St.Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) was a wise, insightful, and down-to-earth man of faith. Like another once wealthy, wounded soldier, Francis of Assisi, Ignatius used his convalescence to help him draw closer to God. In Teresa Blythe's, Spiritual Direction 101, a highly readable and practical primer on the care of the soul, she notes that:Ignatius studied what he called "movements of the heart," both those that moved us closer to God and those that made us feel detached... (his) study grew out of a period of convalescence... as he recovered from a debilitating war injury, Ignatius noticed how he felt after reading the only books he had available to him in the convent - ones about the lives of Jesus and the saints. Prior to this injury, Ignatius enjoyed romantic writings about brave knights devoted to beautiful women of royalty. Not having those books in the convent to read, (he) daydreamed about romance, and noticed that when he did, he would feel warmth and joy for a little while, but was left later feeling "dry and dusty." And when he read about the life of the saints, he noticed that he felt a lasting peace and a desire to be like them. Out of these reflections on his inner life, Ignatius determined that we can examine the movements of our heart for evidence of consolation - those lasting feelings of peace, joy, love, and patience; or for desolation - the feelings of being dry, dull, despairing, or anxious. (Through this) examination of these inner movements (using the prayer practice of Examen over time)we can discern how to follow the path of life, which is the path God desires for us. (Blythe, p. 36)
Blythe's summary of the Ignatian movements of the heart strikes me as highly useful in these crazy times: am I making choices that draw me towards life, or, am I pushing myself away from that which is holy, good, true and healthy? As other spiritual directors have articulated: the vast majority of contemporary spirituality is self-absorbed and ego-centric. Cynthia Bourgeault writes in The Wisdom Way of Knowing that 21st century spiritual seekers too often confuse their "own personal emotional life" with the way of the heart and God's calling.
In this the heart helps re-connect us to our origins. In a "storm-tossed vision of romantic individualism," she continues, the Wisdom our heart posses is "an astonishing countervision: that the passions we are so impressed with in the West cannot possible be original (of our origins) for they keep us stuck on the surface of ourselves, bobbing around in a chop." (p. 87)
As the heart becomes undivided, a still and accurately reflecting mirror, it begins to to be able to see and swim in the deeper waters of the divine... where our true heart lies, we find the true verve, power, and meaning of our lives... (and) seeing that purified of its anxious, agitated ego-self is called objective seeing. It means (like Ignatius noted) seeing with the eye of our heart. (p. 88)
This is, of course, why all spiritual direction insists upon some regular practice of stillness. It can happen in countless ways and contexts: a monk's cell is neither necessary nor desired. Whatever the practice, however, the goal "is to teach the mind to stay put in the present rather than wandering off into dreams and fantasies." (Bourgeault 89) Or fears and anxieties. Or illusions or disillusions. I am currently finding the tool of St. Ignatius to be very helpful as I try to both listen and see with the eye of my heart: What brings deeper and more lasting rest as opposed to distraction and dryness?
Honestly, I sometimes don't know which is which at first. I love everything - distractions and depth, solitude and engagement, the inward and the outward journeys, a raucous jazz bar in Montreal as well as a silent walk in the woods, cities or country streams, sitting with my grandchildren or chatting with my lover - or just resting in an old, incense filled Sanctuary and chanting the Psalms. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by the beauty of it all that I become a sensory lush. Like Whitman, I want to jump into it all. Right now. This rush of being so fully present to creation has had its place in my life for more than a few seasons. No wonder I cherish Leonard Cohen: he, like me, learned a little from his zealous excesses even as he kept returning to the scene of his crimes once too often. I seem to make the same mistakes over and again as well. From Cohen I have learned to honor the slow movement of grace in my life and others as that "crack, a crack in everything... that's how the light gets in."But to paraphrase - and learn from - Brother Lenny: I've spent time with Stalin and St. Paul, walked beside the Berlin wall, I've seen the future, brother, it is murder. (The Future) And it is murder, but only as long as I keep doing the same things over and over while expecting different results. The clues that Ignatius discovered offer us an alternative if we create the stillness to listen. "When you seize on a fantasy" writes Bourgeault, "and start to work on it with your emotions and personal agendas, distortion enters... the imagination must learn to be contained between the twin banks of attention (teaching it to stay put at a single point) and surrender (letting go of all phenomenon as they occur.)" I like how Romans 5 puts it - with my cautious edit:
We embrace our sufferings,knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because hope is God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
This small, quiet paradox, feeds my heart and calls out to the poet, Alberto Rios, who put it like this in "When Giving Is All We Have."
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.
We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—
Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.
Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:
Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.
You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me
What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made
Something greater from the difference.
credits:
+ Robert Lentz @ https://fineartamerica.com/featured/st-ignatius-loyola-rligl-br-robert-lentz-ofm.html?product=poster
+ Mako Fujimura @ https://fullerstudio.fuller.edu/tea-and-communion-mako-fujimura-and-keiko-yanaka/
+ Mako @ https://www.nycreligion.info/makoto-fujimuras-golden-sea/
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.
We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—
Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.
Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:
Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.
You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me
What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made
Something greater from the difference.
credits:
+ Robert Lentz @ https://fineartamerica.com/featured/st-ignatius-loyola-rligl-br-robert-lentz-ofm.html?product=poster
+ Mako Fujimura @ https://fullerstudio.fuller.edu/tea-and-communion-mako-fujimura-and-keiko-yanaka/
+ Mako @ https://www.nycreligion.info/makoto-fujimuras-golden-sea/
No comments:
Post a Comment