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 Daily Examen, Part Five: Review of the Day

Finding God is All Things was a core theme for Ignatius. His belief was that God is always at work and to be found in the events and experiences of the day (John 5:17).

God is at work in our day and in its events as well. Our experience is that for most of us most of the time, we are too busy, our environment is too noisy and we are distracted. Silence is scarce. Focus is difficult. Awareness and discernment are at a premium.

So . . . instead of finding God in all things, we miss His Work and His Presence. We therefore the opportunity for constant course correction to be aligned with His Work.

Enter the Daily Examen...

For Ignatius, the Daily Examen was a way to find God, to pay attention to HIs activity and then to keep in step with the leading of God's Spirit (Galatians 5:25). To be sure, Ignatius had many additional tools to offer those wishing to grow in their ability to discern God's leading, but the Examen is at the heart of his way.

I have been a practitioner of the Examen for many years. This sustained practice eventually led me into another experience. As time (the years) went by and my skills in awareness and discernment grew, I began to experience what Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection called - The Practice of the Presence of God.

I no longer had to wait until the end of the day Examen to discover God's Presence and Work, I began to notice it "in the moment." I was able to make course adjustments "on the spot" due to that awareness. However, I still do the Examen and find it a valuable spiritual pathway.

The part of the Examen I am describing today is what is known as the review of the day and it is at the heart of the Examen.

When I first began to do the Examen in 1999 (and I was in very rough spiritual shape) I would do it late at night. I would get out my journal and begin to make a list of all that had happened to me that day. Events, situations, encounters, conversations, activities, AND my inner emotional engagements with all those things. Sometimes I had a list of 35 or 30 "items" on my list.

Then I would begin to reflect on many of those items, walking through them in sequence. I would think through what happened, how did I respond, how did I feel, why did I feel that. I was using the events of the day to go deep below the water line of my life. As I did this day after day, as you can guess, I began to notice patterns of interior issues. At that time, there was a lot of darkness. My inner world was messy and mysterious and frankly - confusing. It took a lot of time to sort it out. But the Examen was the tool by which that exploration took place.

NOTE: I wish I were an artist and could illustrate my day, that would be beautiful. I had to be satisfied with writing about it.)

Today, now about ten years later, I no longer write down that many experiences of a particular day. I am now more selective and usually can list, with just a little thought, the more significant things I should pay attention to.

Here is the list I made last night of some important events of my day (Thursday). [Note - I wrote this post Friday morning and set it to publish on Sunday.]

(1) My Spiritual Friendship group, which was a simply profound time of three of us engaging in this spiritual discipline. God showed up, insights were beautiful, God's work was wonderful. Lots of details and things to follow up on (and in my journal I did just that).

(2) A strategic meeting with a global worker about future partnerships. (God - what are you inviting us into?) We need discernment.

(3) A long email which took me about an hour to compose and rewrite, and edit. It was about an extremely important partnership and it had loads of implications. I didn't send it. I felt I should sit on it longer. That night I processed - what is going on?

(4) Working on a proposal for another leader about an opportunity. (great stuff... again, how are you leading in this?)

(5) A phone conversation with a person who is hurting.

(6) A few hours of being with a good number of people who are a part of a mid-size community which I lead. As a community, we volunteered to do a lot of the work in preparing and serving a Thanksgiving Dinner for an inner city sister church. Wow... lots of smaller experiences during that time. What was I feeling? What was going on?

(7) A few minutes with the Leading Edge team and its trainers and participants. I had strong feelings of consolation and joy as I was with them.

(8) And then to finish the day, two hours with an extraordinary group of missional leaders who have gathered for a conference... hearing three plenary sessions.

This is what I wrote down in my journal. Then I began to reflect, pray and explore these experiences and their meaning... and above all - where is God and what is He up to in and through these experiences.

In the moment I was also paying attention to God's work, but at the end of the day, in my Examen, I had more focused time to attend to these things and to wonder about the patterns weaving through them. I found some things that I did not see "in the moments" as they were happening.

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For many years, the Examen was the primary pathway for me to discover and move further in to God's Presence and Work.

Now, it is an Enhancement pathway. I do not practice it with the frequency I once did. In part, that is due to the fact that much of my day is a living Examen.

Still, I find it useful (often) to do a more focused end of day Examen. Sometimes I will do an end of week Examen.

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For this week, I recommend that you mainly practice this review. Do a very brief walk through of the previous parts of the Examen... enough to become centered and ready, but give this part the majority of your time. I recommend that you journal this process. Journaling is not required, but it sure is helpful for focused attention. Writing both focuses the attention and it slows the thinking. It creates space for the Spirit of God to imprint your mind and heart.

Write down ten or twenty or as many as is useful items from your day.

After you have your list, look them over and do an initial selection of which ones seem most important and most worthy of reflection.

Now, start to reflect. I use a set of questions to launch this reflection. Use these questions, or ones similar.

God what were you doing as this ____________ was taking place?

God what were you saying to me about __________ but I missed it in the moment?

God what did you want me to do about _________ but I missed it in the moment?

God what do you want me to see and hear now about ________________ ?

God what do you want me to learn and to do about ____________ ?

These questions are not always directly and obviously answered. On the other hand, you will be pleasantly surprised at the spiritual insights you begin to discover as you ask them.

Ask... listen.. reflect... write... pray... wait... and continue to move in and out of those things.

Grace and Discernment...

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