This Ignatian Life

Ignatian Spirituality in real time
Subscribe

Archive for the ‘Liz's Posts’

← Previous Entries
Next Entries →

Bible.

March 22, 2010 By: lizivkovich Category: Liz's Posts Comments Off

I’ve been gorging myself on fiction lately, chewing stories the way I chew through biscuits and gravy at a Sunday breakfast with Kate. I am craving the companionship of old friends like Madeline L’Engle, Tolkien, David James Duncan…

Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. L’engle

The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them. Tolkien

But any gathering of eight human beings has an astounding potential for complication. Duncan (Can I get an “amen” from anyone who lives in an intentional community?)

I heard about a Chinese actress who starred in an English film by memorizing phonetically all her lines, she didn’t understand them she just memorized them. I memorized a lot of Bible verses growing up; I have a kind of pseudo-photographic memory that helped. I’m glad, it’s a gift to know entire chapters of any book! But because I heard and repeated parts of the Bible so much some of the stories seem kind of… boring. Can you say that? The Bible seems boring. My brother and I joked in high school (now I will bring him into my heresy) that some verses should be struck from the Bible because we were so tired of hearing them at schools, churches and youth group events. Among our hit list: “I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper…” Don’t get me started. I envy my friends who started reading the Bible later in life; they get it with fresh eyes and a new perspective.

This Lent I’m inspired by the Ignatian style of praying through Scripture, placing myself in the story as an observer or active participant. It’s sort of a fictional recovery for me. Instead of remembering John 3:16 (which I know in NIV NKJV and KJV), I listen to the insanity of Jesus telling Nicodemus to re-enter your mother’s womb and being born again takes on a whole new (and kind of disgusting) meaning. I like being guided to find new things in familiar stories; sights, smells, tastes, sounds, using the same imagination I’ve practiced all my life in other books, just never with the Bible. Hmmm, who knew? Ignatius must have been a creative guy.

Photo: “A Wrinkle in Time” by “Ariel Ophelia” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

Long nose, small mouth.

December 28, 2009 By: lizivkovich Category: Liz's Posts 1 Comment →


My friend just showed me his new tattoo, a replica of an icon of the Blessed Mother and Jesus on his forearm, absolutely breathtaking. “Icons have long noses for wisdom and small mouths for humility, the idea being that they don’t speak very often.” he continued as he showed me the actual image on the internet. I thought that if I ever became a saint and they made an icon of me they wouldn’t have to alter it much because I have a long nose and a small mouth. As for the corresponding virtues… well.

Sister Dorothy gave me a theme for Advent reflections; when to speak and when to keep silent. At first my theme applied to the things that I say from my mouth to the ears of those in hearing vicinity, than it expanded to letters and e-mails, and finally the last few days to twitter, Facebook, my blog. We speak a lot in 2009 in the US. I spoke a lot in 2009 in the US.

I have done four things this morning, made coffee, prayed my examen, am writing this blog post and deactivated my Facebook account. A friend and I talk about how Facebook brings us both into sin. When she looks at Facebook pages she thinks “Look at these beautiful people leading perfect lives, I’m not good enough.” I have the opposite reaction. When I look at my ‘friends’ and compose my status updates I feel superior, like I have something important to say, a life more relevant than theirs and they should all read what I say and affirm it. (This post is getting increasingly vulnerable.)

This summer I began to lament that community life shows how much the people you love love power, I raged against it where I saw it around me. This fall the rage has subsided to the realization of my own desire for an even more public life than I already have; the needs for acclaim, recognition and affirmation overwhelm my speech and my thoughts. I don’t just want to be with the band, I want to be the band!

I have lost touch with my own irrelevancy because I haven’t made the space to have an internal life, to be silent. Having a blog, writing monthly prayer letters, having a Facebook… all the speaking has crowded out time for silence. I had to finally admit this Advent that I don’t have the holiness yet to speak in all these places with a small mouth and a long nose. I don’t have the holiness to lead a public life that isn’t about me.

Mary said “From now on all generations will call me Blessed because the Lord has done great things for me.” Not because I am smart, funny, sarcastic, or super wise but because God did something beautiful in me that brought joy, life, freedom to others. I was humble and I said “yes.”

For 2010, I’ll pray for a long nose and a small mouth.

Photo: “Des dames du temps jadis” by “serlykotik1970″ from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

My Center.

November 18, 2009 By: lizivkovich Category: Liz's Posts, Uncategorized 1 Comment →

“Don’t let people steal your center.” Sister Dorothy tells me every spiritual direction. My center, this elusive place in my body that as a dancer I’m always trying to find. “Get your center to do that turn,” Lift your leg from your center,” “Start the movement in your center.” Center. Center. Center.
 
Today I am struck that the theme emerging from my daily meditations this past month is my dependency on God to be centered. Still in the preparation weeks of the 19th annotation, I keep thinking “When will I get to sin?” That thought is always followed quickly by “Who says that?!” :) In Love, A Guide for Prayer by Bergan & Schwan, every prayer meditation starts with a declaration of our dependency on God. I’m dependent on God even for God to meet me in silent prayer. I never realized that. I keep bringing my work ethic into my prayer life; if I can just focus harder, God will meet me. If I think myself into a prayer frame of mind I’ll be centered.

It doesn’t work that way. I can’t find my center by grabbing for it, and can’t keep it by working to hold onto it. In some mystical meeting of my surrender and God’s action I hear the Spirit. In the moments I release control, or even desire to control I can keep hold of my center when I feel surrounded by chaos. I’ve only found that has really happened a few times in the last month, the spare moments when I was able to truly stop and be dependent on something other than myself. Those moments were breathtakingly beautiful.

Ah, St Ignatius and Sister Dorothy get it right again.

We know nothing until we know everything

I have no object to defend

for all is of equal value to me.

I cannot lose anything in this

place of abundance I have found.

If something my heart cherishes

is taken away,

I just say “Lord, what happened?”

And a hundred more appear.

- St Catherine of Siena

Photo: “18: Full Circle” by “Anna Gay” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

 

Rummaging for God.

October 12, 2009 By: lizivkovich Category: Liz's Posts 2 Comments →

Last night Fr. Dennis Hamm spoke to us about “rummaging for God” in our days. I like the word rummaging. I like rummage sales, I like looking for special deals, and I really like this new (to me) idea of the Ignatian style examen of conscience. He explained that the word for conscience in English doesn’t fully grasp the meaning of what conscience is- conscience being also consciousness, awareness, thoughts, events, and ideas, not just sins or feelings of guilt. I actually don’t really like doing examinations of conscience because I feel like I’m already living with the inner critic inside my head “That was stupid Elizabeth.” “REALLY?” “You just totally embarrassed yourself.” “What would JESUS do?” He (yes, the man in my head) says to me. I felt a little drop in my stomach when my Spiritual Director said “You should do an examen each night for twenty minutes.” That’ll be, uh, fun. But she went to explain what she meant, and this is what it looked like:

1) Ask for light : “Jesus, help me to see through the events of this day and know where you were with me, where I was with myself, and what I felt, experienced and saw that should stick with me.”

2) Look with gratitude at all the events of your day from beginning to end: Hmmm… woke up this morning, rode to the airport in Michigan. Got to spend time with my best friend Lara, ate the BEST QUIZNOS sandwich ever, finished Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was in Minneapolis airport – I love that place! Home smelled like cookies and was so beautiful to me after three weeks on and off the road. I love snow on the streets and cold weather, riding my bike around. Home, thanks God for all the good and such a great home.

3) Find feelings that effected you throughout your day. Tired, hungry, back hurt, happy, sad to leave, happy to be home, safe. Very safe at the end of the day in my own bed.

4) Pray from one feeling. Thanks God for places of safety and rest. I want to find more safety throughout my work days, my vacations, my time with friends and family… I rest in that good feeling of being home and at peace and long for it more.

5) Pray for the events of the next day. Back to work after a hectic three weeks means e-mail. I hate e-mail Jesus, order my day, help me to pace myself, help me to retain a sense of being home and being safe throughout the day tomorrow.


Photo: “DSCF0262” by “pdgibson” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

 

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »