…meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies… announcing your place in the family of things.

Finding God in all things is easy when you are about to get married, which I know because I am exactly three weeks away from my wedding. The love of friends, family, priest, fiancé, God’s provision; a wedding seems ordained the time to know that you are in the place of the family of things that you should be. I see so many tangible reminders of God’s guidance through Calvin’s and my discernment to get married and am thankful for them. There is a consolation of “yes, this is the person, this is the place, this is the covenant we are supposed to be making.”

Finding God is harder in the silence of my contemplative prayer sits that are still filled with anxious thoughts and worries. I liked Paul’s most recent post about a conversation between himself and St. Ignatius. He talks about the forces that work against us when we are in consolation, forces that want us to end up back in a state of desolation. Are those forces why so many things that are good; like our days, our jobs, even our weddings, leave the taste of frustration and failure in our mouths? I often find myself while sitting in contemplative prayer thinking ”Wasn’t I anxious about something earlier today? What was that? Oh yeah, that’s right.” and I let my thoughts take me away from peace and consolation.

What a comfort to be reminded today that there is rain and sun and just like the rain and sun we too have a place in the family of things! It’s ok to let the thoughts that plague us during contemplative prayer go their way, we have a sense of consolation to look forward to and a God who will be the voice we hear behind us, whether we turn to the right or to the left, saying “this is the way, walk in it.”

No related posts.

I’m not sure what made me pause before responding to the initial question that was asked of me, but in the 20 seconds that I stopped to make this mental list I was yet again reminded of one of the most valuable gifts my Jesuit education and Ignatian spirituality…to look for, and actually find, God in all things.  Mother Theresa put it another way: “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”  When we are actually setting out every morning with this mindset it becomes difficult, near impossible, to separate what is “prayer,” what is “religious,” and what is “my faith” from what is “not prayer” or “not my faith.”  How wonderfully solid and purposeful life becomes when it’s all faith— starting from the tiny little crevices of life that blend together, bond together, to give us the strength we need to be true disciples of Christ.

As a teacher, like most professions, I oftentimes have to carefully divide my time, my duties and my attention into concrete categories.  If I didn’t I’d never get anything done.  It is important that I plan a certain number of minutes of grammar instruction weekly, I have to set aside a particular number of hours to grade each week or else June would come and no grades would appear, and literary discussions must give way to the algebra class next door after a mere 55 minutes have past. But, when it comes to my faith, I’ve learned to embrace taking it out of the boxes and throwing it all around.  The mental image of a teenager’s bedroom with clothes strewn about comes to mind.

When I was on the road trip Upstate, I had the luxury of XM radio.  I’m not so good with technology even when I have nothing else to focus on, so driving in the car made it a darn near impossible task to master.  Luckily, my co-pilot was quick with the buttons and didn’t complain too much when my eclectic musical tastes shifted from Bluegrass Junction to 90’s on 9 to The Fish.  At a brief stop on The Fish, a radio announcer somewhat sheepishly dealt listeners the line: “God’s spreads His goodness like a 3 year-old spreads his peanut butter.  He just gets it all over the place.”  What a perfect image for our prayer life—spread it out all over the place and get it in every nook and cranny.  That’s how I like to pray.

Related posts:

1. My Best Year Yet

Seriously? Seriously?? Again with the anger and frustration. Yes. Thanks, Ignatius. I am seriously confused and baffled…by my own idiocy…right now! I am glad I asked for the “grace.” Ugh. Hello? Is there anyone up there listening to this? Yeah. I didn’t think so. What am I doing anyway, sitting here talking to myself like a freakin idiot…stupid voodoo religion piety.

Uh…Paul?

I swear to God…

Alright brother…eeeeasy. Take a breath. That’s it. What just happened? Weren’t you just in consolation a couple of minutes ago? Seriously – you were sitting there in total peace thinking about how many good things are in your life. You even made note of a couple of things that you used to think of as “sucking” that had recently shifted. You had an experience of gratitude that was totally unforced and completely suffused your perception of reality with peace. You also had an inexplicable sense of love for the people in your life. What happened?

Well…I was thinking about my life and how much I appreciate the people in it, and then I started thinking about the place I do ministry; I was having all of these ideas about how I could interact in a new way with some people there, which was great because I have been wondering about them. I saw how our relationship had changed and how glad I was that things were different. Then I started thinking about all of the work I have been putting in. Then I realized how much work still had to be done and I started wondering how I would do it. I felt a little angry that I had so much to do. Then I wondered if that was selfish of me, or if other people were being selfish. Then the ideas that I was having about how to interact with others started to seem kind of stilted, like they might not work. Then I realized that there were a lot of things in my life – a lot of people – who I had difficulty with. Then the whole situation started looking impossible. I mean, how was I going to accomplish anything? Why do I even bother? Why do things never change? Why am I dealing with the same issues and the same people after months of working on this and praying with it? Does prayer even work? Why am I sitting here talking to myself? Seriously…what does it even mean to “talk to God?” It is not like the voice of God ever sounds any different from whatever other voice is in my head. Then I just got annoyed with the whole thing – the prayer, the work, the life. Aiagh!

Ok…so can you figure out which spirit that was and how it started to work? Do you see when the shift occurred? Do you see how your perception of grace was shifted to create unrest? At what point did your conscience and awareness of your own shortcoming begin to convince you of your inability, which led you to believe in the ultimate futility of the venture? Where did you begin listening to that voice that created fear instead of the one that was bringing peace and a sense of love? How do you come to know the difference between those two voices? How do you learn to discern better the shift when it occurs?

It is no secret that when we are in a good space, there is the tendency for internal backlash. Ignatius warns that the evil spirit might enter in and attempt to subvert our awareness of grace. Another interpretation is that anytime the ego is pushed outside of its place of comfort it tends to retract due to the uncertainty caused by new cares and concerns that the new awareness brings to mind. However one conceptualizes the experience, it is necessary to be aware that there is often a force working against us when we are in places of consolation. For myself, the tendency is to start to pick apart, piece by piece, the things that lead me to consolation, telling myself that I am being careful and insightful. If I let it go, this spirit of distortion starts to attack whatever I happen to be thinking of, quickly finding fault in the best of things. The result can range anywhere from being in a “bad mood” to entering into a more prolonged period of agitation and frustration.

Luckily, there are a number of ways to deal with these movements of the spirit. In this case, I was reminded that the consolation I had experienced was real consolation, and that it was likely that I had somehow been sidetracked – the spirit of darkness was obscuring the goodness that had been so evident a short time before. When I came to realize this, my recourse was to sit for a while in prayer, just resting in the awareness that these thoughts would pass. I returned to the place of previous consolation and allowed my awareness to slowly shift back to a place of equilibrium.

So why did I have so much difficulty understanding what was occurring when it was happening?  While it might be easy to pick out spirits when we are really looking for them, it strikes me that when I am in my day-to-day routine I am not always in discernment mode. I mean, I have done the reading and sat through the classes on discernment, but in general practice, when I am not being graded, that is when the capacity to discern is really tested. Learning how to recognize the movements of spirits, Holy and otherwise, in the midst of my day is what it is all about. Will I ever become a master discerner? I would like to hope so. The longer I am around, however, the more I am beginning to suspect that it is a skill we never master, only learn to practice better.

Related posts:

1. My Prayer for Holy Week
2. What?
3. Watch What You Eat

Saturday was the feast of St. Ignatius. I have been thinking about his legacy quite a bit these last few days.  So much of what we call Ignatian spirituality has been reduced to sound bits — “finding God in all things,” “magis,” “cura personalis.”  These are fine, as far as they go, but they do tend, I think, to deflect our attention away from the man’s actual achievement, and, in so deflecting, to insulate us from the core insight of the Ignatian way.

The Church at the beginning of the 16th century was not pretty.  Ignatius was born in 1491, one year before Columbus sailed to America.  In 1517 Martin Luther published his 95 theses and launched the Protestant Reformation.  The Society of Jesus was founded, officially, in 1540, five years before the beginning of the Council of Trent. Ignatius died in 1556, seven years before the end of that Council.

These are not just random dates strewn here and there. The arrival of Columbus marked the end of a way of life for the indigenous peoples of America.  In much of their suffering the Church was complicit. The Reformation is more aptly described as a schism that ruptured the fabric of a 1200-year old experiment in Christian civilization.  It also introduced centuries of religious violence into Christian Europe, laying the foundation for the current post-Christian reality of that place. The Council of Trent, while innovative and creative in some ways, rigidified Catholicism for 400 years, until the relative softening of Vatican II.  So, Ignatius was born in complicated times.

The spirituality that he forged through the teaching of the exercises and the practice of discernment was not a Borders-style self-help manual to make us feel good about ourselves and our relationships, and God.  Rather, it was a way to navigate the complexities of a world that seemed to be in the process of becoming unhinged.  Ignatius asked how should I respond to God in the face of these new realities, and God’s answer was “do something new.” Build schools. Travel to newly discovered parts of the world. Try to do no harm, and hopefully do some good. The response of Ignatius and his followers was not always perfect, but it was certainly original, and it was certainly timely.

I wonder how to recover this part of Ignatius’ legacy.  Like him, we live in a world that seems in the process of becoming unhinged.  In this reality the slogans ring hollow. Can we really “find God in all things” when “all things” means massive suffering in the developing world, melting icecaps, oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, corrupt politicians, pedophile priests, do I really need to go on?

Finding God in these things does not mean pretending that they are good. Finding God in these hard things means finding out what God wants us to do and doing it.  So, in this season of Ignatius’ feast, I invite all of us inspired by his witness to pray for a good discernment and to get busy.

Photo: “Letter from St. Ignatius of Loyola I” by “Nick in exsillio” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

Related posts:

1. Ignatius and the Mouse
2. The Creed
3. Life in the Ruins

Last week as usual I began my daily examen with gratitude when, somewhere in the flurry of traditions that is the 4th of July, I thought I should take time to be grateful for our independence. (Be wary of the “shoulds” I can hear my spiritual director saying.) Truly there is much to be grateful for in the freedoms guaranteed in the US Constitution; so many people on this Earth suffer horrendously for lack of such freedoms. But, true to form, my Ignatian prayer turned my world upside down, allowing me to see our celebrations completely differently than through the patriotic lens I had always known.

As I sat in prayer, seemingly alone with God in my mind, fully at peace, thankful for the bounty that independence has yielded, the zinger hits me: Independence from what? You were not created to be independent. The tone is almost incredulous.

Thus the repartee begins:

Me: Uh, maybe I should rephrase that (oh there’s that darn “should” again).

No need to rephrase, just name for what you are truly grateful, what is it that is truly satisfying to your heart, what makes you whole.

Me: Well, I am grateful for those I love, those who share with me the struggles of this life, those who see the beauty in this world with me, even those for whom I have to struggle now. What was truly satisfying to my heart today? This week? Those moments I was with my mom who just had surgery. To finally after all these years be in a place to truly give to her and she actually accepted my help. It is the closest I have felt to her in years.

Those are not moments of independence, are they?

No, they are moments of dependence, at times total dependence, on another. (My heart is beginning to feel the consolation of understanding.)

That’s where God is, isn’t it? Not in our independence from each other, not in our strength to live alone or pull ourselves up by our boot straps, but in our connections to each other, in our strength to live together.

Imagine a culture in which instead of celebrating our independence we celebrated our dependence, or maybe our inter-dependence, with the rest of the world. Imagine taking to prayer gratitude for the other nations who share our Earth. Thank you dear Lord for England, for Botswana, for Uganda, for Brazil, even for Iran and Iraq. In all the years of praying, I don’t think I have ever said that prayer.

And thus, my Ignatian imagination of what could be helps to imagine such celebrations; Celebrating and honoring the Other and our connection to them, rather than celebrating ourselves and our independence from them. How such celebrations would change me and make me whole; a part of something truly bigger than myself, bigger than the United States. A part of Oneness.

And I smile inside. For there within a split second, perhaps I have grasped just a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. (now that would be the grand finale of all fireworks!)

Photo: “NYC Fourth of July 2009” by Ed Yourdon from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

Related posts:

1. Finding God in All Things
2. What Wasn’t Said
3. Preparing vs. Planning

Some say that Wisdom only comes with learning how to live with love in the midst of difficult circumstances. This is a hard truth for many of us because it reminds us that the one problem we all share, our inability to understand how to live with one another, cannot be addressed in any way but through our experience. We have to learn how to live with one another.  No merely symbolic action will suffice to create the change in our lives that we desire. Words and gestures give us something visible to hold onto, but they are nothing if they are not experienced in our hearts.

Wisdom is a mix of love and understanding that only comes with time.  Wisdom cannot be extracted with machines from the earth, or mapped out with a set of instructions; we become aware of it as we learn how to love even when faced with the hardest choices of our lives. Wisdom is more than a set of tools or rules. It must be pulled from the depths of our experience as creatures, living in uncertainty, clinging to our belief in the goodness of God.

There are really own two questions that I ever ask: God, how are you loving me, and how have I been loving you? From these two questions come of a slew of others: Was I open to the kindness that was offered to me today? Have I learned to care for others? Do I seek to understand others even when it’s difficult, even when they bother me? Am I willing to face hardship and misery as I encounter it in my own life, in my doubts about God, humanity and my own nature? Lord…How do I love when I hurt? How can I be forgiving when I am so angry? How can I live with creativity when I see so much destruction? How do I live a life of integrity when it seems so difficult and so few seem to value it? How do I acknowledge both the fact that I am called to serve you, my God, but I am, too, a sinner? All of these questions are about loving and being loved. How I handle these questions, whether I honestly grapple with who I am, what I desire, and what I desire to desire, tells me who my true God is.

I like to think that when Ignatius was laying down his sword, it was not just a symbolic act of fidelity, but revelatory of his movement away from weapons, both exterior and interior, that were harming his relationships with God and others. The act, in itself, would have meant nothing if Ignatius had not learned to live in another way. His prayers, thereafter, were not an assertion of the way he lived, but they way he desired to live. He sought in his own heart to be wholly faithful to God, without counting the cost, heeding the wounds, seeking for rest, or asking for any reward except for knowing that he did God’s will. He sought these things not because he did them well already, but because they were an articulation of what he desired in the depths of his soul. He had to grow into these words. He had to learn how to live his desires. Like Ignatius, I am still learning how to love. I am still growing into wisdom. In this way, each prayer is a reminder not only of who I am, but who it is that I desire to become.

Related posts:

1. Watch What You Eat

The first few days of renovation (a.k.a. my displacement) were spent finishing work from the school year–typing Word documents at the speed of light, updating curriculum, preparing reports on struggling students, etc.  I have to commend myself— I was pretty darn productive.  And then the work finished itself up and I was left staring into the tabula rasa that is summer ’10.  This is where the trouble began.  The lack of structure, certainty and purpose in my days was terrifying.  With the predictability and routine of my work environment and my home environment now gone…I too felt gone, lost and unsupported.  My confident, determined, and usually task-driven self all of a sudden felt without purpose.  Why so glum, I thought, when this is SUMMER and well-deserved relaxation should be a welcomed prospect?  The type-A in myself decided to sleep-it-off and wake up in the morning with a concrete list of tasks to put me back on track—go for a walk, do some laundry, call a friend in Omaha, read 2 chapters of a book, bake a pie.  Notice that nowhere along the way did I stop and turn to God…nope, I was the task master.

Go for a walk—check

Laundry—check

Phone call—check

Pie—check

Book— check, and…stop.

The book I picked up was Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.  I have read through it several times—sometimes slowly mulling over Rilke’s advice and other times racing through the text on a face-paced commute simply to “kill time.”  No matter when read or in what style, Rilke’s message always feels fresh and new.  There’s always something different I am left with at the end of a simple leaf-through.  This time around, it was his advice on writing that stuck with me and his advice on avoiding look OUT to somehow prove one’s worth WITHIN:

“You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now.

No one can advise or help you – no one.  There is only one thing you should do.  Go into yourself.  Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.  This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write?  Dig into yourself for a deep answer.  And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your while life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

Reading Rilke’s words struck an accord with my schedule-driven frenzy.  What if, just what if, the answer to rest, relaxation and a return to independence laid WITHIN?!  I could literally hear God whispering “duh” in my ear and repeating Rilke’s words as:

“… ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I PRAY?”

Looking within, slowing down, turning to prayer, turning to writing…the middle of my 10-day renovation vacation has led me to the beach.  No more lists for the time being—more Rilke, a little E.L. Doctorow, and embracing the WITHIN.

No related posts.

Whenever I write about spirituality I find I try too hard to simplify it down to one or two catchy tidbits that can stick. I would be great at limericks if there was still a market for that kind of thing. Really what I should say to you is GO, take a retreat. Sit in silence and stare at the water, notice all the layers of reflection. The music you will need is not on your Ipod but the sound of the wind chimes or the birds that made a secret nest in the rain gutter above your head where you can sit and drink cup after cup of coffee and listen. “Eternity is not later or in any undefinable place.” said Mary Oliver to me while we sat together. “These are a few of your disordered attachments…” from God and St. Ignatius.

I’ve read that when we pursue contemplation the fruit in our lives will not feel like consolation necessarily or warm and fuzzy prayer times, but it will be obvious to those around us. I have gotten so many compliments on being a better person in the two days since I got back, “You seem happier.” “You look great.” “You’re like a new person.”  “You’re so optimistic!” All these gifts of a better self that I can offer the people around me come from simply taking some space and stillness. I know I have been given a lot of fruit from those three days away. Yet, while I was on retreat I struggled with the same anxiety I’ve been fighting for the last few months, several times I almost left and drove home. The only thing that kept me there was the fact that the front desk seemed to be providentially closed every time I tried to pay my bill and leave early.

At some point this weekend I realized that this is a season of huge growth for all of us who finished the exercises this summer, and that brings with it anxiety. If we can be present to ourselves, whether on retreat or on retreat in daily life, and listen to what the anxiety is heralding, we’ll be ready for the fruit of God’s work that’s being offered to us.

No related posts.

I have just returned from ten days in the Dominican Republic. I was there with several colleagues and nine students working on a documentary portraying the work of Pedro Alamonte, a Catholic deacon who works with the poor in the city of Santiago. More specifically, he serves in a slum of that city known as Cien Fuegos. The slum is built right next to the main dump of the city, and the people who live there suffer from all of the aliments, both social and physical, that are typical of urban poverty around the world. For more about the project, please visit the course website at http://backpack.creighton.edu.