Spiritual Direction: Preparation

At the Jesuit University at which I teach as an adjunct, the students are offered an opportunity at the end of winter break to make a weeklong silent retreat at the nearby Jesuit Retreat House. A week of 24/7 silence, broken only by the daily liturgies and daily reflective, one-on-one meetings with spiritual directors. During the fall semester, the students are expected to attend a few meetings and complete some reading in preparation for the undertaking ahead of them.  That sort of a week is a challenge for the most experienced of adults.  For an 18-year-old?!

 

Some years ago, I was speaking with a young woman about her retreat experience, and asked her how she had done with the required preparation.

 

"I didn't get to any of it," she laughed.

 

"And how did your retreat director respond?" I wondered.

 

"Father G was my director," she responded. 

 

Ah.  Mine, too, once a week, as I was making the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises that year.  I didn't mention that to her, but I did ask if she'd told him the truth.

 

"Yep," she said, "and he told me not to worry about it.  He said that my whole life up to that point has been a preparation for the retreat."

 

I've had formal training and lots of continuing education as a spiritual director.  But I learned the most about it from HG, my own first director, and a lot of what I learned can be found in that one sentence. Our whole lives are the subject of our prayer, however it is that we find ourselves praying.  Our whole lives are fodder for growth in our relationship with God, no matter how casually or ineptly we approach it.

 

Now . . . if I could just remember that for myself.

Reading, Not Books

I have been reading tonight.

 

I've been reading the professional websites published by friends whose businesses provide various forms of life coaching for women.  With their emphasis on self-discovery, re-invention, and pathways to authenticity and satisfaction in all arenas of life, they are sure to glean far greater audience numbers than those my church is able to gather into a worshipping congregation.

 

I've also been reading the essays written by applicants to the spiritual direction program from which I graduated and on whose advisory board I now sit.  Lengthy, searching, reflective pieces of writing, revealing many of life's great traumas and the persistent search for God which winds in and around those experiences of what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls orientation, disorientation, and re-orientation.

 

The first set of readings has made me really tired.

 

The second has made me want to cry.

Father's Day Postscript ~ Spiritual Fatherhood

Not a term I was familiar with ~ spiritual fatherhood.  In fact, when it occurred to me, I thought I had made it up!  But it turns out to be a common appellation, especially in Catholic circles, in which priests are referred to as "Father" and heads of women's religious orders as "Mother," so that people are accustomed to thinking of their religious leaders as parental figures.

By the time it occurred to me that I had a spiritual father, the title had long since dropped away from our conversations.  But the idea of it, the hope and humor and warmth and challenge of a father, a spiritual father,  ~ indeed, that had come to fruition.

This priest ~ yes,  Catholic priest a Jesuit, a man my own father's age who had no reason to take any interest in my except as a graduate student in his classroom, at least not until I asked him if he would help me make the Spiritual Exercises ~ this man is the one I want to celebrate this Father's Day week.  Not only did he guide me through the Exercises; he remained a friend, advisor, and consoler through the darkest years of my life.  He responded to countless emails, listened to me for hours this past spring when  I made my more-or-less silent weeklong retreat, and continues to nudge me forward, despite knowing full well the depths of darkness to which my son's death has taken me.

I have found some other remarkable companions on the journey in the past few years.  But H. wins pride of place as spiritual father, and not merely because of his age. He was, I think I can safely say, the very first person to take my personal spiritual life seriously. I have known wonderful pastors and religious sisters, but H. was the first person willing to spend long hours listening and suggesting and questioning and pushing me as an individual.  I have heard hundreds of thoughtful and challenging sermons, but H. was the first person  to follow me down the rabbit hole discovered concealed under a single word or question and to point me toward the tunnel in which growth might be found.

Yesterday morning in church, I prayed for all sorts of fathers, good ones and bad ones, and their children, but I realize now that I did not pray for the most important ones of all, those who accept the call to tend and nurture our spiritual lives, to shelter us in life's spiritual tsunamis, and to push us back out into the sunlight.

I'm afraid that most of us don't have such fathers.  I'm so grateful that one night I said, "Hey, can I talk to you for a moment?" and found one.

Picking Up a Pen . . .

OK, not a pen.

 

But I've blogged very little this year, and I do think that I'll pick that up again.

 

What am I wondering about these days?

 

Ministry, the church, the world, of course.  What are we doing??? Yesterday, I took some time to write out my thoughts about what my call to ministry entails and then a job description based on what I actually do on a daily basis.  Few points of intersection ~ much to consider there.

 

What happens to relationships in the wake of earth-shaking loss?  The picture isn't a pretty one.

 

Spiritual direction ~ what's that all about?  I mean, I know what it's about; perhaps it's where I want to focus my life much more completely?  I am accompanying someone through the Spiritual Exercises ~ fifth time, which isn't a lot for five years, but it's such a huge commitment that I can't manage it with more than one person at a time.  As always, though, I am in awe.

 

Preaching ~ what's that all about?  How much I wish I had had a series of decent preaching courses in seminary! 

 

I am a bit envious of my son as he begins his new law practice.  He's in court nearly every day, and learning quickly that the practice of law is about far more than advocating for folks in adversarial contexts.  It's about being present to them, about letting them know that they are heard, and about helping to quell the fears arising from uncertainty and lack of control. 

 

Suicide prevention.  Is there such a thing, really?  I spend a lot of time and effort on projects in the hope that there is. 

 

Aging.  Sixty-one next month.  Thinking a lot about what I would do if I had less than a decade left.  Not in a morose kind of way, but in a priority-setting kind of way.  I really don't have my act together at all.

 

Grief.  Learning to live alongside it.  I guess it gets better, in the sense that I am more functional all the time.  Clarity of thought has become a reasonable expectation on most days.  But the pain of it -- oh, God. 

 

Intentional solitude.  I need a lot more of that.  I have LOTS of time alone, but I am making a poor showing where taking advantage of it is concerned. 

 

Books.  I have been reading.  A lot.

 

So, yeah.  More writing.  In shorter gusts, I think.

 

Dream Workshop

Only the dreamer can interpret her own dreams.

That was my main takeaway from a workshop I attended a couple of weeks ago on dreams and spiritual direction offered by Jungian analyst and spiritual director Janice Bachman, O.P.  Our focus was on helping people (including ourselves) to notice and understand what our dreams might be saying to us in the context of helping people to find what God is doing in their lives rather than on analysis of dreams such as one might do in therapy, but the principle of self-interpretation holds true.

The best and worst of my dreams over the past five years have centered, of course, on Josh.  Some of them, fragmented and terrible nightmares, seem to be means for absorbing and processing what has happened to us.  I didn't sleep much the first few years after he died, but apparently I slept for periods long enough to fall into the REM sleep required for dreaming.  The dreams themselves indicated a mild form of PTSD, although it didn't feel mild at the time.  I often thought that I stopped sleeping more than a few hours a night because my dreams were so horrific. These days, I still have the dreams, but it seems that I've gotten used to them.

Others?  Like most parents who have lost children, I have vivid, joyful dreams of my son, of all my children, to which I try desperately to return when I awake.  Josh is so alive in those dreams.  It astonishes me, that our brain circuits retain so much detail of times and people long past that they seem to live in complete fullness as we sleep.  The voices, the gestures, the shining hair ~ all as it once was.  I wonder sometimes whether those dreams are indeed a form of communication, whether Josh, or God, or someone, is trying to tell me that he's fine, beautiful and whole and healed.  Or are they merely wishful thinking, brain circuits working overtime, trying to recover an irretrievable sense of well-being and security?

I wish that I had the confidence in dreams that Biblical dreamers demonstrate.  We spent a chunk of our workshop on Jacob's dream, reflecting upon it in great detail as a way of practicing what we might explore with a spiritual directee.  Rich layers of meaning that can be extracted from the symbols and repetitions.  Can I apply to my own dreams the reverence that Biblical dreamers applied to theirs?

Ironically, this past week-end, my daughter and I went to see Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, her Christmas present to me.  Joseph, of course, does interpret the dreams of others, and thus changes the course of history. I wonder whether we could alter our own lives if we could fully access and understand our dreams.

Turning Into a Spiritual Director ~ Part I

For the past several weeks, I've been a member of a committee working on a promotional video for the program in which I trained as a spiritual director.   Spearheaded by a young MBA/Marketing student who is also training to be a director, the video will explore the program via interviews with a group of graduates.  The committee has kindly held its meetings in my living room, since getting out is such an undertaking for me. 

 

My own interview for the video is next Friday, and I've had a lot of fun reflecting on the questions we've developed, starting with:

 

 

What drew you to the Ignatian Spirituality Institute?

 

The short answer is that my spiritual director suggested it.

 

The longer version:  I had made the Spiritual Exercises two years earlier.  At the time, I was doing graduate work in the Humanities at John Carroll University, and I had taken two courses in literature and spirituality as a way of meeting my professional requirements for literature courses (I was teaching high school at the time) and my personal desire to further my religious education.  The courses did not cover Ignatian spirituality per se, but my professor was a Jesuit priest, a brilliant man and a gifted educator, and it was clear to me that there was something about Ignatian spirituality that I wanted to pursue.  My professor radiated a joy in his life with God that I had seldom witnessed in anyone else, and whatever that was about ~ I wanted it.

 

The same professor offered a course on Ignatian spirituality during that time period, but I couldn't fit it into my schedule.  One night, my own class on Islam ended early, and I wandered down the hall and sat in on the second half of his class.  I don't remember the topic under discussion, but I do recall sinking into my seat ~ as much as one can sink into a molded plastic classroom chair ~ with a grateful sense that I had found my home. 

 

When the course rolled around again a couple of years later, I signed up for it, and about three weeks later asked my professor if he would help me make the Exercises.  I remember the conversation very clearly; it took place in his office late at night, after class, and I was sure that he would refuse and pass me on to someone else.  I didn't know him well at all, but I was aware that he was often away traveling, and doubted that he had the time to give me the Exercises.  Imagine my surprise when he said "Sure" and pulled out his calendar so that we could set a time!  Suddenly I was launched into . . . I had no idea what.

 

As that incredible year rolled to an end, my director asked whether I had considered the ISI.  I had, in a vague sort of way, because I had fallen in love with Ignatian spirituality, and credited it with changing my entire life orientation.  But the Exercises, even accommodated to my Protestant sensibilities, seemed distinctly Catholic to me, and I doubted that they would be something I could put to use in any way.  Besides, I had already made the decision, part and parcel of my experience of the Exercises, to go to seminary.  How much could a person manage?  (Much more, as things were to turn out.)

 

Next thing I knew, I was applying to the ISI.  Once again, prior commitments got in the way, and I had to wait until the next year to enroll, the year in which I started seminary in Pittsburgh. 

 

A little preposterous, to be sure. 

 

Thank God for Holy Spirit impracticality.

 

 

 

 

Margaret Blackie's Rooted in Love ~ Blogging Book Tour

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet with a spiritual director?  What sorts of thoughts and ideas might you share?  What might you expect in the form of guidance about your life of prayer?

Have you ever wondered what people are talking about when they enthusiastically mention the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius?  Those folks who tell you that "the Exercises changed my life" ~ we can be somewhat tedious, can't we? What's the big draw?

Or have you, perhaps, longed to have a conversation about your spiritual life with a friend or companion, but had no idea where to start?  What counts as "spiritual?"  Will your friend laugh at you?  You know that you would fumble for the words with which to describe your experience of God, or prayer ~ or your lack of experience.  How does one begin?

Margaret Blackie's book, Rooted in Love, answers these questions in a relaxed, friendly manner.  To read her book is to settle into a deep and wide-ranging spiritual conversation with a companion who is simultaneously a "friend from down the block" and an experienced spiritual guide.

Mags is a long-time spiritual director in the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola, so her book is peppered with Ignatian concepts of prayer, presented in a down-to-earth way.  And she concludes each chapter with a short set of exercises so that her readers might experiment with the concepts, language, and practices she introduces.  Much as she might if she were your "real life" director, Mags sends you off at the end of each reading with questions and ideas to ponder and review in your own periods of silence with God.

Mags is also a woman who has engaged many of life's puzzles with a discerning mind and heart: questions of career and call, issues of relationship, and challenges of the inner life.  She is not afraid to describe her own dilemmas, just as she might to a friend or spiritual director, and thus she models the kind of conversation many spiritual seekers long for. 

When Mags, who blogs here, invited me to review her book, she also offered to answer a few questions.  I immediately asked for her views on the following:

One of the first questions often asked by people seeking spiritual direction is "How can I establish some sort of rhythm or consistency in my prayer life?  I mean well, but I constantly procrastinate and delay."  How do you help people who hope to embark upon a deeper life of prayer get started?

 

I have three comments. I think most people procrastinate in prayer either because they are afraid of something or they are avoiding something. The first addresses the fear or avoidance - don't try and be anything other than you are; honesty in prayer is the most important thing. If you are afraid of something in particular bring it to God; likewise, if you are avoiding something, ask for the desire to deal with it.

 

The second piece of advice is more practical. If you have decided you want to pray for twenty minutes at a day, and you don't have twenty minutes - then do what you can. Praying for 5 or 10 minutes is better than not praying just because you can't spend the time you ideally wanted to.

 

Finally, if neither of the first two issues is a problem, it may be that the way that you are trying to pray isn't working for you. Try something else.

 

As you point out in your book, you encountered Ignatian spirituality at a young age.  In the spiritual direction program in which I trained, there is an increasing number of young students -- men and women in their twenties and thirties.  How do you think Ignatian spirituality speaks to young people in particular?

 

The Spiritual Exercises were designed for a person making a significant life choice (considering joining the Ignatius and his companions). The material on discernment and making decisions is so incredibly helpful to younger people. In your twenties and thirties you are in the midst of choosing career, life companion and what kind of life you are to lead. You also tend to be slightly less encumbered with responsibilities and obligations and therefore you have greater freedom. To have such tools when you are in the midst of making these choices is invaluable. Learning how to be discerning early sets you up better for whatever will come your way in life.  

 

And finally, Mags, who is both a chemist and a spiritual director, gave an unexpected answer to my third question ~ but one which may encourage all who struggle with more than one vocation or call in life.  My question was: In Ignatian spirituality, we often speak of "finding God in all things."  In what "thing" have you found it most difficult to locate God, and how was that challenge resolved (if it was)?

 

Probably in chemistry! I wish I had a different answer to that! I can intellectually see God in chemistry, but there are times when I find it hard to encounter God through the daily minutiae of building an academic career. There is a lot of evidence which supports the choice I have made to balance chemistry and spirituality. Nonetheless, I think I continue to walk the path I do out of an act of faith, rather than felt confirmation. I guess when I stop and pay attention I recognise that I do feel called to this life, but at the same time it can sometimes feel like an awkward fit.

 

Enjoy the book and the blog tour!

(Margaret Blackie asked me to review her book, which I had already purchased.  I have received no compensation for this post.  If you'd like to read another review, take a look at Fran Szpylczyn's at There Will Be Bread.)

(And . . .  I've started a new blog!  So you'll also find this piece cross-posted there! Eventually.)

 

 

My Word: Reverence

New Year's words are proliferating across the internet.  Various bloggers suggest that one choose a word, or offer to do the choosing - a word to serve as a guide, a focus, a call back to priorities, for the year ahead. 

I'm joining the swell of movement and offering my congregation "star words"  (thanks to Marci Glass) on Sunday ~ I think. The stars were cut out and the "Star Gazing" (think: magi) sermon planned when I tumbled down the steps last week.  The new sermon, "Stars in the Desert" (think: magi, John the Baptist, Jesus' baptism, and the desert fathers and mothers, so often asked for "a word" by those who sought their wisdom), is well under way. I guess if I am delayed another week (which tonight seems highly likely) I can work stars into "Come and See."

Last year my word, chosen by me, was Serenity.  I ended up with a stained glass window hanging of my word, and a relatively calm couple of months of discernment as I switched churches and walked through a doorway into a new realm of unexpected challenges.

This year, I sought a word that would help me to look outward, to listen, observe and respond more gently ~ albeit also more firmly.  The word I chose was Reverence.   An Ignatian word.

Spiritual Director Emeritus frequently speaks about "attention,  reverence, and devotion" as hallmarks of Ignatian spirituality. I've blogged about them at least once.  I discarded the first and last fairly easily as I considered words for this particular year.  I'm a short ways down the road on attention, and I did not want a word that I might interpret to demand more in the way of work, effort, discipline, intervention.  I'm kind of ok there as well.

But reverence?  An attitude, an approach, a willingness to calmly honor who or what presents itself to you. 

That could use some work, and might enrich my movement through this world as well.  A year of this, as the spiritual director who first did it for me describes it:

"Reverence is giving acceptance to, cherishing the differences of, holding in awe the uniqueness of another reality. So, before you judge or assess or respond, give yourself time to esteem and to accept what is there in the other."

My word: Reverence.  First object of reverence: a body and life considerably slowed due to a broken ankle.

Not a Silent Retreat!

 

 

We met six years ago as would-be spiritual directors on the first night of our training program, which began with a week-end retreat.  We finished up two years later at another retreat, and with four other members of our class formed a peer supervision group ~ which means that we meet every month or so for conversation around our experiences as spiritual directors.  Some time ago, three of us realized that we would all be turning sixty this year, and this week-end we managed to pull off a mini-retreat as a way of being intentional about the "final third" of our lives.

The three of us: Two Catholics and one Protestant, two employed in church positions and one doing major volunteer work related to spiritual direction, two married and one single, six children, work experience including missionary in El Salvador, teacher, lawyer, pastor, psychiatric nurse, and diocesan staff for pastoral ministry ~ and spiritual direction, of course.

We spent a very small amount of time each of us on her own; mostly we talked.  And talked and talked and talked.  A few hours Friday night and nonstop from breakfast through lunch today.  (We never left the dining room ~ midmorning, one of the staff members at the retreat house stopped in to ask if we knew that lunch wouldn't be served until 12:15!) 

We used Paula Huston's book A Season of Mystery: Twelve Spiritual Practices for Embracing a Happier Second Half of Life, which provided a great springboard for conversation.  I think we all agreed that it was particularly relevant to the third third of life; we found the topics pertinent and helpful and challenging.  I would highly recommend the book to any group of people seeking to look reflectively and unflinchingly at these final decades and to approach them as a time in which to live prayerfully and authentically.

We didn't think to take a picture!  But here's where we went.


 

News! Article Published!

I'm so excited to be able to announce that my article has been published in the September 2013 of Presence, the journal published by Spiritual Directors International!

 

It's called "Ignatian Spirituality: Companionship in Loss" and it's a blend of personal story and practical reflection for spiritual directors.

 

(As far as I know, it's not available online.)


 

Recognizing Yourself

 

 

Last summer when I had been a pastor for just under a year, our 40-something church secretary died within minutes of suffering a heart attack while she was at home in bed.  A couple of nights later, before our monthly church session/council meeting, I thought, "Someone needs to say something to acknowledge J's death and offer prayer for her family."

 

Then I realized: Oh. That would be me.

 

*******************************

 

I have had wonderful spiritual directors.  They've all been men, and their ages range from 61 - 83.  Lovely, insightful, faithful, loyal men.  Nevertheless, a few days ago I found myself thinking, "I wish I could find a woman spiritual director, a wise and loving woman who's about 80 and has lost a child to suicide and a breast to cancer."

 

And then I realized:  Oh.  In another twenty years, that will be me.

I guess I'd better get ready,

How Do You Pray? (Friday Five on Monday)

Jan shared the following Friday Five last week.  I didn't have the time then even to think about it, but the questions address one of my favorite topics, so I thought I'd work through them this morning:

Jan says, "At the beginning of this past week, I attended a conference on contemplative prayer entitled "Turning to the Mystics" at the 2013 Summer Institute at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. The speakers were James Finley, author and former novice of Thomas Merton; Mirabai Starr, author, translator, and speaker; and Father Ronald Rolheiser, author and president of OST. We were encouraged to regularly sit in quiet to come to realize our union with the Divine, who continually loves us into being."

So for this Friday Five, let us share about our prayer practices, whether silent or not:

 

1. How do you pray?

Most often I use the website Pray As You Go, which provides a daily 12-15 minutes of music, scripture, and questions to ponder.  Some days I sit with a journal and spend an hour on it, some days I listen as I get dressed, some days I listen as I walk. 

 

Other than that I tend to vary what I do.  Some days the Daily Office readings at this site, some days the lectionary or other Scripture passages, some days some sort of devotional book, my favorite being Celtic Benediction.  Some days silence for long periods of time. I tend to use my walks for intercessory prayer. 

 

Sometimes my prayer is all about journaling; sometimes, coloring; sometimes, photography; sometimes, listening to music. 

 

I try to pray the daily examen, which I have been moving to mornings, since I tend to fall asleep in the middle if I leave it till nighttime!

2. How has your idea of prayer changed over time? 

I was introduced to imaginative prayer, to repetitive reflection, to prayer as listening, and to "everything as prayer" when I made the Spiritual Exercises.  I suppose that I had been praying reflectively, mulling things over in the context of scripture, music, and sermons, for a long time before I stumbled upon the Exercises, but without any sort of framework. 

 

The biggest change over the past decade is that prayer is now a constant for me.  Something that at one time I struggled to incorporate into my life in some form or other, even for just a few minutes, now pervades my days. 

3. Do you ever sit in silent prayer? How does it go?

Often, and it varies. I am challenged by distractions the same as everyone else is. 

4. Do you have any difficulties and/or pleasures in prayer?

I have difficulties, but these days most of them have to do with exercising forbearance in the face of the language others often use to pray.  Pleasures these days have mostly to do with listening to others describe their own lives of prayer. So often one would never guess at the profound interior lives of and spirit-led transformations occurring in people who look just like the rest of us, ordinary people going about ordinary lives of family, friends, and work. And so often they exert far more impact on me and my own journey with God than I could ever expect to foster in them.

 

5. What is the best advice that helped you with prayer?

 

I have been graced with extraordinary teachers in the life of prayer; it would be impossible to and ferret out one strand of best advice.   I suppose that there are probably two succinct phrases that I try to remember: "We are all always beginners" and "Listen."

 

Bonus: Share something about prayer or an example of a prayer you like.

 

These days I am listening to two sets of CDs in the car that each, in its own way, is affecting my life of prayer.  One is a new series on the daily examen, the practice reviewing your day in the light of your movements toward and away from God.   I've read lots of material on the examen (reading is always so much easier than practicing!), but this particular series by Howard Gray, S.J., my spiritual director through the Exercises, is filled with riches in insight and eloquence. 

 

The other is Barbara Brown Taylor's sermon series on water, preached at Chautauqua last summer.  Each summer week of the Chautauqua season is devoted to a theme around which morning lectures, daily worship, afternoon speakers, and other special programming spins. BBT did a magnificent job last year of drawing drink from, as she says, "the big book of creation and the little book of scripture."


 

Ten Years of Ignatius

Yesterday afternoon as I wandered through the O'Malley Building at John Carroll University, it occurred to me that it has been nearly ten years since I was a member of one of the small groups sitting in a lounge area there, deep in a class discussion on spirituality and narrative. 

 

I didn't know it then, but that class, taught by Howard Gray, S.J., which I was taking for a master's degree in Humanities (ultimately to be abandoned for an M.Div. instead), was my introduction to Ignatian spirituality.   I don't think that Ignatius was ever explicitly mentioned in that course, but now that I've known Howard for a decade, I know that we were soaking in Ignatian spirituality as we discussed Flannery O'Connor and William Shakespeare.  Howard is one of the world's foremost interpreters and teachers of all things Ignatian, and his love of literature is almost equally renowned.  I have a degree in English literature from an Ivy League university, but I don't think I've ever had a better course in that field than the one for which I had signed up quite by accident in 2003.

 

I was at John Carroll  yesterday to meet with someone who is just finishing up his year with the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises ~ a year of weekly meetings in which he tells me what's going on in his life of prayer and his relationship with God, and I offer some suggestions for the next week.  I guess it's been seven years since Howard was the director and I was the directee, and it was May, and I had decided to go to seminary, and there was a family of young foxes growing up in the cemetery where I walk, and life was shimmering with loveliness and possibility ~ and so what with my own directee coming to the end of his year, and my memories of those years past and all that has intervened, I was feeling rather melancholy, in a Romantic sort of way.

 

And then I sat down with my directee and was moved almost to tears as he began to reflect over the past year.  Sometimes it seems almost unbearably fragile and beautiful, those moments in which you brush against another's encounter with God. 

 

I was also struck by the unexpectedness of, well, all of it.  I've never lost the sense of wonder that I, a Protestant, should have encountered Ignatian spirituality through a Jesuit so devoted to his tradition and so gifted in sharing it.   And yesterday afternoon, that sense of wonder seemed to ripple a little further outward, as I, that Protestant, moved toward the final days of sharing the Exercises with a man whose faith is generally other than Christian.

 

For me, in particular, someone whose faith has been so sorely tried in the past few years, someone who has experienced God so much more in God's absence and silence than in any other form, someone who has had great reason to believe that she could never do this work ~ yes, it does cause me to wipe my eyes a bit, when another person entrusts me with the story of God in his life.

 

It looks so ordinary: two people sitting in an empty office in a university itself largely emptied of students, engaged in quiet conversation.

 

It's so wonderful. Wonder-filled with not a small bit of awe tossed in.



 

Retreat Lunch

Dramatis personae:  Bill, S.J. - Jesuit of fifty-plus years who has journeyed with me for the past three, and Me - Presbyterian pastor of less than two years, on a road and traveling, traveling, traveling, looking for something; what can it be?  (Yes, Joni Mitchell.)

 

Setting: Dining room, last day.

 

 

 

Bill, munching on salad:

Aren't you Protestants the ones who are supposed to be all about grace?

This One's For Karen EAST (No Sense of Direction!)

A day at Wernersville:

 

 

 

 

Retreat Pondering

While I was on retreat, the following poem by Veronica A. Shoffstall popped up on People for Others.  I commented that it might well be re-titled "Retreat at Wernersville.

 

 

 

After a while you learn the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean learning and
company doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your  defeat with your head
up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult,
not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for
plans.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if
you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own
soul, instead of waiting for someone else to bring you
flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.

 

 

 

I would say that there's a Part II in this for me, which I'll post in a couple of days.

Spa Week at Wernersville . . . Not!

So here's what I did on retreat:

I walked 3-4 miles every day.  Unfortunately, the retreat center sits atop a hill, so every walk, no matter the route, proceeds down and then returns up.   

I sat in the Adirondack chairs in the sun as much as possible.

I cut out pictures and made collages, and colored in lots of Celtic patterns ~ a methodically and rhythmically prayerful way of spending time.  (I have been so very, very sick of words of late, and so I took a huge bag of art supplies with me.)

I went to daily mass. Since I was there during a "nonofficial" retreat time, there were only a few people at the liturgy each morning. Once I looked around and thought, Hmm, six Jesuits and me.  Interesting crowd.  (And then a few staff members showed up.)

I got to meet George Aschenbrenner, S.J.  "You're the guy who taught us all to pray the examen!" I exclaimed, when I stopped him in the hallway to introduce myself.  "Well, the Holy Spirit had something to do with that," he responded.  I told him that I am a Presbyterian pastor and an Ignatian spiritual director.  "There seem to be more and more of those," he reflected.

I met with my spiritual director every day, and pondered and wondered and prayed with the observations he made.  Those are the times when it becomes most apparent that a silent retreat is not for the faint-of-heart, or for those dreaming of a relaxing spa day.  (In the summertime, I often sit in the Adirondack chairs in the afternoon sun and paint my toenails, but even then: tough stuff going on.)

I did follow the Boston Marathon case to some extent.  More than I should have ( iPhones represent a terrible temptation), but far, far less than I would have had I been home.

I was struck, as our small group gathered for mass the day after the marathon, by the awesome faithfulness of quiet Christian witness: a few people who considered that the most important thing they could do in the face of mind-bending violence and horror would be to spend half an hour celebrating a liturgy.

More on the week-end retreat-within-a-retreat later.


 

Just Ahead

Tomorrow morning:

The Monthly Pancake Breakfast at my church.  A lot of people from the surrounding area come.   It will be busy and crowded and noisy.

Tomorrow evening:

The Tenth Anniversary Celebration of the Ignatian Spirituality Institute, where I did my spiritual direction training.  In a moment of weakness some months ago, I agreed to host the speech-ifying part.  Since someone from each of the ten classes will be saying something, I'm going to talk about Ignatian repetition in prayer.  I also have one joke, because I was instructed to be funny.  Jokes are not my thing; usually I cannot remember them for more than about a second.  But this one made me laugh.  Let's hope I can remember it for another twenty-four hours.

Sunday:

A complete and total day off.  With some laundry and packing.  Because . . .

Monday morning:

A drive to Pittsburgh for the seminary Taize' service and visits and lunch with professors and

Monday afternoon:

Keep driving until I reach Wernersville for dinner, a meeting with the lovely man who's been my director there for now the fourth time, and

Silence begins.

In my head, I am already there!



Image: Wernersville Jesuit Center, October 2010

Morning

I used to be such a morning person -- up and out for a three-mile walk at 6:00, focused and hard at work by 8:00.  Since Josh's death, no longer the case.  I sleep so poorly and erratically that I have to make new accommodations every morning to compensate for the night before.

 

This morning, as so often happens, I was awake at 4:00, four or five consecutive hours of sleep being the most I can usually manage.  I fell asleep again within a reasonable time period ~ some mornings I don't, at all ~ and awoke and fell asleep and awoke again for good at around 8:00. 

 

I had been having a wonderful dream about Josh, Josh among dozens of teammates marching delightedly through an underground tunnel and onto a soccer field for the state championship soccer game.  We parents were behind a glass window and suddenly Josh broke out from the crowd of boys, dancing and leaping in the air and thoroughly enjoying himself.  Just as suddenly he was no longer a high schooler, but an exuberant fourth or fifth grader, with his bowl-cut of white blond hair flying through the air.  "Look!" he yelled.  "One way glass!  Our parents can see us, but we can't see them!"  And he continued to jump around and then ran back toward his group.

 

I placed my hand on the glass, trying to reach him, to touch him.  "Come back to me, Josh," I whispered.  "Come back, come back, come back . . . ".  Through a glass darkly, that's how we see now.

 

The tunnel, the state finals, the exuberant soccer player from elementary through high school ~ those all happened in real life.  The glass window; that happened, too, in another place, a terrible place.  A crematorium.  The words ~ I say them every day.

 

I lay in bed, realizing I was too awake to go back to my dream.  That occurs sometimes; sometimes he is so alive, so real, in my dreams, that I try desperately to fall asleep again.  Once in awhile I succeed, but it's never the same.

So I stretched out in bed and began to think about the day.  A day inside, at home, with three major projects, each completely different from the others, to occupy me.  I have had to change the way in which I work as well; I have to prepare even short sets of materials over long weeks rather than over a few days at a time.  I remember the first paper I wrote after returning to seminary.  Ten pages; it should have taken a couple of afternoons, at most.  It took ten days, an hour each.  I had lost all powers of concentration.  I'm in much better shape now, but I still can't rely with any assurance on my ability to focus for very long when I'm alone. 

 

I think back to the meetings over the past couple of days at church.  There is so much for me to learn about pastoring a community. This community. Sometimes I am right on the mark; others, not at all.  I said something last night intended to convey enthusiasm and encouragement, which I genuinely felt, and it was immediately deflected into something else.  This morning I see my error, and I wonder at my inability to comprehend the culture of my church.  There were so many other moments during which I felt something quite the opposite of enthusiasm, and I was pleased when I was able to offer compliments and support.  Which didn't work as I intended at all.

 

I consider the rest of the day ahead.  This evening I will be meeting with someone who is making the Spiritual Exercises.  That will be a delight.  We are about half way through, and he is deeply engaged in his blend of prayer and work.  Like a Benedictine, I suppose ~ except not  at all. 

 

Well, I am up, and getting hungry, so I suppose I'd better prepare to engage in mine.  Ora et labora.  Here we go.