Week Three: Being With Jesus Before the Sanhedrin

Sorry, but my travel schedule has been hectic and I have fallen behind in my musings and postings.

There will be a new post this coming Sunday. I am making my way through Week Three of the Exercises and writing my own version of them.

The Third Week has as its goal, for the retreatant to have "com-passion" with Christ. In other words, to share in the Passion.. being with Christ in His Passion.

This has been a challenge for me. To feel what Jesus was feeling... to have sympathy with and empathy with Christ in His sufferings - this is HARD! Usually our focus is our "self." And what Christ did, He did for ME. But in this Third Week, the focus is that of Christ Himself. To be with Him. Not for our sake, but for His sake. And of course, if we are able to do this, then there is a profound "for our sake" benefit that comes. But we do this, just to be with Christ.

Today, my reflection was on Jesus before the Sanhedrin (Matthew 26:57-68). I found myself starting from Peter's vantage point as one who had entered the courtyard to watch and see the outcome. But from there, as I considered what Peter was seeing and experiencing, I was able to move to consider what Christ was experiencing, and maybe, a little, to just be with Him.

May all of you be having a moving Season of Lent and have a week of drawing close to Christ in His crucifixion and resurrection.

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com

Knowing You Jesus (Exercise)

Visit my Blog: Evangelicals on the Ignatian Way to see a post that includes a video.

Knowing You Jesus.

Brian

A List of Ignatian Methods for Attending to God

In this post, I'll give an overview of the methods of spiritual encounter with God, that Ignatius uses and recommends to those who are going through the Spiritual Exercises. Then, in the following weeks, I'll explain each one with some more description and guidance for practice.

The Examen.

I have already posted on this one, in a series of eight posts, so I won't cover it in any detail at this point. The Examen is one of the chief methods Ignatius used to find God in all things. It was the retrospective look over one's day. It was a slow, prayerful, attentive look at the experiences, the events, the encounters, the gifts, the conversations, the emotional responses, the struggles the choices… that were a part of one's day. And slowing down to consider where God was at work, what God was saying and what you were invited to choose. But in the moment, you were busy, it was noisy and you were distracted.

As you practice the Examen over time, you will discover that you are learning how to pay attention in the moment, to what God is doing and saying. You will be learning to "practice the presence of God" (Brother Lawrence, not a Jesuit by the way.)

Since I have a series of eight posts on this practice, I' won't cover it in upcoming weeks. If you missed those posts, you can click here for the first one in that series.

Ignatian Contemplation.

I have said it before, but Ignatius was fond of the imagination and saw it is a rich way of encountering God. This one needs a bit of explaining, for the word - contemplation - is used in a variety of ways in different spiritual formation approaches.

For Ignatius and the Spiritual Exercises, he is teaching an imaginative engagement with the text and stories of Scripture, and especially the Gospels. Keep in mind that this was a time when many people did not have a copy of the Bible (the printing press had been invented about 1440) and many people were illiterate. But they knew the stories and their memories were better than ours for the oral tradition.

By the way, globally, far more people are skilled as oral learners than as visual learners who learn by reading. We wrongly assume that analytical study and rational examination is the best (if not only) way to learn. It isn't. And even for those who do learn in this way, they can enhance their learning with the imaginative engagement of stories.

Ignatius wanted people to enter into the biblical stories using their senses to see the events, hear what was going on, feel the environment. Ignatius encouraged retreatants to put themselves in the biblical story. As a bystander observing what is going on… or as a participants who is a part of the story.

And from that vantage point, encounter Christ and his personal dealings with them.

Lectio Divina.

Ignatius was not the one who developed Lectio Divina. The phrase means "sacred reading" or perhaps, "spiritual reading." If Bible study, inductive study, exegetical study are analytical and rational in their focus and method, lectio divina is more reflective, meditative and prayerful in its approach to the text of Scripture.

The point is to relish and savor words, phrases, ideas and use them as a stepping stone to go deep below the water line of your life and discover what God is doing and what Christ is saying to you.

In the previous post I said that evangelicals have a strong docrtine of Revelation and a weak doctrine of Illuminiation. Lectio Divina is a way in which one part of the normative, absolute truth of God becomes real, relevant, immediate, up close and personal for your life. It is a way you move from assenting to biblical principles as "generally true for all people," to experiencing the reality of particular biblical ideas personally and relevant in the real time of your life.

It is my favorite way of encountering Christ. The Daily Examen is my second.

Centering Prayer.

While Ignatius used and taught centering prayer, this approach has actually become more popular through other spiritual traditions and I'll mention those when I talk about this approach in more detail.

For now, I'll just say that the premise is that God is within us, the presence of Christ is with us and in us. We are in Christ and Christ is in us. Therefore, we must learn how to be attentive and responsive to the present of Christ within us.

Centering prayer is a way of quieting oneself and moving away from the busyness, noise and distractions of the day. It is a way of simply being with Jesus. This is the one approach that is most "content free" of the practices.

This one is a more occasional practice for me…

It is a practice that many find quite difficult to learn…

What Do You Desire?

This is a practice that is launched out of the fact that God has placed within us, "eternity in the heart." We have holy longings that have been suppressed, denied, corrupted and damaged. But still, they are there and our longings and desires are a powerful indicator of God's presence and work within us.

In addition, it is a practice that is launched out of Jesus' encounter with Bartimaeus, the blind beggar and Jesus asking, "What do you want me to do for you?"

Ignatius believe that our desires/longings are very important for progress on the spiritual journey and that we need to become aware of our desires and name them to Christ. So Ignatius has retreatants constantly asking for what they desire as they begin a new spiritual exercise, confident that God will guide them to naming their deepest desires and meet them in the conversation.

Again, more on this in a later post. I have found this to be a deeply rewarding and formative spiritual approach.

Colloquy.

Ignatius uses an unfamiliar word throughout the Exercises. It is - colloquy. It simply means an intimate conversation with Jesus. At the end of each Exercise, Ignatius wants us to imagine we are having a conversation with Mary, with Jesus and with God the Father. As an evangelical (and with no disrespect at all toward the Jesuits and larger group of Roman Catholics) I simply exchange the Holy Spirit for Mary and my prayer becomes a Trinitarian prayer.

I imagine myself having a conversation with the Spirit, then with Christ and then with the Father on the very things the Exercises has brought to my attention. I speak my heart to the Trinity and imagine God speaking back to me.

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So, these are the Ignatian ways of encounter, of experience and of relational engagement with God that we will explore in the upcoming weeks.

Because this is a blogsite, these posts are really just entry points or stepping stones into each issue. I'll recommend resources for each one, for those who would like to go further in studying about a particular practice.

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And as a final note, the Exercises that I am writing follow the Ignatian pattern very closely. For each one, after I give a brief explanation of the day's Exercise:

I provide guidance for a Centering Prayer,

then space for you to ask what you desire,

then guidance for using either an imaginative engaging of the text or lector divina reflections on the text (or doing both),

and finally invite you into Colloquy.

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com

The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything - Now Available

James Martin's new book, The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything is Now Available.

This is a must read.

Brian

How Does God Communicate With Us

Brief Note: I like to add images to posts... but that always takes some time to find the right images. With my schedule as crazy as it has been, I just didn't have the time to do that for this post.

Also, this is a longer reflection. So I have provided it as a pdf if you want to download it, print it, and read it that way.

Download HowDoesGodCommunicateWithUs

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Much of the Ignatian Exercises is devoted to hearing from God, to noticing God, and to finding God.

So, how does God communicate to us, make himself known to us?

This is an extremely important question! In fact, what I just said is a vast understatement.

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT QUESTION.

And on this question, evangelicals, in my opinion, have had some good things to say… but we have also had some very inadequate things to say. I'll go one step further. In some ways we have been right, but in other ways, we have been very wrong.

This question involves philosophy, theology and spirituality and is way beyond the venue of a simple post or two. So what I say here is going to be very basic, very inadequate, raise many more questions, and perhaps cause some suspicion…

This post is going to have a different feel to it and it will set the stage for several follow up posts. It is more theological in its focus.

But I encourage you to wade through this post, for in the weeks to come I'll be walking you through how Ignatius helps us hear from God, and it will be helpful if you have this understanding in place.

I am not less than an evangelical in my answer, but now I am much more than evangelical in my answer. I'll map out just a few of the broad, brush strokes of an answer on this.

My Evangelical Tradition has answered that God mainly speaks to us through the Bible, the texts of the Old and New Testament as they are rightly interpreted through the use of hermeneutical and exegetical tools.

(As a brief aside…)

These are interpretive tools, by the way, that were mainly developed in the context of Enlightenment Modernity. It is a delicious irony of no end, that evangelicals who are aghast at most things "modern" are so dependent on the tools developed by that same modernity. I am not opposed to these tools, and I use them as well, but I hold them loosely and I know their origins.

(And another brief aside...)

To show that these tools are not quite as reliable as we thought they were, I would only say that Evangelicals have spent about the last 500 years (since the Reformation) vehemently arguing about who has rightly used those tools to rightly interpret the inspired text of God. And we have made precious little progress in that debate. So, as a movement, we are increasingly splintered in our theological discussions about who has the "real biblical answer."

(And one more aside...)

Our tendency is to think we/my/our theological-biblical answer is the objective truth and the other person's answer is subjectively biased because they use the objective tools of interpretation incorrectly. And we say they unable to see their subjective bias! Of course, each side levels the exact same charge against the other side. Touche!

I think this issue became very pronounced for me when I studied at a very good, eclectic evangelical seminary that had outstanding scholars of different traditions teaching there. I studied under Calvinists, Arminians, Anabaptists, and Pentecostals (not to mention a few other persuasions). Each scholar had far more competency in theological and exegetical tools than I ever will. And yet they came to significantly different answers on many important questions. I learned to be very cautious in saying to another person - "your interpretation is unbiblical…"

(Now, back to the main line of this post...)

The objective-subjective "thing/difficulty" notwithstanding, evangelicals have rightly understood that the Scriptures are in a special category of truth. The Bible is Revealed Truth from God. It tells us things we would not be able to ferret out on our own. This is my position also.

Evangelicals believe that the truth within Scripture is normative and speaks in instructive and corrective ways. My position also.

Evangelicals believe it should be our life long quest to listen to the Scriptures, to sit with the truth of Scripture and to allow that truth to shape our lives. My position also.

To this (and more) I give a hearty assent, a yes and A-men.

However… and here is the FIRST major caveat I add…

ONE: I am not as convinced as I use to be, that evangelicals have rightly figured out how to engage with God's communication. I would say it this way. We have a very good doctrine of Revelation and a very weak doctrine of Illumination. We have a strong doctrine of the Normative Truth/Authority of the Bible and we have a very weak way of engaging that truth in illuminative and transforming ways.

I would say there are large parts of the evangelical movement whose minds are filled with reasonably right information about God, but whose hearts are much less transformed and touched by the Presence of God.

I would say there are large parts of the evangelical movement who have put their focus on understanding the Bible but have missed the greatest truth of the Bible - that the Main Thing is to encounter and experience the living God (Father, Son and Spirit) in transformative relationship.

I would say there are large parts of the evangelical movement who know a lot of doctrine intellectually, but who know very little of Jesus experientially. (Look, this isn't that heretical. J.I. Packer (Knowing God) made the same observation in the early 1970s and Henry Blackaby became famous with his book Experiencing God as he made the same observation. But neither of them were able to help us move very far forward in the actual encounter of God and the experience of transformative relationship with Christ.

I would say there are parts of the evangelical movement where the Bible is more important than Jesus. And for most of us, it is a lot easier for us to study and learn the Bible then it is to know and love Jesus, to follow and surrender to Christ.

As I said, we have majored on Revelation and in my experience, we haven't even minored on Illumination. So, we need to find guidance elsewhere for a good, robust doctrine of Spirit-led illuminative processes.

I think Ignatius (among others) shows us the way, through many useful methods of being illumined by the Word… which is one more reason why I am an Evangelical on the Ignatian Way of Proceeding…

Now, here is the SECOND caveat…

TWO: Evangelicals have also missed many other avenues where we can find God. We have neglected a variety of rich sources by which to find, discover, encounter and be transformed by God.

(1) We have neglected and actually been opposed to the emotional life as a place to find and encounter God. We have been rather scared of the subjectivity of emotions, and warning ourselves not to trust emotions or even visit them very much. (Good grief - what about the Psalms… the great repository of emotional experiences ever that are the place for spiritual encounters with God!)

(2) We have neglected the realm of longings and desires… again, just labeling them dangerously subjective and misguiding.

In other words, we have neglected one of the most obvious of places to find God… and that is within us, in our heart (i.e. total inner life) where the indwelling Christ lives and moves and has his being. Christ in us - which is the consistent witness of Scripture. For the most part - we haven't the foggiest idea how to find God within.

(3) We have neglected much of the realm of General Revelation. In other words, our Creator God is everywhere in His creation (although He is not the creation, just present in it) waiting to be encountered and enjoyed. Music, art, nature, science, and in fact - all of life. To borrow from Abraham Kuyper; not only is God the Lord of every square inch of creation and says "it is mine", but that same Lord God says, "and you may discover my rich presence hovering over and moving through and sustaining every square inch of creation, if you have eyes to see." We haven't had eyes to see. In fact, we haven't even been looking that direction.

(4) And we have neglected our experiences of life as the place to encounter God. This was one of Blackaby's ideas. God is at work in our experiences. Find out what God is doing and join in. This is the external realm of action and relationship. God is there at work. Our need is to notice, discern and respond well to God's activity.

Ignatius has a well developed spirituality that helps one pay attention to the work of God within (desires, emotions, the heart), in all of Creation (finding God in all things) and in one's external world of action/relationship (finding God there as well). Which is why, I am an Evangelical on the Ignatian Way of Proceeding…

So, this post is setting the stage for a number of forthcoming posts that will be on the Ignatian way of Finding God in the Scriptures, in our inner being, in the created world and in our daily activity.

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com

The Really Important Questions

The Really Important Questions

For a life to be worth living, it means you must know what the important questions/issues/themes are, you must ask those questions, you must find satisfying (and real) answers, and you must orient your life according to what you have learned.

Sometimes we refer to these questions as "worldview" questions… or the "existential" questions of life.

Here are a few of those questions, not listed in order or importance.

• What is the nature of reality?
• Is there a God?
• What kind of God is this God?
• Who am I?
• Is there something wrong with me? (it seems as if there is)
• How do I know what is wrong, describe it, understand it?
• How does what is wrong be made right?
• Why am I here?
• (or) What is my purpose?
• Who do I know what is right, true and good?
• How do I make decisions to choose what is right, true and good?
• How should I live my life?
• Do I have obligations to others?
• If so, what does that obligation look like?
• What, exactly, are the deep longings I have within?
• Am I in this alone? Or will there be others along the way?
• How do I become a healthy human being?
• How do I experience authentic relationships with others?
• How do I become a healthy, whole person?

I'm sure you realize that these questions are all deeply interconnected. They are questions that take on deeper, better answers as the insights generated from one question flow over to another question.

I'm sure you realize that these questions need a life time (if not longer) to be answered. Life is to be the asking, the seeking and the finding of wisdom concerning these questions.

I'm sure you realize that these questions will not be easily answered and that you will actually have some wrong, bad, harmful answers along the way.

Over the course of the last 35 years, I have embraced a broadly defined evangelical worldview as the way I generally answer these questions. I have strong Reformational nuances that further define that worldview. I have postmodern influences that are added into the worldview mix.

And in the last two years, I have found Ignatius to be an invaluable guide and conversation partner who helps me take so many of these questions much further… both individually and as an integrated whole.

Which is why I am an evangelical on the Ignatian way of proceeding. It is not the only thing I am, but it is now an essential part of who I am.

I have already mentioned this book, but when it is available late fall of 2010, The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life by James Martin will be a valuable guide for so many of these worldview questions. (p.s. A friend told me he believes it is now scheduled for a March 2010 release.)

In the meantime, if you want a very good guide, one of the best, i recommend to you -Spiritual Freedom by John English.

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com