This Ignatian Life

My last few posts have probably given the impression that Scripture and ministry “shop talk” are the beginning and end of my blogging interests. Not so fast …So I’ll write a little today about a favorite TV show, Lost. It’s the story of … oh, even if you have never seen the show, you probably know the story. Plane crash. Survivors. Mysterious island. I must admit, that five-word summary of Lost would usually be enough to turn me off forever. Just another sci-fi disaster (in more ways than one).But the main storytelling device of the first three seasons of Lost captured my imagination. In nearly every episode of the first three seasons, we see events unfold on the island, post-plane crash. But we also see, interspersed in the same episode, one character’s backstory–her or his life before boarding the ill-fated(?) flight 815.And, of course, we see that whatever the character was dealing with in life before the island, relates directly to events happening “live” on the island. That premise initially led some to speculate that the Lost island was a version of purgatory, that characters were working out their previous transgressions on the island.But even before the show’s writers insisted that the island was not purgatory, I suspected it was not. Because, well, I don’t know about you, but I keep having those “island” moments, right here on the slightly less mysterious mainland.What I mean is, if something’s going on in my life, if there’s something I’m struggling with or working through or unsure about, it tends to keep showing up in my life. The vexing issue may take on different forms, or may be delivered to me by different people. It may be a surprise, or I might see it coming a million miles away. But I know, as long as it remains a “thing” for me, it’s going to keep popping up. While I’m rarely grateful for this phenomenon–particularly with the vulnerable emotional terrain it often reveals–I have come to grudgingly recognize its value for me.And I’ve also been able to recognize God’s hand at work in the persistent reminders. After experiencing these encounters enough times, I can almost sense God’s presence, peering in on my own little sci-fi story as a thorny issue or unresolved struggle comes up again. I can almost hear God’s voice, encouraging me to face my fears, urging me to look with clear eyes upon something in the shadows.So that’s a long-winded way of explaining my attraction to a quirky TV show. In this, Lost’s fourth season, the show has changed its primary storytelling scheme. Now, we see life on the island mixed with “future-flashes”– stories from a character’s life after they get off the island. But even with this shift, for those of us who’ve walked this deja vu path, it comes as no surprise that the issues remain the same, past, present or future.
Photo: “Lost!” by brentdanley from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

Well, here goes …I’m still mindful of the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4:5-42), from last Sunday’s Gospel reading, when along comes the man born blind (Jn 9:1-41) in this Sunday’s Gospel reading. I am awash in images, impressions, and vague notions about these stories of encounter with Jesus, and what they might mean.I’m struck by the significance of water in each story. For the Samaritan woman, water, and the well specifically, is a reminder of her place as an outsider in her own community–why else would she go to the well alone in the heat of mid-day? Her encounter with Jesus changes all that, enabling her to leave her water jar (and the disharmony it symbolizes) at the well, and reconnect with those around her.For the man born blind, water plays a more direct role–Jesus mixes his saliva with clay to cover the man’s eyes, then sends the man to wash in the pool of Siloam. This outward purifying mirrors the internal journey of the man born blind, who goes on to profess his belief in Jesus and follow him.In paying attention to these two stories this Lent, I felt an additional splash of insight from the tradition of Ignatian spirituality. I realized that both stories reach to the very heart of the Ignatian life. They are stories about the least, the lowest, the powerless and the pitied … and how God reveals Godself specifically and purposefully to them. They are beautiful, captivating stories. And they are also straightforward and practical lessons. Lessons of how God works, and how we are called to live.The stories always remind me to check in on my own Lenten journey. Am I, like the Samaritan woman and the man born blind, moving closer and closer to God? Am I becoming more and more a believer? Am I becoming, day by day and conversation by conversation, a better follower of Jesus?Or am I headed the other way?I’ve come to realize that any way that doesn’t get me closer to God, even if it’s standing still, is the other way. And I’ve spent plenty of days, during Lent and otherwise, heading that other way. The way of isolation and desolation. The way of stubborn independence, rejecting relationship and community. The way of apathy toward a world crying out for engagement and passion.I can get bogged down in this movement away from God, completely lost in that distance I’ve created between where I am and where I think God wants me to be. If I’m not careful, these moments of listless wandering tend to stick together, becoming weeks, seasons, even years of going the other way.But then I remember that woman and that man from the Gospel stories. Each of them met by Jesus exactly where they are. And called to take only the next step closer to God. Just the next step.

For my entire career in ministry, I have worked with college-age young adults. Now, in my work with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, I’m journeying with recent college graduates. I only see our Jesuit Volunteers every few months, on retreats designed to help the JVs process and share their experiences with one another. This past weekend, I was blessed to be on one such JVC retreat, and I got to connect with the 70 volunteers in our region.Halfway through their JV year, these gifted, passionate, faith-filled young adults are committed to the “right now,” their jobs and their communities. But they’re also thinking about what lies beyond their one year with JVC. Many of the inspired conversations I had with the JVs this weekend came with this background music: Where is God calling me next?So it was with particular delight that I experienced with our JVs the Gospel reading at a rousing JVC Mass on Sunday. Of course: the call of the first disciples. A few fishermen, doing their fishing thing. Invited by Jesus to take their gifts to the next level. To fish, yes, but to fish for people. (Mt 4:18-22)This reading, so familiar, sounded somehow different this year, in this context with the JVs. I realized something I hadn’t quite picked out before. In this startling story of shifting vocation, I had never quite heard it. Jesus’ invitation to the net-men is more gentle than I had ever perceived. Jesus doesn’t even ask them to change jobs: they fished by trade, and they will still fish by trade. It’s just that Jesus asks them to use new tools, and a new perspective, to acheive an even more beautiful and lasting result. Jesus asks them to pay attention to what they do well, nurture new skils in that trade, and in so doing transform the whole enterprise.As this insight opened before me, I realized that my many conversations with JVs this weekend touched on this same realization. These supremely talented young people are already living their call; they are already fishing. Come August, they will make a shift: they will leave the boats of the JVC program. But what they do next won’t be some radical departure. It will merely be the next step in what they are already doing, the next phase of who they already are.This all somehow reminded me of my new journey with Ignatius. A new tool in my tackle box has become paying attention to the currents of consolation and desolation in my life. By staying in touch with what drives my passions and what drives them away, I’ve become better able to know when I’m really fishing, and when I’m just floating aimlessly. And I am beginning to realize, in flashes and fleeting visions, what it might mean to someday devote all of myself–gifts and warts and all–to the great fishing work I know I am called to do.
Photo: “Answering the Call“by mugley from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

Sometimes I’ll hear a phrase that will take hold of me and settle in to my heart and head. These sacred words are most often disarmingly simple ideas that nonetheless captivate me, sometimes for weeks, or even for years. Two such phrases that immediately spring to mind, in fact, have been with me for decades.

Before an immersion trip when I was in college, our group was peppering a favorite professor of mine with questions about how we could best live out the experience. His two-word response calmed me then, and challenges me now, every day. He said, “Just love.” And on a retreat a little later in college, a friend was describing her strategy for successfully completing a pilgrimage during a difficult time in her life. “Keep walking,” she said.

I’ve been blessed to have another phrase with me as a spiritual companion in recent days. I heard a terrific homily on the second Sunday of Advent. The homilist encouraged us to really think about what we were preparing for during this graced period. Is our preparation all focused on December 25th, all eyes trained on a baby in a manger? That’s good as far as it goes, but he was suggesting that perhaps that doesn’t go far enough. Because there’s another preparation, wrapped up in swaddling clothes with that infant, that’s taking place.

And it’s this other, bigger, deeper preparation that’s had visions dancing in my head. What are we preparing for? To meet God face-to-face. The most essential meeting of all. One that, quite literally, we are born to do. One that, quite literally, we are dying to do. Meet God face-to-face.

But how often in my daily life do I miss the meeting? How often do I forget that what I’m preparing for–meeting God face-to-face–is available to me constantly, with every face? And that’s where the face of Ignatius of Loyola gains sharper focus for me. In these early steps on my journey with Ignatius, one of the great gifts I’ve been opening is the Examen, a careful, prayerful review of daily life. The Examen has worked on two levels for me: allowing me to recognize missed meetings, missed opportunities to connect with God, and highlighting the meetings that did happen, ones that I might have overlooked without this reflection.

Meeting God face-to-face. I know this spiritual concept will be with me for far more than the next few days. What we’re preparing for, what we are about, is meeting God face-to-face. While that responsibility and privilege seems daunting, the Christmas event helps me to remember that the encounter with God can–and does–happen every day. It happens whenever we show up for a “meeting” with another person, mindful of God who is present in every face.

Photo: “Rencontre à Naxos (Encounter at Naxos)“by Nomad Photography from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)