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Defining an Ignatian Spiritual Exercise (i)

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In the opening paragraph of his Spiritual Exercises Ignatius provides a statement of purpose:

Spiritual exercises having as their purpose the overcoming of self and the ordering of one’s life on the basis of a decision made in freedom from any ill-ordered attachment [paragraph 21].[1]

In the first of his Annotations—directions given to those giving and receiving the Exercises—he writes:

The term ‘spiritual exercises’ denotes every way of examining one’s conscience, of meditating, contemplating, praying vocally and mentally, and other spiritual activities, as will be said later. For just as strolling, walking and running are exercises for the body, so ‘spiritual exercises’ is the name given to every way of preparing and disposing one’s soul to rid herself of all disordered attachments, so that once rid of them one might seek and find the divine will in regard to the disposition of one’s life for the good of the soul [paragraph 1].[2]

These two definitional statements provide an entrée into Ignatius’ intent with respect to the Spiritual Exercises. In today’s post we use these statements to understand what a spiritual exercise is. Tomorrow I will unpack the statements a little more to understand their purpose.

First, Ignatius tells us what a spiritual exercise is: any form of prayer undertaken for the specific purpose of the development, health, and strength of the ‘soul,’ analogous to physical exercises undertaken for the health and strength of the body. Although this is not a novel thought, it is useful. Paul the Apostle uses similar language in 1 Timothy 4:8 to affirm the superior value of spiritual endeavour: “For bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it hold promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

The familiar image of physical exercise applied to the spiritual life carries notions of regularity and consistency, focus on particular developmental activities, the nurture of health through practice, the pursuit of greater excellence, consistent performance, and other similar ideals. This exercise is undertaken for the good of the ‘soul,’ which is probably best understood here as a reference to the whole of one’s life and existence viewed from the perspective of one’s relationship to God. It is better to avoid the idea as a reference to some constituent aspect of the human person, some faculty or part of the person, distinct from their other ‘parts.’

These spiritual exercises primarily are forms of prayer, though other activities are also in view. One might think of such things later identified commonly as spiritual disciplines, including activities of service, or solitude or fasting or confession and so on. In this definition Ignatius identifies the examination of conscience, prayer, meditation, and contemplation. During his Exercises Ignatius will develop some of these at length.

[1] Joseph A. Munitiz and Philip Endean, ed. Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings, Penguin Classics ed. (London: Penguin, 1996; reprint, 2004), 289.

[2] Ibid., 283.

This Time Last Year

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This time last year I spent five weeks in Germany, four in Dresden taking a language course at the Goethe Institut. On the weekends we tried to get out a little to see something of the country. This weekend we went to the sächsische Schweiz – the Saxon Switzerland, a national park on the Elbe River, about 30 kilometres from Dresden and close to the Czech border. I am sitting next to Maylis from Geneva who was not in our class, but in a higher class. Geneva is in the French-speaking section of Switzerland and Maylis was improving her German to improve her employment opportunities.

Next to Maylis is Tony from Saskatchewan in Canada. Tony was in my class, learning German as a hobby and perhaps reclaiming his roots since he has German forebears. Next to Tony was Donald, a very typical older New Yorker, bold, self-sufficient, a little crusty, and really quite remarkable, flying to another country to learn a new language at 82 years of age. He was in a beginner’s class, and so not in our class. Maybe I can still be travelling and learning at that age!

The next two women were also in my class. Anna, from Japan, was born in Germany because her parents lived and worked there when they were young. Now she has left her homeland to do the same. She was at the Institut for three months and then planned to move to München to find work. And next to Anna is Maria, originally from Spain but now working in a German-speaking area of Switzerland.

A couple of days after this Tony and Maria ended their course while Anna and I stayed on. Others in the class also left and it shrank from seven or eight members to three (there was another young man from Columbia, a cheeky fun-loving gay dude who had moved to Germany for work and the experience). I was left as the old bloke in the class…

This was a much better day than the previous weekend when we visited the historic town of Meissen, a pretty town a little down the Elbe from Dresden. That had been a miserable day, cold, rainy, pure east German autumn! 

We had a beautiful Autumn day for hiking in the rather spectacular hills here. The first photo is from one of the lookouts, looking up the Elbe toward the Czech border. The second is the bridge and view in the unusual hill formations that make this region famous.

It is really worth a visit if you are ever in central Europe. I would like to go again!

Real Good-Looking Boy

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I’ve been enjoying listening again to this song from the later career of the Who. It’s a nice ballad with an evocative lyric and a cool moment of inter-textuality as Roger Daltry channels his inner Elvis. Pete Townsend has told a little of the story behind the story:

Real Good Looking Boy is a song I wrote quite a few years ago about two young men who worry about their looks. One of them, based on me – hopes and believes he might look like his best friend who is a conventionally handsome fellow. (He is disavowed of this notion by his mother). The second, based on Roger – hopes and believes he will one day turn out to be like the young Elvis. (He, more happily, sees part of his dream come true.)

They both find love in later life (Pete Townsend).

 

Who Am I? (Bonhoeffer)

Spirituality, ,
Peter Kline, ‘Bonhoeffer,’ acrylic on paper, Australia, 2018

Who am I? They often tell me
I would step from my cell’s confinement 
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I would talk to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I would bear the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself,
restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,
trembling with anger at despotism and petty humiliation,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, 
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from a victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters & Papers from Prison,
 New Greatly Enlarged Edition (New York: Touchstone, 1971), 347-348

Born into a well-to-do family in Berlin in 1906, Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew his station in life, was accustomed to his liberty, and generally had the resources available to secure it. Imprisoned in Tegel, and deprived of every normal comfort, Bonhoeffer struggles now with what is left once the various markers that had anchored his identity have been stripped away.

In his essay on Bonhoeffer and the question of Christian identity, Jens Zimmermann applies Paul Ricoeur’s theory of identity to Bonhoeffer (in Houston & Zimmermann (eds), Sources of the Christian Self: A Cultural History of Christian Identity, 628-647). Idem identity refers to that ‘sameness’ of the self that endures through time, the sense of permanence in terms of characteristics and habits that declare what kind of person we are. Ipse identity refers to one’s personal agency, our self-constancy in the face of challenge when idem identity falters or fails. The generality of ‘what’ becomes more specifically and personally, ‘who.’ Typically, the kind of person we are, and who we understand ourselves to be, find a sense of coherence in a narrative that integrates events and character centred on a personal self we can identify. Yet what happens if one loses control of the narrative, if the crucible of life exerts such pressure that our narrative is forcibly changed or reconfigured in ways contrary to our subjectivity? What, then? Zimmermann suggests that this is what we find in Bonhoeffer’s Who am I?

The three opening stanzas portray Bonhoeffer as he is perceived by others, with a bearing that reflects the kind of person he has become in accordance with the formation which occurred in his family life, education, and other life developments and opportunities. Like a squire coming from his country home, like one accustomed to command and to win. His bearing is that of formative habituation, and in a very real sense, this is who he is.

Or is it? He is not in command nor at liberty—at least, not as he was used to. Is he really that which others say of him? Is ascribed identity his real identity? Is he merely what others see in him? Perhaps it is actually him after all? It is, after all, his action, long practised and deeply ingrained. These are habits of life, relationship, being, and carriage that he has chosen and lived; it is not something merely ascribed as though he had no essential relation to what others now think of him. And yet, his external bearing does not reflect his internal turmoil.

Is his identity really that which he knows of himself—something vastly different from his public persona? The language of the longer central stanza is the haunted voice of his inner unrest, his weakness and powerlessness, his loss of liberty and desperate yearning for the smallest kindness or grace of life.

And so, who am I?—This man as seen by others, or this whom I feel myself to be? Who am I before others—a hypocrite? Before myself—contemptible? Am I both these men? Neither? Who am I? What is my identity?

In the end it is not a question Bonhoeffer can answer, and in the end, he turns from it and lets it go. In the end it is neither a matter of how he appears before others or before himself. Both the approving court of external opinion and the harsh court of internal censure are set to one side. Such opinions, questions and determinations can only mock; they are not a path toward reality or peace. One’s identity rests not in others’ opinions or in one’s own reflections, but in a source external to ourselves. Ricoeur noticed this.

In the final analysis, the ipse or true selfhood that persists when all other aspects of identity fall away consists in the address from beyond itself by another to which the self responds, ‘here am I’ (Zimmermann, 634).

Zimmermann notes that Ricoeur would not identify the source of this address which calls to and grounds the ‘I’—philosophy forbids such identification. This Other could be God, or it could be another person, or perhaps one’s own very self, or perhaps an empty space. Bonhoeffer as a Christian, however, has no such hesitation:

Whoever I am, thou knowest O God, I am thine.

Who he is, whether before others or himself, is a question he cannot answer. But he knows, and he knows that God knows—which is the truly important thing—that he is God’s. His identity and being lie not in himself but in God. And in this he can rest.

Spiritual Conversation

Spirituality,

We had our final Zoom Church service this morning; well, for now at least. From next Sunday our church will be meeting in person again, gathering for worship, fellowship, and teaching, and it seems that most of us are pretty keen to be back together again.

Our church is a smaller congregation with a mostly older demographic. The leadership did not even really consider the possibility of ‘live-streaming’ or pre-recording a service for distribution on the internet.

I’m glad. We would not have had the technical capability to do so, and I am sure the product would have been very poor. Instead they opted for a live Zoom Church model with two or so YouTube  worship clips, one to start and one at communion. There was pastoral time, a shortened message, and general conversation at the end that most times included some Q&A around the topic of the message. They worked hard to make sure that our most senior members had devices, could get logged on, could make contact during lockdown via Facebook or email, and could join church services on Zoom. We had folk in their nineties who had never used a computer before joining in like old pros!

I’ve enjoyed Zoom Church. It’s been easy for me since I am not one of the organisers! Before Zoom I was at church early every week to help set up and participate in the worship ministry. For the last two months or more I have Zoomed in at 9:28am or so, wearing pretty casual around-the-house kind of clothes, participated in the service, and at the end, I was already home! It’s been a pretty-relaxed couple of months.

This relaxed approach to church can be deceptive, however. “How can I offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing?” asked David in Chronicles. It is possible that Zoom Church could reinforce the sense of worship and fellowship as optional aspects of Christian life. It could also reinforce a passive, individualist, or consumerist approach to Christian life and worship, although Zoom Church could be better in this respect than live-streaming. At least we can speak to and interact with one another in real time.

Actually this was both a blessing and a difficulty. I found the conversation time at the end of the service could be difficult with one person only at a time being able to talk. Typically our church gathers for ‘foyer time’ – coffee and cake and all kinds of goodies, as well as conversations that can linger on for longer than the service itself. Multiple conversations and prayers happen in this time, and frankly, I prefer the foyer to Zoom.

In Zoom Church we can see faces and hear voices which is great. But it is not the same as the embodied presence of one another when we are all together. Christianity is an embodied religion – think incarnation; think resurrection; think the church as the Body of Christ – and in this respect Zoom is less than adequate.

And embodied gathering is local, public, and visible in a way that Zoom Church is not, and this, too, is part of what it means to be the people of God in the world. The digital environment is a representation that does not yet mediate reality; I doubt it ever will. Reality is messier and more demanding.

But a blessing of Zoom Church has been a new experience and depth of spiritual conversation. At the end of the service many in the congregation have stayed online and we have opened discussions around the content of the message and theme preached. And sometimes, this has been very rich indeed. It was this morning, as different members shared insights and experiences of prayer, faith, brokenness, and hope. I came away from the service grateful for the privilege of having been there, enriched by the depth of conversation, in awe of the way in which God was teaching and forming us through the priesthood of all believers.

As we return to gathered services next week, the leadership of the church are planning to gather differently. We are not going back to ‘business as usual,’ but are endeavouring to retain some of the advances we have made in Zoom Church. Foremost for me, is the hope that we can retain and grow in this practice of spiritual conversation.

On May One Flee a Deadly Plague?

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The latest edition of The Advocate is now available (published by the Baptist Churches of Western Australia). During COVID this has been a digital publication only. This month’s edition has many reflections with respect to the situation in which we find ourselves, including my brief reflection on Martin Luther’s 1527 letter On Whether One May Flee a Deadly Plague.

My article starts as follows:

The Reformers had first-hand experience with the plague, which struck with great fear. In the mid-fourteenth century it devastated Europe, killing tens of millions of people in only five years. And every decade or so afterwards it would return bringing fear and death.

Ulrich Zwingli almost died of it in 1519 in Zurich. Andreas von Karlstadt did die of it in Basel in 1541. And Luther, too, experienced it in Wittenberg in 1527, ironically, as he responded to a letter asking Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague.

You can read the whole article on page 13 here.

Richard Rohr’s Falling Upwards (2)

Books, Spirituality, ,

In my earlier post on Richard Rohr’s Falling Upwards I endeavoured to set forth sufficiently and sympathetically, the central tenets of his spiritual vision. It is a vision of ageing gracefully by finding a way—being led—to personal and spiritual maturity. The measures of this maturity are indicators such as being freed from the narrowness of self-serving ego needs, and of dualistic and exclusivist patterns of thought. The mature person has learnt to accept reality, and others, as they are, and have become more self-critical than critical of others. They have learnt that the secret of internal freedom and happiness is to ‘receive and return the loving gaze of God every day’ (159).

The book sets forth a range of perceptive insights and warnings that we do well to reflect upon. For example, Rohr insists that change and growth, movement and direction are integral aspects of a mature spirituality. Similarly, he warns that sin repressed or denied will surely break-out elsewhere. He wisely admonishes his readers toward practices of solitude and friendship, and reminds us that there is a connection between personal and spiritual maturity, and that we cannot ignore the one in the pursuit of the other. He speaks of the place of Jesus and of the church in his spiritual vision: ‘I quote Jesus because I still consider him to be the spiritual authority of the Western world, whether we follow him or not. . . . Jesus for me always clinches the deal, and I sometimes wonder why I did not listen to him in the first place’ (81).[1] The church he regards as ‘both my greatest intellectual and moral problem and my most consoling home’ (80). The church functions like a cauldron:

A crucible as you know, is a vessel that holds molten metal in one place long enough to be purified and clarified. Church membership requirements, church doctrine, and church morality force almost all issues to an inner boiling point, where you are forced to face important issues at a much deeper level to survive as a Catholic or a Christian, or even as a human. I think this is probably true of any religious community, if it is doing its job. Before the truth ‘sets you free,’ it tends to make you miserable (74).

At the heart of his spiritual vision lies what he calls an ‘incarnational mysticism,’ a two-sided spirituality deeply grounded and engaged in the world and in ‘mystical union’ with God (75-78). It is incarnational as it is open to, inclusive of, and embracing the world in all its diversity, suffering, and beauty; mystical in its desire for immediacy, to abide in, as we have already noted, the loving gaze of God.

Despite the various strengths and claims of the book, I find I remain ambivalent toward this vision. Behind every exposition of spirituality lies a theological or philosophical vision of God and reality that in turn shapes the distinguishing features of the spirituality being proposed. As I understand it, Rohr’s theological vision is the product of a pluralist understanding of divine operations and revelation, and of human encounter with and participation in the divine. The spiritual quest is a universal impulse and Christianity is just one expression among many religious and non-religious quests for the truth. It is one expression of the primary spiritual insights which are found also in the writings of other religious leaders, poets, myth-makers, mystics, psychologists, and so on.

The portrayal of God in this book is remarkably thin and one-sided:

There is not one clear theology of God, Jesus or history presented, despite our attempt to pretend there is. The only consistent pattern I can find is that all the books of the Bible seem to agree that somehow God is with us and we are not alone. God and Jesus’ only job description is one of constant renewals of bad deals. The tragic sense of life is ironically not tragic at all, at least in the Big Picture. . . . Faith is simply to trust the real, and to trust that God is found within it—even before we change it (62-63).

The tactic applied here is not uncommon; find and emphasise the diversity of witness in the biblical documents and then use the fact of this diversity to discredit the reliability of the whole. This is lazy theology, though very convenient, for then one can introduce one’s own ‘reading’ as the explanation, or the meaning, or the key. In this case the knowledge we might have of God is stripped back almost to an empty abstraction. Is the gospel as vague and as bland as presented here—somehow God is with us and we are not alone? Is this really the extent of that for which we might hope? Is it the case that this ‘god’ exists merely to clean up our mess—and that we are those who will change the real? Somewhat ironically, just two pages earlier Rohr had complained that ‘organised religion has not been known for its inclusiveness or for being very comfortable with diversity’ (60). Although social diversity is an imperative, diversity in Scripture renders it questionable.

Rohr’s reading of Scripture and of the gospel thus appears somewhat reductionist, as he selects and emphasises only some aspects of the biblical-gospel narrative at the expense of other elements. His reading of the atonement, for example, is exemplarist and Girardian, and discounts the testimony and imagery of Paul, Peter, John, and Hebrews with respect to Jesus’ saving death on the cross (68-69). He interprets God’s forgiveness as a sign that ‘God is saying that God’s own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us’ (56-57). It seems to me, however, that this is precisely the opposite of what the New Testament declares, that the very act of forgiveness, together with its necessity, presupposes that the ‘rules’ matter a great deal. In this respect Rohr’s position not only diminishes the New Testament portrayal of the cross of Jesus, but also treats the idea of sin—which surely includes the inhumanity and abuse of some towards others—as something negligible or easily dismissed. The Bible, on the other hand, approaches all kinds of sin with great seriousness.

Rohr argues for a spirituality based in ‘Big Picture incarnational mysticism.’ The Big Picture is a mechanism for side-stepping the particularities and details of a biblical vision in favour of a few generic universal principles. The image of the incarnation is employed with a dual purpose. On the one hand it affirms a spirituality of service amid the harsh realities of life in the world—something I also affirm. On the other hand, however, Rohr also uses it to affirm Western cultural priorities as though these are a religious obligation. This is cultural Christianity, something he otherwise rejects when it differs from his own cultural preference. Mystic desire or experience grounds the spirituality as a religious phenomenon without tying the adherent to any particular portrayal of God beyond the notion of God as absolute and unconditional love.

In the end Rohr’s spirituality appears as related variety of the ‘moralistic therapeutic deism’ that Christian Smith argued has become a major religious faith in North America. To me, this is not so much an exposition of Christian spirituality (and certainly not a biblical spirituality), as an exposition of a generic ‘spirituality’ suited perhaps for those who might claim to be ‘spiritual but not religious.’ This is a spirituality amenable for those who consider themselves ‘progressive’ whether religiously inclined or not. Richard Rohr himself is, of course, religious—he has been a Roman Catholic priest for most of his life, and finds his ‘most consoling home’ in the church. But he also admits that this is not a necessity per se. Other religious communities could just as easily assist and guide a person on their spiritual journey. I suspect, however, that some of his followers will not have the same degree of attachment to the church that he has, and may be led by this account of spirituality away from the God and the Jesus portrayed in Scripture, and into a spirituality and form of life of their own devising. Christians, whether Roman Catholics, Protestants, or disaffected evangelicals can do better much than this.

[1] It would be of interest, however, to assess Rohr’s understanding of Jesus in light of his more recent The Universal Christ (2019) in which he aims, according to one reviewer, to distinguish between Jesus and ‘Christ,’ with Jesus understood as limited, particular, and earthbound, while ‘Christ’ is unlimited, universal, and cosmic. I suspect that this move would allow him to displace the particularity of what Jesus actually says and does as recorded in the gospels, with an idiosyncratic content predicated upon his vision the universal Christ.

24 Hours with Charles Spurgeon

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I am part of a unique event this weekend, together with several other Baptist colleagues from Perth.

This Friday – Saturday, Spurgeon’s College in London is hosting a global, twenty-four hour series of readings and reflections from the works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The readings, presented in half-hour segments, will be taken from a variety of Spurgeon’s writings, including sermons, letters, and other materials.

The Perth contingent will lead off at 11am on Saturday morning with Revd Karen Siggins of Lesmurdie Baptist Church, followed by myself, Monica O’Neil, Brian Harris, and David Cohen, from Vose Seminary. My reading, beginning at 11:30am Perth time (4:30am in London), is taken from volume 44(!) of Spurgeon’s sermons, and is titled ‘A Far-Reaching Promise.’

Spurgeon was the most popular preacher in nineteenth-century London, drawing thousands of listeners to his weekly services. His popularity has continued down to the present through his devotional books, lectures, and printed sermons.

The event is part of a College fund-raising campaign initiated due to the financial impact of COVID-19. For more information, go to the College website. Or if you would like to donate to the cause, you can do so here.

A Good-Friday Prayer

Spirituality, Uncategorized,

O Lord, our God:
We have gathered this day in order to consider how You carried out
Your good and strong will for the world and for us all by letting our Lord Jesus Christ,
Your dear Son, become captive that we might become free,
by letting Him be judged guilty that we might be innocent,
by letting Him suffer that we might have joy,
by giving Him up to death so that we might live eternally.

Of ourselves we can only go astray.
And we have not deserved such deliverance, not one of us.
But in the inconceivable greatness of Your mercy
You have shared our sin and our misery in order to do such great things for us.
How else should we thank You except by comprehending,
laying hold on this great deed, and letting it hold sway?
Yet how can that happen unless the same living Saviour,
who for us suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried but now is risen,
come Himself into our midst, speak to our hearts and consciences,
open us to Your love, lead us on to entrust ourselves entirely to it,
and to live from this love and from it alone.
In all humility but also in all confidence,
we beseech You to grant this through the power of Your Holy Spirit.
Amen.

(Karl Barth, Selected Prayers, 34, adjusted)

A Monday Meditation

Spirituality,

Welcome to a new week everyone. I hope you have enjoyed a good weekend with some relaxation and worship. Maybe you got some household chores done as well!

This morning I shared this meditation exercise with the staff at Vose Seminary, as we move into our first week of working-from-home because of COVID-19. Perhaps you might like to join us in this exercise.

James 1:17-18          
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all he created.

Whether you are at home this week, or at work, or perhaps do not have work at present, why not set aside fifteen to twenty minutes either first thing, or at an appropriate time in the day to read and meditate on this text. You may like to use the following guide as a small prayer exercise. Indeed I encourage you to do this every day this week, perhaps focusing in point four on a different category of grace-received each day.

  1. Begin by ‘entering into his presence with thanksgiving’ (Psalm 100:4) – what can you thank God for this morning?
  2. Read the text slowly and prayerfully, letting it seep into your mind. Be still for a minute or two, and then read it again, and perhaps even a third time.
  3. Imagine the gifts of God streaming down like bright rays of the sun enlightening and warming all that is. Imagine them streaming down upon your life.
  4. Ponder all the good gifts you have received – every natural gift, cultural gift, gifts of family and relationships, spiritual gifts, vocational gifts, opportunities . . . Imagine them coming down from above, from the Father of lights, good and generous gifts of the good and generous God.
  5. Give thanks to God, our generous Father, for all these wonderful and uniquely-you gifts!
  6. Consider: how else might I respond to all this grace? What does it mean to be the child of such a generous Father (v. 18)? What might he intend for me?
  7. If you are up for it, keep a journal of your prayer, and maybe share your insights or experience in prayer with a trusted friend or colleague.

If you would like to see my exegetical study of this passage you can see my blog here for part 1 and here for a bit more. And I have written on James 1:18 here.

Every good and perfect blessing be yours this week.