The spiritual exercises: A new adventure
If you were to ask what I have been doing since I retired 10 years ago, I would give you a list of interests I have deepened, new skills I have practiced, family ties I have strengthened, old friends with whom I have reconnected, and new friends I have made.
The key to whatever contentment I have enjoyed is an openness to experience and a willingness to walk through doors that seem to appear out of nowhere and to follow paths that promise novelty and a chance to learn something interesting and useful.
Sometimes, old friends lead to new connections who offer opportunities for these kinds of adventures. And so it happened that a chance connection with an old friend and former colleague led me to Tom, an 88-year-old Jesuit priest and Renaissance man, who recently moved into a retirement home a short drive from my home.
In his long career, Tom’s work has brought him to five continents, including 20 years in the Middle East, where he served at various times and places as a parish priest, professor, college administrator, and consultant.
For the past 10 years, he has been writing poetry and leading people through the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, a systematic program of prayer, reflection, and self-examination developed by Ignatius of Loyola in the early part of the 16th century.
The late Jesuit psychoanalyst William Meissner in his book, “Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint” (1992) has called the Exercises “one of the most influential works in Western Civilization.” He points out that it has not only been a primary resource for spiritual renewal in the Catholic church since the Counter-Reformation but has also formed the basis of the contemporary retreat movement.
The genius of the Spiritual Exercises is their ability to transcend the uses of institutional religion and provide a method for discovering one’s authentic self, clarifying one’s core values, making decisions in line with those values, and thereby finding or creating a meaningful and satisfying life.
If this sounds like good psychology, it’s because it is. In the Exercises, we hear the echo of the Socratic maxim “Know thyself” and see the foreshadowing of Donald Winnicott’s and Carl Rogers’ “true self.”
We understand everything we have learned about developmental, educational, and clinical psychology in the context of the forces that mold us into the people we are and continue to become.
Martin Heidegger’s idea of finding ourselves thrown into the world is expanded to include consideration of our relationship to a divine thrower. The Exercises encourage us to consider how we can use our authentic selves for good in the time and place where we find ourselves.
We confront the dark forces that interfere with our ability to live according to our core values and learn the importance of facing them head on, acknowledging our failures and moving ahead with the confidence that comes from knowing that we are loved.
To believe that isn’t easy for those who have not experienced faith in a loving God, a benevolent universe, or the love of a caring family, a good friend, or a devoted partner. That is one of the great tragedies of life.
Tom and I bonded over our shared interests in the roles of psychology and religion in understanding and improving the human condition. We were soon meeting regularly for wide-ranging conversations that spanned the details of our everyday lives, families, friends, our current projects, shared readings, and big picture topics.
One day recently, after a good deal of reflection, I asked him if he would lead me in the Spiritual Exercises and after some reflection of his own, he agreed. It is a big commitment for both of us, but not a burden. Unlike the therapist-patient relationship, there are no blank screens in the room. Unlike the confessor-penitent duo, there are no woven screens in a confession box. We’re just two friends, sitting face to face with more structure to our conversation now, one leading the other on a journey that people have been taking for the past 500 years.
As it is with all good journeys, there are travel books that describe the countries we will be visiting and the beauties and challenges that await us. Tom has supplied the books and has instructed me well in what to expect. I know where the terrain will be flat and the walking easy and where it will rise steeply demanding strenuous effort. I have read the reports of travelers who have made this journey and listened to interviews they have given. I have been impressed by their accounts of how they have been changed for the better by the experience.
And so I set out with a trustworthy guide and a heart full of hope, knowing that no two journeys are alike and that no matter how prepared you think you are, there will always be surprises or what I would call doors opening onto other paths to explore.