Five years ago I never would have imagined I’d be writing blog posts about Ignatian Spirituality.  In fact, five years ago, I hardly knew who Ignatius was.  The last five years have been remarkable and completely unexpected.  One of the most delightful discoveries God has revealed to me in that time has been the vision and charism of Ignatius and his Society of Jesus.

But let me back up.  Five years ago, I was a senior in college studying Government, settling into a re-found Christianity, clueless as to what I might like to do with my life, let alone what God might like me to do.  I had thought for years that I was destined to be Important.  Yes, Important, with a capital I (and that not-so-subtle verbal play on my egocentrism is completely intentional).  I thought I would be Famous.  And I definitely thought I’d be Rich.  I’d spend a few years working for one of the consulting firms that line K Street or Wall Street, use my political connections to get into a killer law school, then scope out a congressional district that wouldn’t find a woman like me too intimidating and settle in for a few years before running for Congress (only so I’d not be accused of the sort of Chappaqua carpetbagging that another strong woman had just endured).

Yet, my single-minded pursuit of that perfectly constructed dream unexpectedly brought anger, self-loathing, alienation, and a stifling lack of motivation.  I suppose I knew intuitively that my spiritual hollowness didn’t help matters.  My long abandoned Lutheranism didn’t offer much hope, and while the occasional Sunday at the college church was a lovely lesson in Homiletics, that middling New England religiosity failed to stir my heart.  A crush on a boy in my Philosophy section got me into a FourSquare Gospel church and there I found love.  Not from him… but from a group of men and women that inexplicably loved me, even though my self was too oft obscured by volatile clouds of angst, bitterness, and envy.

This conversion story could go pages if I let it, so I’ll rein it in quickly.  In that place, I would never have expected to find life in the words and actions of Ignatius of Loyola.  Many of the most influential players in my journey back to Christ were Calvinst, many Anglican, many Evangelical, but hardly any were Catholic.  Many in this band of believers remain fond of declaring their theology to be summarized in four words: “low anthropology, high Christology.”  I find immense truth in that statement.  The depravity of humanity is wide and deep.  Constantly I miss the mark, while the grace of Christ is remarkably transcendent.  Yet, that phrase began to leave me a bit unsettled.  I began to feel that it wasn’t completely accurate.

I found myself (completely providentially, of course) in a Master’s program in Christian Spirituality at a Jesuit University… and I found a way to hold the paradox.  I am sinful… and yet capable of hearing God’s voice.  God is completely other than myself… and yet desires to be in an intimate relationship with me.  In the Spiritual Exercises, I found a compromise that didn’t feel compromising.  I’m just beginning to realize what a gift this has been to me and how God has placed me in this place, in this time, to engage this particular means by which to know Him more deeply.  I’m not sure where it will lead… but I’m elated to be where I am.

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