This Ignatian Life

The other day, someone asked me where I like to pray.  I started to respond back quickly with the familiar: church, before meals, on retreats, before I go to bed.  And then I started thinking about the past month and the times when I remember intentionally turning to God to share a laugh, mutter a desire, say a thank-you or to simply be aware of God’s presence.  Laying in bed after the alarm went off, in the shower, on the subway, at PETCO, after I tripped but saved myself from falling, watching my niece and nephew blow out their birthday candles, stuck in traffic while road tripping to Upstate NY, and looking at pictures on Facebook of summer weddings, baby arrivals, family vacations, anniversaries & beyond.  Each of these places and circumstances, though far different from the next, share the common thread of my need for, and turning towards, God’s presence.

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.

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)

Arch Bishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in 1980 in El Salvador. He inspired many with his prophetic life and solidarity with the poor and marginalized. In his prayer, known as “Prophets of a Future Not Our Own,” Romero offered liberation from being overwhelmed by the enormity of whatever task lies before us, trusting that we are not the Master builders, that a Spirit greater than us is ultimately responsible. The flip side of that liberation, though, is a sense of laziness, of procrastination, of thinking what we do now does not really matter, it’s all up to God, not us. Ignatius reminds us that we are free, yet we are called.