Camilo the Prankster

Welcome

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Welcome to Summer at Catalyst! This year, we’ve been on a quest for spiritual transformation. To help us get at that, we’ve spent our summer with La Familia Madrigal from Encanto. The nine magical Madrigals correlate with a tool utilized in Spiritual Direction called the Enneagram.

[Enneagram] On its surface, the Enneagram looks like a personality profile - like Myers-Briggs or Strengthsfinder. In the Enneagram, you identify yourself as one of the numbers 1-9, which then goes on to describe how you interact with the world. Ian Cron, a Spiritual Director who has written about the Enneagram a lot, says it like this: “Personality tests tell you who you really are. The Enneagram tells you who you’re really not.”

In other words, what the Enneagram helps you identify in yourself is something theologians and mystics call our shadow self. Personas we all create to help us cope with the world.

Throughout this series, we’re investigating the type embodied by each member of La Familia Madrigal, allowing them to illustrate for us the various personas. Then we’ll dive into Scripture to see how these personas keep us from being fully who God created us to be.

The end goal is that we come to know our creator better by better knowing God’s creation. By the end of the summer, I hope we come together as a spiritual family, closer than ever and a source of healing and hope for our community - just like La Familia Madrigal!

[Triads] We’ve explored the anger triad, the 8s, 9s and 1s. Abuela, the Protector/Challenger, Mirabel the Peacemaker and Isabela the Perfectionist.

We’ve explored the shame triad, the 2s, 3s and 4s. Julieta the Helper. Luisa the Performer. Pepa the Romantic.

Today, we’re finishing the Enneagram by finishing out the Fear triad. We met Dolores the Investigator, who projects her fear outward, exploring the world to keep herself safe. And last week, we talked about Bruno, the Loyalist who avoids fear.

[Camilo] Today, we’re meeting the Enneagram Seven, also known as the Enthusiast.

Sevens internalize their fear. But you’d never know that because Sevens, to be blunt, are a blast. Take our Seven in la familia Madrigal - cousin Camilo. Camilo’s power is to shape-shift, and he’s known as a harmless prankster. Or, as Mirabel says, “My primo Camilo won’t stop until he makes you smile today.”

While he’s not a main character in Encanto, Camilo is constantly in the background, shifting from one person to another, playing jokes, making everyone laugh.

I know we’ve been saying that all the numbers are great - and it’s true. But Sevens might be my favorite number.

[Average, Unhealthy, Healthy]

Sevens are really fun people. They seem to have boundless energy, and they’re constantly moving from one activity to the next. But hang around them long enough and you might notice - Sevens never have a bad day.

Like… never.

Which is weird, right? No one never has problems. No one never has to suffer.

Well, that’s true about Sevens as well. But Sevens don’t have the tools to feel pain. When Sevens were kids, they heard the message, “You’re on your own.” Maybe that was when their parents set them down and told them they were getting a divorce, or a sudden move. Whatever it was, they learned they had to take care of themselves, so they created a sort of Never-Neverland in their minds. In their heads, they never have to feel pain, and the sky’s the limit.

This is a double-edged sword. Sevens are really fun, really entertaining and endlessly curious about the world. But they’re also never satisfied. You know that feeling you get when you’ve been waiting for ages for a movie to come out, or maybe that new phone with all the bells and whistles, but then it shows up and… it’s pretty much just like your old phone? Or the movie is fine but not life-changing?

That’s every experience for a Seven. They’re so captivated by what’s next that they can’t enjoy what’s right in front of them. And while it’s not true that Sevens never experience dark emotions, it’s always in short bursts and on their own terms.

I have a friend who’s a Seven and she’s married to a Four - the Romantic (that’s Tia Pepa). Since he’s a Four, he loves sad things, especially really melancholy music. He’s always trying to get his wife to listen with him and she hates it. She almost always quickly changes the subject or finds an adventure to go on.

So Sevens, let me level with you: this path to wholeness and health is a scary one for you to walk. You’ve learned to be afraid of your own inner world, of those feelings and experiences that feel negative to you. And to grow, you’re going to have to face them. You’re going to have to accept that you can face them.

This is an act of faith for you, because you will have to do something that runs contrary to that core lie you’ve believed for so long.

You’re not on your own. You don’t have to do everything yourself.

Turn with us to Psalm 139.

This is one of the most popular songs in the book of Psalms, and rightly so. It celebrates the infinite depths of God’s love for us. Sevens, this is the good news for you today, the truest truth that’s easy for you to hear but hard for you to believe:

God is with you.

You never have to do anything alone. You don’t have to take care of yourself. You can face those hard things because you never face them alone. Let’s hear the Psalmist:

Psalm 139:1–6 NLT

O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!

This is a healing message for all of us, no matter what our number is. God knows us, fully and complete me. God goes before us and follows us. God places God’s hand of blessing on our heads.

Such a powerful truth is indeed to wonderful for us, to great to understand.

So let’s sing about it. Let’s sing the truth so it sinks into our bones.

Song

Sevens, what is your path to healing? It’s recognizing that God is, in fact with you. That you can brave those scary places within yourself, those powerful negative emotions that terrify you… God is with you in those spaces.

I want to work through the rest of Psalm 139 with you, because you’ll see God with you, even in those scary places.

Let’s start though, with a passages that Sevens are going to love:

Psalm 139:7–12 NLT

I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night— but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.

You ask a big group of friends who wants to quit their jobs and spend a year traveling the globe - oh, and we leave tomorrow. The ones whose hands are up before you finish your question are Sevens. And here, Sevens, you see that everywhere you go, God is with you, supporting you and caring for you. No matter where you go - even to outer space, even into the underworld! - God is with you.

Sevens, your sense of adventure and curiosity, your playfulness and excitability, these are good responses to God’s good creation. God shares these with you and revels in them with you.

But Sevens, you know this: you usually enjoy the planning a lot more than the experience. You love the anticipation of the trip more than the trip itself. You’re so busy planning the next thing that you struggle to be present for this one.

So Sevens, if you don’t learn to stop and smell the roses, you’re missing the God who is present with you. The God who keeps you even as you dare to faces those places in yourself you’re afraid of.

Hear the Psalmist:

Psalm 139:13–16 NLT

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

This is a powerful, poetic declaration of how deeply and intimately God knows you, Sevens. God sees all those spaces you’re afraid to stay. God sees you and knows you. Intimately and deeply. God is already present in the places you’re afraid.

And more than that, here’s how God feels about you:

Psalm 139:17–18 NLT

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!

God is not afraid of you, disgusted by you or disappointed in you. God is delighted by you.

Sevens, this is the path to learning not to fear those negative emotions. And it’s in facing them, learning to sit with them, you learn they’re not negative at all. Grief is good and necessary, a powerful affirmation of the value of the person we lost. Sadness agrees with God that the world is not as it should be. Anger is fuel to engage the evil in our world. By learning not to flee from these emotions, you become more able to be present.

Sevens, it’s in learning to pause long enough to receive God’s unconditional and infinite love for you that you learn to become whole and healthy. You learn to pair your infectious enthusiasm with a real, reliable presence among those you love.

You are able to stay, the same way God stays with you.

Communion + Examen

God invites you to this table to know and be known.

New Living Translation Psalm 139

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 Point out anything in me that offends you,

and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Assignment + Blessing

Sevens: Meditation and Solitude!

Others: Most adults who are not Sevens have forgotten how to play. Let a Seven in your life teach you how to play. And listen to Sevens’ stories. Stories are often how they communicate emotions.