PartnerConnect 2022-05-20
Dear Partners – Today marks the fifth offering in our Easterside series on Ignatian Spirituality. We’re given the gift this morning of receiving Jan Evans’ reflections. Thank you Jan for your honesty and openness, for sharing your voice and your story with us so richly. We are grateful for you. God as Love is present in all things working in and through and for all beings. Yes, and amen. Deb
I was introduced to Ignatian Spirituality during my Art of Spiritual Direction program. I was immediately drawn to imaginative contemplation of gospel stories. During one of our residencies Jeff said to me, “I don’t know why you come all the way out here (Alberta) when you have Loyola House (Ignatian Spirituality Centre in Guelph) right down the road.” I had never heard of Loyola House but when I returned to my home in Ontario, I signed up for an 8-day retreat and thereafter made this a yearly practice. After my journey through the Spiritual Exercises (19th annotation) I attended a three-week Spiritual Director’s practicum workshop at Loyola House and was introduced to a mentor who trained me in offering the full Spiritual Exercises to individuals in my community.
The Ignatian foundational principle “finding God in all things” or “all is gift” has been revolutionary in my contemplative journey. My spirituality had been entrenched in dualism – God could be found in anything churchy or anywhere that ‘Christians’ hung out, or in anything that was defined as Christian (Christian music, Christian art, Christian ministry etc). As I opened to God found in all things, I discovered God everywhere – in all persons, places, and things. God was so much bigger, more mysterious, and always present and active even when I felt God to be absent and silent. Examen practice supports this reality as I review my day and discover God in – the joyful and sorrowful, the intriguing and boring, the challenging and exciting, the shameful and the delightful. All my life experiences have been and are suffused with God, suffused with Love and everything belongs.
The new language Beloved sinner, Beloved child, Beloved creature reached into my depths and slowly has allowed me to welcome all of me with compassion. To discover that Love held me, and all things and all beings, always and without any conditions, was at first inconceivable. I recall meditating on the gospel story – Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Peter wants to have his whole body washed – Jesus says he is clean – except for his feet. As I entered that story, I heard Jesus say, “Of course you will have dirty feet – everyone who walks in this world gets dirty feet, but you are clean.” Here I found myself affirmed as a Beloved creature – accepting my humanity, my creaturehood – imperfect, broken, one who falls and fails – and yet clean. This opened to me a new more whole sense of self and helped me to become much more compassionate to self and others as we all journey through life constrained by our human condition.
During an 8-day retreat as I meditated on my life story, I met RAGE. I was terrified and overwhelmed by her presence. Surely it was not possible to find God here in RAGE. Jesus joined me and invited me to dip my toe into this dark lake of rage. Together we scribbled and screamed and drummed and marched into RAGE and slowly she revealed her secret wisdom. Through intimate and honest conversations, the very human Jan was met by the very human Jesus – one in personal suffering – one in collective suffering. With Jesus by my side RAGE called me to come forth from the tomb of shame and walk out into the world with compassion as my power. Shame still nips at my heels, but shame never has the last word. Anger still bubbles up from within me, but anger never has the last word. Rather they invite me to meet Jesus and in this holy meeting I once again discover wisdom hidden in the dark.
I cling to this truth – God as Love is present in all things working in and through and for all beings!! Hallelujah!!
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