When I’m faced with making significant decisions, I often just go with my “gut” feeling.  This may or may not be the most Ignatian strategy.  Certainly, Ignatius advises the retreatant in the Spiritual Exercises to be attentive to the movements of the spirits in her life, but I don’t know that my “gut” is always the same as the good spirit.  In fact, I’m almost sure that my (often disordered) attachments influence my intuitive reactions.

Now that I’m faced with making a significant decision about my time commitments in the upcoming year, my gut seems to be failing me.  Stuck in this place of indecision and confusion, I went back to the second week of the Spiritual Exercises to recall how Ignatius explains his ways for making a “sound and good” election.  Ignatius’ suggestions initially seem a bit banal; for example, the retreatant should create a pro/con list, he urges, and make her decision based on the relative reasonableness of each choice.  Simple, right?  Alone, this seems unrelated to faith in God, but when I re-looked at the whole of Ignatius’ system, I found myself amazed at his simple profundity.

First and foremost, Ignatius reminds the retreatant that she was created to praise and serve God and to save her soul.  In other words, whenever she makes a decision, she must ask how the outcome will affect her capacity for and ability to love and serve God and others.  At that point, placing herself in a place of balance, she invites God to move her will.  If a decision is not made immediately obvious, she may go to the pro/con list, imagine the advice she would give to a stranger in the same scenario, ask herself what choice she would prefer if she were facing death, and/or ask herself how she would answer to Christ, her “judge,” if he were evaluating her decision.  These concrete steps all must be tied back to that prelude: how will any decision she makes affect her praise and love for God and others?

The beauty of Ignatian spirituality is that it neither floats into esoteric reflection nor deteriorates into mechanistic rubrics.  Ignatius offers meditative insight coupled with practical techniques – the perfect combination when making a tough decision.  I haven’t made my choice yet, but going back to the Second Week has equipped me as I continue to discern.

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