For at least a decade, HRD journals and professional convention programs have discussed spirituality in the workplace. Work is a spiritual journey for many of us, although we talk about it in different ways. Some prefer to use humanistic language. Others are "New Agers." Traditional religious frameworks feel appropriate for other people. Many do not quite fit any system at all, but everyone who has been engaged in these discussions senses the spiritual dimension of work.
If we articulate and share our visions and values, we can organize and direct our spiritual experience. If HRD professionals ask questions about both the field and our relationship to it, we may facilitate the emergence of these visions and the articulation of these values. HRD needs a foundation of personal and professional values to move it toward greater maturity. Discussions such as those in this article may help clarify the belief systems, images, and dreams that give energy to us as individuals and to the HRD field, energy for continuing development.
At its best, such activity is a kind of soul making or myth making. Theories about the nature of myths are plentiful. According to popular mythologist Joseph Campbell (1964), myths are neither true nor false. Rather they are belief systems, frequently taking the form of stories, that serve four functions, all necessary for people to live well with themselves, with others, and with the earth. The four functions are the following: to elicit and support a sense of awe before the mystery of being; to render a cosmology, an image of the universe; to support the social order and to integrate the individual organically within his group; and to initiate individuals into the order of realities of their own psyches, guiding them toward their own spiritual enrichment and realization.
Campbell (1959) also distinguished between functional and nonfunctional myths. Functional myths elicit and direct enera. We all live by them, although frequently almost unconsciously. These are the kind of living myths that we need to discover for the HRD field. Such myths cannot be created by research but rather by reflecting and dreaming and then sharing those dreams. They are neither true nor false but either functional, powerful "Ah ha!" experiences or quickly forgotten.
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