Knowing the "ONE"

A few months ago, while visiting friends, I noticed a book on their shelf about the Enneagram. I read and studied the Enneagram some many years ago, but had not thought about it in a long time. I borrowed their book and carried it around Norway during my trip, but didn't read much. Then last month at the LCG meeting the Enneagram surfaced again in the conversation, and with a few pointers from Michael, I resumed my studies using the Enneagram Institute's website and the Richard Rohr book, Discovering the Enneagram: An Ancient Tool for a New Spiritual Journey.

The Enneagram is a very old personality profile system likely developed by Sufi mystics but adopted in the last century by both Christian contemplatives interested in its uses for spiritual direction and by secular psychologists who saw it as a tool for human growth in general. The Enneagram proposes that there are nine basic personality types ('ennea' means 'nine' in Greek), though the system is subtle enough to recognize scores of combinations (hundreds when the various levels of growth and development are considered).

It's a humbling look into the human psyche, because the Enneagram pulls no punches. We are all deeply broken and our brokenness is laid bare when we study the features of our own personalities. The system is useful for identifying features within myself that I might not discover otherwise--and probably wouldn't--if it were left up to my own powers of introspection.

Long story short, I'm a "ONE" on the Enneagram. Riso and Hudson, the Enneagram Institute folks, call this type the Reformer. The name is nice, and there are many great gifts to this particular personality. We are dedicated to making things better--both ourselves the world. We are advocates for change and we are absolutely dedicated to growing individuals and society into more integrated, balanced versions of the ideals we believe in. Of course, this is also a very dangerous way to look at the world, and we become extremely critical and judgmental of everything and everybody, especially ourselves.

This is a kind of extreme description, a caricature of traits that make up the ONE's personality, but I identify myself in it thoroughly. In future posts over the next few weeks, I'll explore the Enneagram is greater depth, what I'm learning about myself and others through the process, and especially what God is revealing to me about how I can come to know Him better.