is T your tertiary is F, and so on. The fourth 'language' , your least reliable and least used, is of particular interest in thinking about your prayer-relationship with God. 38

When you were a baby the four functions of your personality were undifferentiated. As you grew and your personality developed , so the two pairs of functions, S and N, T and F, gradually became untangled. One of the four moved into consciousness as the dominant function and its opposite dropped into the unconscious as the weakest, inferior function. From the other pair, one tended towards consciousness as the auxiliary function in the service of your dominant, and its opposite became your tertiary function, unconscious but more accessible than your inferior function. 38

The inferior, and in some cases the tertiary, function lives in the unconscious personality, sometimes called the Shadow. When it emerges, it brings up from the depths 'not merely incompatible and rejected remnants of everyday life, or inconvenient and objectionable animal tendencies, but also germs of new life and vital possibilities for the future.'1 It is through play, recreation, hobbies and through prayer that you meet your inferior function as a friend and guide. 39

By using the inferior function in prayer, God can come to us in new ways and with the least resistance because there we are at our weakest. Where we are strong we can say in effect to God, 'I'm managing OK, Lord - but if I need any help I'll let you know' . Your inferior function is the weak spot, your Achilles Heel, the vulnerable point in you where God can pierce the depth of your being with his reality (S), vision (N), love (F) and truth (T). When this happens, your relationship with God becomes more integrated and touches every part of your being, including the hidden levels of the unconscious. That Shadow part of yourself of which the inferior function is a key, then becomes the area of conversion and radical renewal in your spiritual life. 41

Self-knowledge and genuine openness to God, far from being mutually exclusive , belong together and that there are strong strands of classic Christian spirituality that testify to that. For instance, the fourteenth-century author of the Cloud of Unknowing tells us to 'swink and sweat in all that thou can'st and mayest for to get thee a true knowing and feeling of thyself as thou art. And then I trow soon after that thou wilt get thee a true knowing and feeling of God as he is.'28

St Teresa of Avila considered self-knowledge 'so important that, even if you were raised right up to the heavens, I should like you never to relax your cultivation of it.'51

You will remember that the J and P attitudes point to our preferred lifestyle in the outer world. J types use their judging function, T or F, in the outer, extroverted world . If they are E- -J types, then that T or F function will be their dominant. It is their favourite function that they use in their favourite world. The perceiving function, S or N, will be their auxiliary. If, however, they are I- -J types, their favourite world is the inner one, and so the extraverted T or F function will be for them their second-best, their auxiliary. The dominant for them will be the function they use in their favourite introverted world, the perceiving S or N function. P types use their perceiving function, S or N, in the outer, extroverted world. If they are E- -P types, then that S or N function will be their dominant, and their judging function, T or F, will be their auxiliary. If, however, they are I- -P types, the extroverted S or N function will be their auxiliary, and their dominant will be the judging T or F function. 37

Entering into a conscious relationship of prayer with God always gives energy. Is your prayer enervating or invigorating? If your praying bores, wearies or frustrates you, perhaps you should ask yourself whether you have got into a rut in your habits of prayer. 75

Whenever you respond to God in prayer, you become vulnerable to the Spirit and open to new direction. To discover that new direction sometimes requires of you drastic action. You may need to take a sabbatical rest from your prayer habits and routines. Occasionally (though clergy will find this difficult) you may even need a sabbatical rest from going to church, simply to reawaken Your hunger for Word and Sacrament in the fellowship of believers. The point is that from time to time God requires of us a fallow period in which our prayer relationship can renew its fertility , and so flourish again with new vigour. 76

Extrovert types, as we have seen, will often work things out as they talk. They reach their best insights through talking, and that Is often true also in their prayer. Sharing with others in prayer is important for extroverts, and their perceiving and judging preferences will draw them to the types of personalities they find it easy to share with. 95

It really is not helpful or accurate for introverts to say, 'Ah, but helping someone isn't really prayer' . For extroverts such practical acts of compassion really are prayer and they need to be told so. 96

Sensing Prayer
you are looking and listening with awakened ears and opened eyes, the eyes and ears of faith. You are simply there, attending to God with faith and reverence. Abstract ideas and theological arguments fade away as you meet the Creator through the reality of creation.
not
all matterings of mind
equal one violet
You discover God in whatever gives you joy or pain, and in what- ever disturbs or excites you. You find God in and through everything. You see how all creation manifests God, sings to God, praises God, and gives joy to God. 'Sing to Yahweh, all the earth! . . . et earth rejoice . . . let the heavens exult and all that is in them, !et all the woodland trees cry out for joy, at the presence of Yahweh.' The universe, and our small world in it, and the infinitesimal speck of creation that is you, are the visible outpouring of God's exultant love. 'May Yahweh find joy in what he creates!'' 99

Is prayer of the body. Sitting, kneeling, standing hands together, open to receive, or lift in praise; relaxing, listening, looking - what you do with your body is very important for sensing prayer. You may be one of the many people who prefer to pray while walking. People talking to me about their prayer have often said that it is their pet dog, more than anything else, who ensures their regular daily prayer times! 103

Most ordinary mortals, probably as many as three out of four, are sensing types. For them readily comprehensible images are vital - stories, pictures, religious objects, the concrete, the visible, the audible, the tangible. Sensing people communicate factually with clarity and directness and they stick to the point. 105

Most religious leaders , however, are to be found among the minority intuitive-preferring people, the -NF-s or -NT-s. Their religious symbols are intellectual, conceptual, abstract and philosophical. They dislike any attempt to simplify complexities and mysteries. Not only for their own sakes but for the sake of those they lead and influence, they have an obligation to open themselves to the childlike simplicity and humility of green prayer. 106

intuitive Prayer
If N is dominant or auxiliary in your type, you will probably find yellow prayer is the way you most naturally relate to God, 106

One aspect of intuitive prayer is full of fantasy, symbols and associations. I think of this way of using intuitive Perception in prayer as musing with God. You open yourself to all the possibilities that God wants to show you. You see visions and dream dreams. 107

If you have a butterfly mind that flits from one thought to another, this kind of prayer will be familiar to you. As a dominant intuitive, I find it a happy way of prayer, invigorating and wonderfully energising. However, I recognise my own type bias and I know that many Christians can be quite alarmed or even threatened by yellow prayer. They find this kind of prayer disturbing and distracting. 108

Perhaps many of the so-called distractions in prayer that sensing types often complain about are in fact intuitive perceptions , shafts of Yellow prayer trying to break through. If so, and they can be welcomed an Drawn into prayer rather than resisted, they may open up an entirely new dimension of prayer for S types . I09

Yellow prayer is often disturbing and unsettling. It produces a sense of Divine discontent and an insatiable hunger for God. Green prayer is steady and routine. Yellow prayer is impatient with routines and procedures. It happens any time , anywhere, often in great sunbursts of enthusiasm followed by slack times. It is then that the regularity of green prayer becomes a vital anchor for the intuitive. The two ways, green and yellow, need each other and must be held together in creative tension. 110

Extroverted intuitive prayer may be painted or expressed in clay, offered in music, dance, dialogue or drama. Many people find that writing a spiritual journal is a helpful way of meeting the Intuitive God 'out there' . In these and many other ways your insights are given external expression 111

The Australian aboriginal 'Walkabout' is one image of introverted yellow prayer, a long, solitary and contemplative journey into the mysterious interior wasteland. 111

T-preferring Christians can feel spiritually inadequate because they have never had a 'peake experience' . Whenever someone (and it is usually a clergyman) says to me, 'I try to pray, but I cannot honestly remember ever having a genuine experience of God' , I am fairly certain that the person speaking to me is a Thinking type. Ts are critical about themselves. They are objectively honest and distrust emotional reactions especially in religious matters. Their approach to God is more likely to be head-to-head than heart-to-heart. All too often they have been told that their T approach does not qualify as real prayer. 113

God meets you face to face in Thinking prayer. He makes demands on your life, for integrity, responsibility, justice, righteousness, freedom. Blue prayer cannot be divorced from ethical action towards God's Kingdom of justice on earth. In this prayer God is constantly confronting You as a steward of his creation and as a servant of his people. So the practice of blue Prayer will ever let you forget that God calls you to responsible concern for social justice and that political awareness and activity are imperatives for Christians. 115

Extroverted prayer is righteousness in action. 116

When you love the Lord your God with all your mind, praying with your intellect, wrestling with a portion of Scripture as Jacob wrestled with God,7 You are engaged in introverted blue prayer I16

A form of introverted blue prayer is a ruthless examination of your conscience, trying before God to analvse your life dispassionately and with complete honesty, and then to discern where you are falling short of the best that God wants of you. 117

The ST combination , will guide you towards a tough-minded, hard-edged spirituality that is disciplined, specific and detailed. ST prayer is well constructed and balanced. It has about it a Benedictine stability and rhythm of work, worship, study and recreation. 117

The resulting NT combination may open You to new insights to God's truth and a visionary global grasp of God's purposes . The NT prayer is never complacent but always trying to push the boundaries out in relationship with God. The possible danger of that blue and yellow NT combination is chat you will take yourself altogether too seriously and burden yourself with inappropriate disciplines. If you pay no attention to the green and red ways of prayer, and make no effort to bring them into a holistic harmony with your blue and yellow preferences, you could eventually slip into that kind of heres that renounces or despises God's good gifts for the sake of mastery 117

T types often react strongly against what they are inclined to call the 'happy-clappy certainties' of charismatic worship. Yet the inferior or tertiary F does sometimes lead Ts to seek 'peak experiences' in the form of unthinking emotionalism. Occasionally you will see yourself or others, who in normal life are intelligent, discriminating Is, being swept along by unthinking, shallow emotionalism in acts of worship which require that brains are left at the church door. Nevertheless, charismatic and other forms of Feeling prayer can be enormously helpful for T types who want to bring their whole selves, hearts and minds, in love to God. The release from intellectual critical thinking which is offered in the gift of praying in tongues, for instance, can be the Holy Spirit's way of freeing you for new life in Christ. Similarly the warm and unselfconscious freedom of a well balanced charismatic Christian community can be wonderfully liberating for T types . 118

Feeling Prayer
Red prayer essentially stirs the heart while blue prayer stirs the mind. Red prayer brings spiritual gifts of love, joy and peace while blue Prayer brings gifts of insight, wisdom and knowledge. One is affective, the other speculative . Holistic prayer wilt hold both together, not in opposition but in synthesis. 119

F prayer may help men, in particular, to recognise and discriminate positively against the patriarchal and androcentric assumptions in our spirituality. I20

In red prayer you are in communion with God who says to you, 'I will listen, for I am full of pity' . When your heart is moved with compassion, or when you see compassion in others, it is always a sign of Christ's indwelling. All human experience of compassion, and indeed of goodness in any form, is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit at work and is a part of what I call red prayer. 121

Red prayer can never be formal or merely routine. It is heartfelt and full of life. 'He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall How rivers of living water.'' ''' It is a love relationship with One who discloses the purposes of the heart, who knows you inside out and cares for you more than you could ever know. 122

SF combination will guide you towards a practical spirituality , expressed in institutionalised forms or in social activity. Many -SF- types offer their prayer to God through practical expressions of love and concern, such as visiting prisoners, running soup kitchens for street people, helping in hospitals. The possible danger of that red and green combination , if it is allowed to become exaggerated and unbalanced, is a tendency to a kind of puritanical pietism which is suspicious of any intellectual and formalised approach to faith and over-emphasises personal religious experience, particularly a dateable conversion experience. 124

NF spirituality has a warm enthusiasm about it, and a desire to cooperate with God to draw the fullest potential out of every person and every situation. For -NF- people a ministry of listening, perhaps counselling or helping with marital problems , potential suicides or drug addicts, may be their way of putting red prayer into action in the world. The danger of the NF combination, when exaggerated and out of balance, is that it can lead to an impractical idealistic spirituality, a kind of quietism which merely wants to withdraw to a private 'spiritual' existence unrelated to the concerns or demands of worldly affairs. 124

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