Tag: Ignatian spirituality

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Meditations for Thanksgiving

Exciting news! My partners and I at Soul Space are releasing not one, but FIVE guided Thanksgiving meditations for the month of November. One, like always, will be free. If you’re an email subscriber already, you’ll have already received it in your inbox. If you’re not a subscriber yet, you can become one at no cost simply by signing up on our website. The other four will be released a week at a time to those who sign up for our Patreon community.

This month, all of our releases are themed for Thanksgiving. Our free release, which you’ll receive as a link in your inbox as soon as you subscribe, is on Colossians 3:12-17. This recording will be yours to listen to whenever you choose on our website, or to download into your personal device.

If you get our emails already or head to our website, you’ll notice some changes. First, we’ve renamed and rebranded ourselves as The Stillness Collective. Our mission continues to be to help people create space for restoration, rest, and stillness in their busy lives. Our meditations are one part of that mission. Spiritual direction is another part. The last, new piece – coming soon! – will be retreats.

You can still find a free sample meditation – Romans 8:32-39 – on our website under the heading “Guided Meditations,” but our new monthly release will now be available only to those who are on our mailing list, rather than posted online. Again, our mailing list can be joined at no cost and you’ll receive a link to a new meditation every month, which you can listen to online or download.

The other four meditations are based on ancient Christian forms of contemplative prayer – that means they are tried and true and experienced by Christians all over the world and for many centuries. Every month, as a Patreon supporter of The Stillness Collective, you’ll receive one guided Ignatian prayer, one Lectio Divina, one Examen, and one breath prayer. These will also be available online and to download. (To read more about these four forms of prayer, visit this link. )

We would love for you to join our community of supporters by signing up for Patreon. We know there are lots of options for meditation and prayer out there, but we believe that our guided prayers have a few features that make them special. First, they are planned and written by three experienced Christian spiritual directors who are immersed in contemplative practices and also trained in helping people connect with God and get in touch with their deep longings and desires. Second, you have the option to pair the meditations with monthly spiritual direction (and soon, retreats!), which will support you as you seek to encounter God in your everyday experience. Third, our meditations are set to beautiful ambient music composed specifically to help people enter into contemplation. And finally, you will be able to download our meditations and keep them forever, even if you choose to end your subscription.

I hope you’ll take a look at our offerings! Listen to our free meditation on Romans, sign up for our one free monthly meditation, and visit our Patreon page. Through December, we’re offering a discount on our four-meditation monthly package, so now is a great time to join our community. Thanks so much for being a part of our journey!

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New Contemplative Reflections on Psalm 16 and Philippians 4:6-9

My partners and I at Soul Space released a new reflection yesterday! Featuring Psalm 16, it invites us to make God the center of our hope and trust, to follow him in his way of life and joy, and to see the abundant ways he is already present in our lives. 

Last month, we also released a reflection on Philippians 4:6-8, a contemplation to help us cope with anxieties and fear by following the Apostle Paul’s RX for peace: gratitude, prayer, and focusing our thoughts on all that is good and comes from God. 

In the meantime, we are also planning more reflections for the fall! Starting in November, we are hoping to release a series of 5 meditations per month. One will continue to be free, and the other four will be behind a paywall of some sort – we’re still working out the details. Our first series will be in November, on Gratitude (of course!), and in December, an Advent series entitled, “Opening Ourselves Up . . . to God’s Holy Disturbance.” Each month will include four different types of prayer based on the month’s theme: an Ignatian imaginative prayer, a Daily Examen, a breath prayer, and a Lectio Divina. 

We’ve gotten some really great feedback on what we’ve done so far, so thank you to all who have listened, responded, and shared with your friends and family! All of us have had our lives and relationships with God changed by contemplative practices (and by spiritual direction) and are passionate about bringing them to as many people as possible. – Carrie

Find me on Instagram @ravishedbylight

Find SoulSpace on Instagram @soulspacecenter

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Responding to the Sex Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church (Workshop Notes)

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Against the background of the still-unfolding sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church, the Ignatian Spirituality Network offered a workshop last month called Hope Does Not Disappoint: Spiritual Direction in Challenging Times for the Church. This workshop did not – as did a recent missive by former Pope Benedict – address causes and remedies – but rather was aimed to help spiritual directors as they both reflect on their own vocation in light of the crisis and create space for directees to respond during direction sessions.

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The two main questions wrestled with in the Ignatian Spirituality’s workshop were these: What is our calling as spiritual directors in the midst of the sex abuse crisis? How do we accompany people who are rightly suspicious, hurt, angry, and grieving by the shocking failure of their beloved church — people who are betrayed by leaders they literally trusted with their souls? The workshop was not necessarily focused on directing either survivors or perpetrators of abuse, although those subjects did come up, but more on how we as directors can understand and carry out our vocation in light of everything that has and continues to happen.

Although I am not Catholic, as someone trained in the Ignatian tradition, I consider myself “Catholic adjacent.” I also have seen firsthand that abuse, willful ignorance, and systemic corruption and institutional failure are not limited to the Catholic church. I won’t go into details here, but it doesn’t take much beyond curiosity and a search engine to confirm that the Protestant church has got plenty of its own problems.

During the workshop several themes emerged:

  • Each one of us has a basic calling as a Christian to discipleship. That calling exists within the larger “Christ project” – the redemption of all people and all creation. For directors, our calling as disciples is primarily lived out within the space of direction. We may or may not have a voice within the larger power structure of our institutions, but each of us can live every opportunity we have to take part in Christ’s work to the fullest.
  • It’s important to keep our eyes on the risen Christ and the presence and action of God in our lives. Ignatian practices help us continue to discern and stay attuned in the moment.
  • One of the speakers explained a revelation he came to, in contemplative prayer, of the sex abuse crisis as a continuation of the crucifixion today. We are standing as witnesses, much as Mary and John did at the foot of the cross, to the suffering of Christ in our time. The abuse crisis, like the crucifixion, is a deliberate rejection of God’s love. This is an especially poignant thought to reflect on at Easter time. It neither minimizes the pain experienced by those victimized – pain that, as both speakers affirmed, will be with them for all of their lives – nor leaves all in desolation. We are journeying, slowly and surely, with God towards the full restoration of all humanity.
  • The “bloodletting” among the ranks of priests and bishops is a right and necessary purification of the church.
  • As we offer spiritual companionship to those who are rightly struggling with the institution of the church, and who may leave or already have left in response, we can ask a few questions:
    • What are the ways you are nurtured by the institutional church and what are the ways that you’re not? Where you are not, where can you go to find nurture? Where can you discern an invitation to deepen your relationship with God even during these times?
    • What are you feeling? What is it like for you to feel those emotions?
    • What are your interactions with God like? Who is God to you at this moment?

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As we accompany those who are hurting and also deal with our own emotions in the space of direction, we continue to look, listen, and pray for the presence, love, and healing of God in our lives and in the life of the Body of Christ.

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*On a much lighter note, while I was writing this blog post — blissfully sipping my warm cocoa oolong bubble milk tea — I overheard the following statement from a black-leather-clad woman talking loudly on her phone:

“Oh, I am much more evil than his exes. He just doesn’t know that yet. He’s about to find out.”

She looked like she could flatten that boy with her hands tied behind her back, using only her pinkie toe and the force of her malice. I hope he’s a better runner than he is a boyfriend.

Find me on Instagram! @ravishedbylight. 

Image credits:

Christ Image

All Saints

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Doing the Examen with Kids

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For around 2 years now, I’ve been using the Reimagining the Examen app before I go to sleep. It’s a modern take on the Ignatian Examen of Conscience, in which you imaginatively re-live the hours of your day with God. You ask God to shed light on those things he wants to bring to your attention, and what your response to them should be (gratitude? repentance? a request for help?) both in the moment and in how you prepare for the day to come.

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The app comes with over a dozen variations on the traditional examen, and you can either go through the previously set order or pick and choose according to how you feel that day.  Some of the examens have a musical accompaniment, and you can choose the type of music or sound as well (quiet piano, guitar, rainfall, ocean waves, etc.).Screenshot 2018-07-05 at 12.28.45 PM

Probably around a year ago, I started doing my nightly examen with my seven-year old as part of our tuck-in routine, and it quickly became one of the highlights of my day.  We don’t always do every question, but we almost always do question 2, which asks us to review the blessings of the day, both big and small. Usually her blessings are simple, joyful things like, “I got to play with my cousin today” or “I got to eat ice cream” or “My mommy is my blessing.”

She’s too young to really process some of the more high-level questions, but with a little translation and explanation, she’s able to engage on a surprisingly deep level. For example, one of the examens asks, “Where was Jesus with you today?” Her answer: “On the playground, during break time. He was watching me play.”

Several weeks ago, after a long day at the beach for the kids and their dad (I was home  working but also in the deliciously cool air conditioning), our examen topic was “Am I Free or Unfree?” This wasn’t her first time around the contemplative block, so she knows by now that “free,” in Ignatian Speak, means filled with hope, faith, and love and drawn towards God, while “unfree” means the opposite: filled with fear, mistrust, and selfishness and drawn away from God. Still, I was not expecting her response. She immediately jumped in with, “I was unfree today. Definitely.”

When I asked why, she said – very emphatically – “because I was terrorized because the waves were so big and I got water in my eyes.” After I’d gently corrected her – “I think you mean terrified” – she elaborated. “Yeah, I was terrified and traumatized because the waves were so strong.”

The next step was to imagine that moment of unfreedom – in this case, fear – but this time imagining God there with you. I asked her, “Can you see God there with you? How does God being there change what you felt or experienced?”

She said, “He helps me to not be terrified and traumatized because I know that he’s with me and my Daddy’s with me too, and he’ll help me if I drown.”

“What do you think God is saying to you?” I asked.

“I think he’s saying I don’t have to be terrified and traumatized the next time but I can just have fun.”

I was blown away by the simplicity and insight of her response. I am beyond grateful for the way the examen has acclimated her to expect to encounter God every day, to hear his voice, to access and give expression to her inner life, to build her faith through direct experience. Doing the examen together has also built our relationship as we communicate about our emotions and pray together at bedtime. I wish I had known about this tool when my two older children were at this age.

If you have children of any age, I encourage you to find an examen routine that works for you. If you prefer a paper version to an app, you can try the Reimagining the Examen book or ebook or, as an alternative, try Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life. (Read a short description of Sleeping with Bread on my Spiritual Direction Links and Resources page or read my review of the book for a more in-depth approach.

 

Header photo credit: https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/prayer/prayers/10-childrens-prayers-simple-and-easy-for-kids-to-pray.html

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God’s Voice Within: Ignatian Discernment for Beginners (Book Review)

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God’s Voice Within, by Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ, is an extremely practical book on Ignatian discernment. Meant to both simplify and elucidate the process of decision making, it’s filled with helpful anecdotes about discernment done well (like responding to genuine vocational calling) and discernment gone off the deep end (like dropping out of college without consulting anyone because of a poorly understood emotional crisis).

Although the book is accessible to those unfamiliar with St. Ignatius and the Jesuits, Thibodeaux does rely on a few terms that are essential to Ignatian discernment, as well as to Ignatian spirituality generally, beginning with desolation and consolation. At its most basic, consolation is the movement of your spirit towards God, evidenced by an increase of faith, hope, love, peace, and a sense of God’s closeness, while desolation is the movement of your spirit away from God, evidenced by fear, secrecy, anxiety, boredom, or apathy. However, these are tricky concepts because not only do you have actual consolation and desolation, you can also experience false consolation (an apparent increase of faith, hope, love, and peace that is actually disguising desolation) as well as deep suffering and distress that feel like desolation, but, because they cause you to turn towards God, actually produce consolation. Also, depending on where you are in your spiritual journey, consolation and desolation can take on different forms.

Although whole books have been written about desolation and consolation, true and false, God’s Voice Within helpfully offers charts and checklists that help you determine which one you are feeling, and how to respond once you know. Simply put: When in consolation, store up in your memory what consolation feels like and the practices that are sustaining you. When in desolation, buckle down and do the same things that came naturally to you while in consolation, no matter how much more difficult they are now. In fact, do them with even more determination, deliberately turning towards God even though your emotions and experiences are telling you to do the opposite. Perhaps most importantly, desolation is not a time to make any major decisions, particularly if doing so would reverse a decision made while in consolation.

Once he’s explained desolation and consolation, also known as the movement of the spirits, Thibodeaux reminds us that the basis for all discernment is the Principle and Foundation, a “mission statement” that Ignatius formulated to remind us of the essential truth of who we are, why we are, and what we are doing: “Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul . . . [Therefore,] Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.” Our purpose and goal are greater and truer love and service towards God, which, in Ignatian thought, goes hand in hand with more fully becoming the person God designed us to be.

From the Principle and Foundation, Thibodeaux derives a helpful question to answer at the start of a discernment process: “What are you looking for at this time of your life?” In other words, what are the goals and purposes that drive you? Thibodeaux recommends writing your own version of the Foundation and Principle, using a process that includes remembering what it was like to first answer the call of Jesus, naming your gifts and which you are most grateful for, and naming each of your vocational callings.

Once you’ve clarified your own Foundation and Principle, discernment can proceed through its four phases: Get Quiet (cultivating a habit of regular and concrete prayer), Gather Data (about yourself and about the choices before you), Dream the Dreams (get in touch with your deep desires), and Ponder the Dreams (test the response of your spirit to your choices, or what Thibodeaux calls “praydreaming”). These four phases are folllowed by tentative decision making, seeking confirmation, and final decision making, and Thibodeaux provides helpful guidelines for knowing when confirmation, or disconfirmation, has come.

But what about when confirmation doesn’t come, despite your best intentions and efforts? Almost as much as I valued the process outlined in God’s Voice Within, I appreciated its tips on making a decision when confirmation doesn’t come: the acknowledgement that in the end, sometimes we simply make our way through the twilight as best as we can, trusting God has been and will be with us no matter where we choose to go.