Ignatian Exercises and College of Preachers

Scripture: Ignatian Exercises and College of Preachers

“Take a passage from scripture that you enjoy. Then, Ignatius invites you to enter into the scene by ‘composing the place,’ by imagining yourself in the story with as much detail as you can muster.”—James Martin in The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything (HarperOne, 2010). 

college of preachers refectory stained glass

Ignatius practiced spirituality by taking himself and us deep into the Scripture story in their imagination and sometimes literally. First, we start with the senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling. Then, as we live inside the story, Ignatius asks us to consider what insights might come. Soon, in our imaginary journey, we can travel in time and find ourselves back in the Scripture itself, with a more profound understanding than when we were just intellectualizing the story in our head.

if you do not dramatize the message, they will not listen

In stained glass, the front of the refectory at the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral was written: “If you do not dramatize the message, they will not listen.” You can see this from many viewpoints. However, it said to me that the preacher was to help those in the congregation “experience” the Scripture—usually the Gospel, as Ignatius asks us to do. My experience was that I could best do this by taking myself and all who would like to journey into the story, becoming one of the characters, experiencing Jesus’ feelings, knowing his hopes and fears, frustrations, loves, and passions, his humanness.

This is also good advice to give to spiritual friends whose study of Scripture has become stale.

In the Image Classics series, I was first exposed to the Ignatian exercises and this method of studying Scripture in a small purple book, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. I now know there are so many more. A priest I work with, Michael McCain, recommended this one to me by James Martin.

It is hard to become dry when we actually go into a story in Scripture and become a part of it. We will hear voices we have never heard before.

Ignatius offers us a new way to look at scripture. We are offered something new during these difficult times from someone who lived so many years ago and also knew hurt and pain.

Breaking News!

 We are so privileged to experience the reopening of a renovated College of Preachers building, now called the College of Faith and Culture, with Jon Meacham as the canon historian at the National Cathedral!

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Voice of Nature

 Voice of Nature

“Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked...

They are like trees planted by streams of water; which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.”—Psalm 1: 1, 3.

I remember watching the rain come across the lake at Whitefish. As it reaches our shore on a gentle breeze, the tiny leaves of the willows and aspen trees move back and forth, producing a unique swishing sound. The vibrations caused by the wind and the rain on the fluttering leaves sound like a message from the trees, the wind, and the rain.

 Is it a cry for help? Are these the sound of Nature’s tears? I don’t believe it is a thank you for how we have cared for our natural world.  

There is also a smell that comes with the sound of rain. It has been called earthy. It is thought to be the smell that comes as the rain moves the earth. Is it the fragrant perfume of the earth calling and enticing us to come and get to know it better and care for it?

Almost every person I talk with affirms their feeling of God’s presence when they are outside in the natural world. The trees, the sun, the moon, the rain, the flowers, the animals, the mountains, the sea, and the earth are healers. They are mood changers.

It is difficult not to be grateful looking across a peaceful lake in the cool mountain air and watching a mother duck care for and gather her eighteen ducklings as the rain stops. But, she also makes a distinctive sound, maybe telling her ducklings that there is still danger when we are around. 

We are called to care for our churches and places of worship where we experience God. We are called to care for our friends and those in need, who teach us about the love of God. We are likewise called to care for the natural world, which always calls us back to the Creator God.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Owensby: Changing Our Perspective

Owensby: Changing our perspective

“A gestalt shift is a visual switch of perspective. While looking at an unchanging image, we see first one thing and then another. For instance, in the picture below, you can see an older woman or a young woman.”—Jake Owensby in Looking for God in Messy Places, https://jakeowensby.com,  March 3, 2018.

old woman or a young woman?

In his weekly blog, Looking for God in Messy Places, the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana talks about how we interpret what we see before seeing it. He challenges us to look at some things we think are familiar in another way.

rabbit or a duck

Gestalt shifts involve changing our minds about something.

vase or two people?

I see Gestalt shifts in spiritual direction as well. Spiritual direction is about caring for the soul. Spiritual friends help us put on a new pair of glasses to see God at work in their lives when we did not perceive God before.

Spiritual friends ask questions like, “How is your heart?” instead of “How are you doing?”

Spiritual friends follow a rule of life where we “bend the knee of the heart”1 and “listen with the ear of the heart.”2

Spiritual friends help us find our own sacred space inside of each of us and find sacred spaces outside of us in the world. As a result, we begin to see a different view of the world that Barbara Brown Taylor describes in her book, An Altar in the World.

The Gestalt shift of spiritual friends is that we look beyond the surface and see the Christ in each other, especially in the person we previously had difficulty with.

We begin to see them in a new light, often significantly wounded, just like the rest of us.

1 Prayer of Manasseh, Book of Common Prayer, p. 91.

2 Prologue to The Rule of Benedict.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

 Bishop Owensby’s book is Looking for God in Messy Places.

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com