This Ignatian Life

The Reverend Larry Gillick, S. J. was recently a guest on my podcast, Catholic Comments. I have known Larry for almost 20 years, but he continues to surprise me with the depth of his insight about life and human motivation. This conversation was no different. We talked about Advent, which – to paraphrase Larry — he called the season of making room for Christ.

Since my days as a theology student, I have generally thought of Advent as a season of waiting and expectation. There are good reasons to understand it this way. After all, we are waiting for the birth of the Lord with expectation. Also, the readings of the season point to the second coming and the general resurrection, for which we all wait, though with varying degrees of expectation. For me, thinking about Advent in this way had become so routine that the season had lost its ability to edge me toward any kind of spiritual insight during what might be called the American Season of Frenzy, which happens to correspond to the Christian Season of Advent.

During the interview, instead of pulling out the standard trope of “waiting,” Larry said that Advent was about making space for God. Think about it. If you are like me– and I know many people are not — Christmas preparations feel a bit like a pain in the ass. They come at a really bad time in the life of an educator. In late November and early December, the momentum of the semester builds toward a crest that crashes into final projects and exams. When these are finished, I have just enough time to grade them and then careen around the city Christmas shopping in crowded places (which I really do not enjoy). All of this combines to create a baseline of unease (at best) and annoyance (at worst).

So, lately, the approach of Advent has been a source of irritation because it means that once again the Season of Frenzy has descended upon me. In this state, I care little about waiting and am unmoved by apocalyptic promises of the second coming. Finish the exams, throw up the tree, get through it all so I can rest — this is my attitude on the days when I am most tired.

At the interview Larry compared bringing the Christmas tree into the house to the making space in our hearts for the arrival of Christ. Moving the furniture to accommodate the tree is analogous to clearing an inner space to accommodate the reception of the Lord. “But we don’t want to do it,” Larry said, “we resist.”

I resist. With Christmas approaching– as I write this it is just a few days away– I find myself, ignatian style, contemplating the innkeepers of ancient Bethlehem on the eve of the arrival of the Holy Family. Who can blame them for turning away Mary and Joseph and the unborn Christ. They were busy. They had businesses to run. Their inns well full. Besides, it was the freaking Government’s fault for imposing the stupid census that required people to travel to their ancestral village at a difficult time of year. Why should I bend over backwards for a couple of losers who left too late and did not make a reservation. Didn’t they watch the news for God’s sake. They deserve to sleep on the street because they are such poor planners. Joseph must be a pretty lousy husband — not very responsible.

Sometime I think that Ignatian contemplatios are a bit juvenile. I mean really, putting yourself in a Bible scene? Who does that in the twenty-first century except children and fundamentalists? But, when I do it, it almost always bears fruit.

I am — we are — so much like the innkeepers of Bethlehem when it comes to the spiritual life. During the last couple of weeks that have defined the season of Advent, I can see, in retrospect, times when the Lord was asking for a room and but the inner inn was closed. My reasons were pretty good, though. I had stuff to do, places to go, papers to grades, podcasts to produce, blogs to manage, a class to take, food to cook, people to form, children to raise. I was busy, and besides, God could wait because God always does.

As the Advent season winds down, I am finally ready for room-making and God is there waiting. God, of course, is undisturbed by having to wait, but I find myself wondering how much more graceful the last few weeks would have been if I had made room then.

Maybe next year I’ll do better.

Photo: “No Room at the Inn” by “Jrwooley6″ from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

When I was in kindergarten I lost my first tooth ever. It happened in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese and I was blubbery mess, convinced that the tooth fairy would not buy my story. After crying and carrying on in true over dramatic six year-old fashion, I am told that I said these words to the manager that night: “There has been a disaster.” As it turns out, the tooth fairy accepts handwritten explanations from managers on duty—crisis averted.

Twenty some years later and loss continues to tantalize me, shoving its ugly nose into very real attempts to plan, to organize and make sense of the world. But rather than remain victimized by this all too familiar force-of-loss, I’ve come to think of losing as an art, an art that I am very skilled at. I am constantly “at a loss” throughout my day—metro card, the time, my thought process. And I am especially gifted at losing my keys. The early twentieth century poet Elizabeth Bishop writes about the measured process of losing in her poem “One Art.”

“One Art”

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing further, losing faster:
places, and names and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! My last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write It!) like disaster.

Count your loses— on fingers, with tears, in curse words. Measure what’s now missing, maybe gone forever—gone from sight, from feeling. And if you can, in a joking voice, laugh at the loss and tell it—you are no disaster.

Then there are those other kinds of losses. What do we do about the losses that cannot simply be laughed off with self-deprecating humor, loss that cannot be consoled with a poem, loss that isn’t somewhat easily consoled?

Lost lives. Lost loves. Lost causes. Loss of innocence.

I admit that I’ve had more losses in these categories than I care to remember. And I also admit that in response to too many of these losses, faith was not my immediate response. Life dangles the temptations of quick-fix responses to the most profound hardship—and there lies the disaster. The loss itself isn’t the disaster, but the response to the loss is where the catastrophe lurks. Enter faith.

Faith is what we turn to; what we must turn to in order to weather the significant losses of life. And when I say faith, I mean much more than going to church for a quick-fix, more than swiftly reaching out for Psalm 23, more than hastily carrying yourself to the nearest confessional to own up to your part in the losing process. The faith that I am referring to is a slow faith. Slow faith means sitting down with a trusted friend, a mentor and examining, over time, how you’ve gotten to this point and how God is trying to help you through it. Slow faith means regular quiet time with your God to feel through the loss and grieve together. Slow faith means paying attention to the people, the places, the things that God has placed into your life very intentionally to inspire, encourage and even entertain. Slow faith will lead you away from disaster.

Loss. With patience, with humor, with faith we can be masters.

Photo: “letting go” by “janGlas” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)