I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

WALK! THAT WASN'T PART OF THE DEAL!
-- Homer J. Simpson

If we are to understand spirituality, we can begin by taking a look at how Ignatius wrote about it in his text: spirituality is a practice, a regular endeavor through which we come to build our lives on the love of God -- to order our lives according to God's plan for us. Its focus, then, is not primarily ourselves but, rather, God. In naming his spiritual practices "exercises," Ignatius sought to suggest something about how we ought to approach them: as undertakings we must repeat again and again in order to progress slowly toward a goal. We can see spiritual exercises, then, as a part of regular maintenance for the soul. If we practice them, we will give ourselves the chance to know God more intimately and to know God's will for us. Why is this important? Because, to paraphrase the themes of Psalm 139, God knows us better than we know ourselves. If God called us into existence and continues to intimately shape our existence very second, then God counts every hair on our heads and wants our good. Too often our lives bring us suffering, which seems so meaningless; and our natural reaction is to fight our suffering -- and often God, too -- in order to rid ourselves of it. Faith, I think, is the gift that enables us to suspend our judgments so that we might retain the belief that even through our suffering, God seeks our ultimate good.

The key word here is ultimate. Clearly, when I am suffering, I can't see any good in it. But if my concern is my ultimate good, then there are times when I must inevitably accept suffering. Back to our model then: if my life were devoted to the elimination of all suffering, then I could never grow strong. I would avoid all exercise because exercise sometimes involves certain levels of pain (no pain, no gain, right?). Taking this a step further, though, let us recognize that the objective is not pain per se -- not all pain is acceptable. There is a difference between the pain of my burning lungs after a good hard cardiovascular workout and the pain of a pulled muscle. Athletes must learn to distinguish good pain from bad pain, and in so doing, they learn how to tolerate the good and avoid the bad. Similarly, then, in the spiritual life, we must be concerned with learning how god helps us confront certain kinds of suffering that help us grow and how he helps us avoid the suffering that only breaks us down. Moreover, we can see from this example that the spiritual life must be more than simply avoiding suffering; rather it must be learning to discern among types of suffering and accepting the kinds that leads us to greater spiritual growth.

Exercise! Not a fan. Nope. But I never really thought about it applying to my spiritual life. You'd think that is the sort of thing that is a no-brainer but no ... it was an eye opener for me and that is just from part of the introduction to The Ignatian Workout: Daily Spiritual Exercises for a Healthy Faith by Tim Muldoon. If I'd have excerpted all the text that gave me "aha" moments then I'd have reproduced then entire introduction here for you.

Maybe this wouldn't have hit me so hard if it wasn't essentially the last whack from that holy 2 x 4 God keeps having to haul out for me.

KNOW THYSELF

The Operative: Do you know what your sin is?
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Aw hell, I'm a fan of all seven... but right now, I'm gonna have to go with wrath.

Serenity

Preparing the series on the seven deadly sins I'd nod my head here or shake it there over various of the individual sins. Let's face it, it is the rare soul who doesn't recognize at least a bit of themselves in most of them. However, when I got to Sloth I was taken aback. Somehow though I knew it was a sin I didn't really think about it ... certainly not to the point where I saw most of my major failings being described as seemed to be happening at that moment (now y'all can't wait for me to get to that post I know).

Ahem. Talk about a definition of why I am having a hard time with getting things done, especially in being disciplined about my prayer life. It was like a dash of ice water in my face. Time to wake up. Time to stop letting myself get so distracted and get focused on doing one thing at a time ... UNTIL IT IS DONE.

IN TRAINING

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Hebrews 12:1 (English Standard Version)

Time to apply the remedy ... diligence.

With that in mind, I will be beginning the 34-week online retreat on Monday with two friends. These two wonderful women are not only great friends but they are great advisors. Both are so grounded and so different from me ... and that is all to the good when getting help in staying on the straight and narrow.

Also, I have begun listening to the Pray-as-you-go daily podcasts. Each is only ten minutes long but I was literally shocked at how often I was impatient simply while praying and meditating during the first session. Another wake up call, more ice water at how far I had slid from the days when I would gladly shut myself into our spare room three times a day for a few minutes of prayer.

Finally, we come to this book, which I first heard of through the Spirited Talk Today podcast. Anyone see a trend here? I sure do, reaching clear back to when I was Surprised by Jesuits.

There is definitely a plan and I am certainly being pointed in that direction. Of course, it's easy to recognize problems, to talk about solving them. The hard part is staying the course and doing it. Which is where that self-knowledge and diligence are going to come in on my part ... and leaning on my friends whether here or in that cloud of witnesses ... and, of course, God.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity