Becky Eldredge's Blog, page 22

To Know, To Love, and To Follow: The Call to Vulnerability

This month’s blog series focuses on the grace we pray for in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises: to know, to love, and to follow Jesus. Today as we end this series, Gretchen Crowder shares with us how we need to be vulnerable in order to change and grow.

First years are always filled with growing pains, and not one of my first years of teaching was an exception to this rule. The first one in a Jesuit school, however, was particularly achy. There is something about learning how to be an Ignatian educator that mimics the growing pains of youth. Suddenly everything I had learned about teaching and spirituality and who I was as a person of faith was turned on its head.  Like a child suddenly facing rapid growth, I did not know how to deal with it all. 

So, I fought against it.  

I came to meetings with my faculty advisor with the conclusions already reached. I knew what I excelled at and, even more clearly, I knew what I needed to improve. I already had my own improvement plan. Every time. I called it “being prepared.” She did not quite call it that. 

Even though I was not aware of it at the time, this “improvement plan” of mine was actually my script to enter into a conversation without having to hear anything I did not want to hear. It was my script to enter into a conversation without having to be vulnerable or watch another person be vulnerable with me. This script, however, did not actually help me navigate the conversation more peacefully. Instead, it left me completely unavailable to the conversation. It left me unavailable to the fruits that can come from simply listening to another person. It left me unavailable to hear what really needed to be said.

How often do we enter into a conversation with God, script in hand? I know I do it all the time, and I often wonder what God is thinking when I do. 

I know now what my advisor was thinking. After a few months of these meetings had passed, I entered her office, script in hand as usual. This time, however, she put her hand up to stop me. She asked me to put my paper down, and then asked me to leave her office. “Gretchen, we can not have a conversation until you are ready to listen as well as talk. Come back when you are ready to do that.” Baffled, I left. 

This was a difficult moment for me. I am a rule-abider, A-student. I do not get kicked out of people’s offices! But there I was being kicked out and wondering if it meant that perhaps this job I had changed everything in my life for… wouldn’t last. So I had to take time to pause, to breathe, and figure out what to do next.

Eventually, I realized in order for this particular new job to work out – something had to change in me. Over the next few weeks, I approached her door several times, reaching up my hand to knock… and then walking away without making a noise. It took awhile for me to realize that the one thing standing between me and growth was availability. Like St. Ignatius states in the First Principle and Foundation, there were created things standing in the way of my availability to a real conversation. I was afraid to change. I was afraid to be wrong. I was afraid to be imperfect.

In order to really grow, I had to let those things go so I could be more available to listen. I had to let them go so I could be available to be vulnerable and allow someone to be vulnerable with me. Only then, could a real conversation begin.

In all honesty, I still struggle with vulnerability particularly with Christ. I still show up more often than not with a script in hand wondering if He can help me polish my plan. I know I do it because being truly vulnerable is so hard. Letting Christ know that I do not actually have all the answers and being open to where He wants to lead me takes tremendous courage. I also know, however, that I am entering my fourteenth year at a place that has literally changed my life. I would not be the person I am today if I didn’t take a risk and put the script down and let Christ speak directly to my heart. 

As we wrap up this series of knowing, loving and following the Lord, I invite you to think about how you enter into conversations with Him. If you are like me and have the polished script all ready for your next time in prayer, consider laying it down. Instead, just take a breath, raise your hand, and knock on Christ’s door with an open heart. It may just change your life. 

 

Go Deeper: 

Explore more about Vulnerability with Christ with these other articles: 

A Time to Experience Emotion With Jesus
Present with Them in their Suffering

For more on the First Principle and Foundation, check out this video from The Jesuit Post.

Photo by Christina @wocintechchat.com on unsplash.

To Know, To Love, and To Follow: “This is so YOU!”

This month’s blog series focuses on the grace we pray for in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises: to know, to love, and to follow Jesus. Today Beth Knobbe shares with us how she has seen God’s work at play in her life during this time of COVID-19. 

I sat down to enjoy a delicious homemade meal, expertly prepared in a tiny kitchenette in the studio apartment where I was staying. My love of cooking stems from a long lineage of good cooks, and it keeps me connected to my farm-girl roots. I was taking some personal retreat days, and I had wandered over to the local farmer’s market to pick up fresh chicken and vegetables. I had endless time to linger over a white wine reduction sauce, as I sautéed garden fresh green beans in an electric skillet. It was a feast for one, prepared with the barest of essential kitchen tools. 

With the table set and wine poured, I paused to pray a blessing over my meal. In that brief moment of silence, I could sense God smile and say, “This is so YOU!” as if God knew the immense joy preparing a home cooked meal brought me. 

These are the times I am most aware of God’s presence. I know God is at work when I am being most authentically myself and when the values I hold close are at play. Often these moments are accompanied by deep feelings of love, joy, and gratitude. 

I have to admit, those moments have been few and far between in recent months. It’s been challenging to find a connection with God, between the fatigue of online meetings and the disruption of my regular Mass routine. I long for extended moments of quiet, to listen for that still small voice of God. Instead, my prayer often emerges when I stare at the evening news and look upwards with exasperation, “God, what are you thinking?!” 

It is only natural to ask “Dear God, why?!” during times of great adversity. We want an answer, but instead God answers us with a promise of companionship through the struggle. As God walks with us, we may feel unequipped. But God reminds us that all the things of this world are gifts we have at our disposal – all the things – including a pandemic, working from home, and praying with Mass online. 

And if all these things are given to us, so that we can know God, and respond in love, then perhaps the more immediate question is, “God, what do you want from me? How do you want me to respond?” Our God of infinite mercy and compassion sees a world that is hurting and grieving, and God calls each one of us to nourish others with our unique gifts. So when the call came to share my love of food with others in the form of a food pantry, I immediately responded “yes!”.  

Earlier this spring, at the onset of the pandemic, when most of the country was in the midst of stay-at-home orders, a Catholic parish in my neighborhood opened a “pop up food pantry” to provide non-perishable food items to anyone in need. They were looking for volunteers, people who were not in the high-risk category, who could help set up social distancing markers in the church parking lot and assist with the distribution of food boxes.  

My heart raced at the invitation. I had not left my house in weeks, I didn’t own a mask (but quickly figured out how to sew one myself!), and so much was still unknown about the spread of COVID-19.   

Would I be putting myself at risk? What precautions would I need to take? How much of my own health was I willing to risk in order to ensure that those who are hungry will have something to eat?  

I stopped to ponder whether this is something I should do. The desire to be of service to others has always been at the heart of my vocation in life. Some of my greatest friendships and life lessons have emerged from volunteer opportunities like this one. The gospel call to “feed the hungry” has been a guidepost for my work in ministry and justice. I could hear God speaking to my heart, “Beth, this is YOU. This is who you are!!” 

And I knew it was my turn to respond, “Here I am! Send me!!”  

How do moments of deep authenticity and joy help you to know and follow God’s call? How are you using your gifts to serve those most in need? 

Photo by Pablo Merchan Montes on unsplash.

To Know, To Love, and To Follow: Waves of Love

This month’s blog series focuses on the grace we pray for in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises: to know, to love, and to follow Jesus. Today Stephanie Clouatre Davis shares with us how God’s love is intentional and all-encompassing.

I am standing on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico in darkness awaiting the sun. It’s 5:00 am, and I have found the silence and solitude I so desire in this time of the Covid-19 pandemic. The beach is empty and the ocean is bigger than my senses. I smell the salty air as the breeze passes over me. The ocean seems to be saying, “crash, cleanse, courage” followed by, “retreat, rebuild, restore”. Then, it repeats. I feel the shake in the ground and taste the cleansing salt of the air. For me, these waves are an undeniable sign of God’s love moving just for me.

When I climb the sand dune via pier leading to the empty beach, I am apprehensive. I hear the ocean: “crash, cleanse, courage” followed by, “retreat, rebuild, restore” as I approach. I feel small approaching such an all-encompassing power. I think to myself, “go back to where you were comfortable. This is the love of God; this is more than I deserve.” So often we find ourselves retracting at the power of God’s love, but still God calls us (cue Disney’s Moana). The voice of this call is embedded in our very creation.

How do we receive the love embedded in our very creation by the Creator? Part of this reception begins with allowing ourselves to be open and vulnerable with God, our Creator.  Scripture reminds us that we long for the Living Water and the Source of this water, Jesus.

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. (John 4:10)

Sometimes, I find that we are unaware of this intentionality of love until we discover our thirst for the Creator. We hear the woman say to Jesus later “give me this water” (John 4:15). Like the woman, we desire the waters of life as we sit exposed in front of Jesus. Jesus loves all parts of us in our vulnerability:

our sin and our glory
our physical individuality and unique features
our likes and dislikes
our unique personality traits and expressions
our particular desires
our individual callings
our capacity to feel feelings
our capacity to love, create, and think

In my own personal prayer, I like to slow down my understanding of the Creator’s love. Consider the intention of  Jesus as he approaches the woman at the well, offering her a depth of love that she had not yet experienced. We are created with a thirst for this kind of love. We are loved from the beginning of our creation and through the winding path of our lives: jobs, relationships, sins, celebrations, sacraments, etc. We are created for a thirst for love because of the Living Water placed inside of us as a part of our creation. 

This is undeniable even when our greatest fears and doubts creep in trying to convince us otherwise. Usually fears and doubts use half-truths to convince us of this lie. St. Ignatius invites us to look directly at these untruths and allow the Living Water to offer healing. He suggests giving them no time to fester and no place to reside.

God’s love is intentional like the meeting of Jesus individually with the woman at the well and all-encompassing like a crashing wave. God is both.

God’s love, like the wave, moves toward us crashing into us providing such intimacy that there exists nearly no separation. St. Catherine of Siena speaks of such intimacy in her Dialogue reminding us that “The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.” The refreshment of God’s love cleanses us and provides us courage. God’s love gives us retreat to rebuild and restore when the wears and tears of life cover us.

As we come to understand our own creation, we are naturally drawn to love the One who created us. Sometimes though we are hesitant to receive the love of God. We instead deflect God’s  love. Like climbing the sand dune amidst the roar of the ocean, we are fearful. God’s love is big, but it is important to remember that God’s love, too, is as gentle as the hands of the potter.

I invite you to spend time this week immersed in scripture reminding you of God’s love for you.

Consider

How do we receive this love as it splashes at our feet? How does God help us send out what we no longer need allowing the healing waters to heal and dismiss what is not needed? How do  the waves work against us like they do rocks, smoothing out our rough edges? 

Go Deeper:

Scripture for support:

John 4:4-42// Jesus meets the Woman at the Well
Psalm 139// God, you create my inmost self; God, you made me in my mother’s womb
Isaiah 43:1-7// You are precious in my eyes and I love you


Consider praying with scripture using Lectio Divina. 
Discovering My Unique Gifts and Call

Photo by Mackenzie Taylor on unsplash.

To Know, To Love, and To Follow: Wonder and Wander in (un)Ordinary Times

This month’s blog series focuses on the grace we pray for in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises: to know, to love, and to follow Jesus. Today Jenene Francis shares with us how we can wonder and wander with Christ.

They are called earworms, tunes you can’t get out of your head. I suspect God sends them to loosen the soil of my heart.  A recent gift was this haunting Christmas carol:

I wonder as I wander out under the sky

That Jesus my Saviour did come for to die

For poor ornery people like you and like I

I wonder as I wander out under the sky

I have wandered a lot since mid-March. More than 1,500,000 steps according to Fibit, nearly all within 1.5 miles of home. I have been pretty ornery some days, too, struggling to find new ways of relating to neighbors and colleagues, friends and family.  Initially I felt quite aimless, attempting to establish new routines, trying to figure out how to work from home and struggling for focus.  During the Easter season I progressed to coping.  While never quite experiencing Christ’s resurrection, I planted seed trays anyway, nurturing summer hopes.  After Pentecost, as we resumed the regular numbering of days in Ordinary Time unimaginable when we paused at the end of February for Lent, a subtle sense of purposefulness took root. 

Reflecting on the challenges of these very un-ordinary times, my sister reminded me of one of the touchstone practices in a book she co-authored, The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity, “when the going gets rough, turn to wonder.” Throughout the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius encourages us to be present with Jesus and the women and men around him through imaginative prayer and conversations.  He invites us to notice what is happening, to go deeper, to wonder.

Matthew’s summer Sunday Gospels, repeated in weekday readings, have given us opportunities to wander with Jesus, the itinerant preacher, imagining scenes unfolding, experiencing him teaching, mostly through metaphors and parables, and to wonder what he was trying to tell us about living as beloved children of God. Maybe some of what I have wondered about in prayer resonates with you: 

How might I see with the eyes of my hearts, looking into the eyes of others, seeking clues to what’s going on behind their masks? 
What do seeds and sowing, weeds and wheat, yeast and bread baking and bread breaking mean during a pandemic?
What kind of suffering does Jesus help me endure, and when does he want me to choose a different kind of suffering, the kind accompanied by courage he provides to say goodbye, shake off dusty feet, and head to another village for a new beginning?

I have also been wondering about the ultimate paradox at the heart of so many examples Jesus used to convey his love: that experiencing fullness of life and joy, our own and as a gift to others, is a journey through death on a cross promising resurrection so that Jesus’ “joy will be complete.”  It’s a mystery, this paschal cycle of living, dying and rising. 

Go Deeper:

You can read a pray with this beautiful poem, Planting Seeds , by Alden Solory.

Photo by Jenene Francis.

To Know, To Love, and To Follow: Knowing God’s Gift of Shelter Through the Incarnation

This month’s blog series focuses on the grace we pray for in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises: to know, to love, and to follow Jesus. Today Becky Eldredge shares with us how we can find shelter in Christ.

One of the most meaningful memories for me when I made the Spiritual Exercises was praying with St. Ignatius’ meditation on the Incarnation.  This meditation comes at the very beginning of the second week of the Exercises where we pray for the grace to know, to love, and to follow Jesus.  

St. Ignatius’ Meditation on the Incarnation: 

Much of the second week is spent walking closely with Jesus through his public ministry.  Before we immerse ourselves in the story of Jesus’ life, St. Ignatius offers us a meditation that reminds us that God sees the world, sees us, and sees what is happening. In this meditation he invites us to reflect on the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, looking down on the world and noticing. Here are his words:

Looking upon our world: men and women being born and being laid to rest, some getting married and others getting divorced, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the happy and the sad, so many people aimless, despairing, hateful, and killing, so many undernourished, sick, and dying, so many struggling with life and blind to any meaning. With God, I can hear people laughing and crying, some shouting and screaming, some praying, others cursing. ( Draw Me Into Your Friendship , pg. 91) 

Every time I read these words and guide people through this part of the Spiritual Exercises, I think, this sounds all too familiar. St. Ignatius penned these words over five hundred years ago, but they ring true today. Are people not being born and dying? Are people not getting married and divorced? Are there not young and old, rich and poor, the happy and the sad? Are people not aimless? Despairing? Hateful and killing? Are we not faced with an overwhelming part of our world’s population who are undernourished, sick, dying, and struggling with life? Are people not laughing, crying, shouting, screaming, some praying while others are cursing?

What St. Ignatius noticed five hundred years ago is not much different from today. What he imagined the Trinity seeing back then is not much different from what the Trinity sees today. St. Ignatius saw the world groaning, just as we are groaning now. His meditation continues: 

In a leap of divine joy: God knows that the time has come when the mystery of salvation, hidden from the beginning of the world, will shine into human darkness and confusion. It is as if I can hear the Divine Persons saying, “Let us work the redemption of the whole  human race; let us respond to the groaning of all creation.” (Draw Me Into Your Friendship, pg. 91-92)

Remembering that God sees what we see is very comforting to me right now.  Maybe it’s comforting to you as well?  

Knowing that Jesus entered our humanity in all of our joy and sorrow consoles me in what we are facing during this uncertain time.  Jesus came to respond to the groaning of creation and is still responding to the groaning of creation we are facing today.  Jesus is still with us, companioning us, offering us his life as a model and the way. 

I am reminded, too, of Mary’s role in responding to the groaning of creation:  her “yes” to the angels’ request.  

Mary’s Yes Puts the Incarnation into Motion:  

The ultimate response to the groaning of creation is the decision to send an angel to Mary (Luke 1:26–38). Mary’s yes puts into motion the Incarnation, God becoming flesh and “[living] among us”(John 1:14). Mary sheltered God within her in the form of Jesus. At the same time that Mary was sheltering Jesus, she was also sheltered by God who saw her and was with her in her inner chapel. They were inseparable from each other. God sought to shelter us by sheltering with us.

We see intimacy here: God’s response to the groaning of the world began with the tenderness of a mother who first said yes and then received her child in her arms. Can you imagine the gaze between mother and child that day? Mary gazing into Jesus’ tiny eyes, stroking his hair, and snuggling the new life in her arms. Mary feeling the same profound love, tremendous responsibility, and fear that all new parents experience. Jesus looking up at her. Jesus crying and needing to be soothed by his mother, the same way all newborns need to be soothed.

The intimacy we imagine between Mary and Jesus is the same tender and loving intimacy with Jesus and us.  Jesus looks upon us with that same loving intimate gaze.  Jesus profoundly loves us.  Jesus seeks to soothe and to comfort us.  

I invite us to spend some time this week pondering and reflecting on the gift of Jesus sheltering with us.  How do we respond to this profound gift of shelter and love?  How might we offer our own gaze of love and offer of intimacy to Jesus?  How can our “yes” to the nudges from the Holy Spirit to act and to speak be part of birthing Jesus into the world today?  

* adapted from The Inner Chapel p. 95-98 

Go Deeper:

Scriptures for Support: 

Psalm 46// God is is our refuge and strength
Sirach 34:16-20// The Lord is a mighty shield and shelter 
John 1// The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us

Pray with Mary and Elizabeth’s Visitation
Don’t miss it! Join Becky for a live virtual retreat, Living Anchored in Shifting Winds, this Saturday, August 15, 10am-1pm CST.

Photo by Hada Lanssa on unsplash.

To Know, To Love, and To Follow: Brokenness and Love

Our next blog series focuses on the grace we pray for in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises: to know, to love, and to follow Jesus. Today Charlotte Phillips shares with us how we can imitate Christ during difficult times. 

A couple weeks ago I was in prayer with the Inner Chapel Community. Carrie Lambert was walking us through a Visio Divina with one of her father’s beautiful paintings. In the painting Escape from Eden, Rolland Golden shows us a couple, shoulder to shoulder, walking forward through the flooded streets after Hurricane Katrina. Surrounding the couple were destroyed houses and debris. Even with all the destruction, with all the physical and emotional brokenness surrounding them, I could see the love they had for each other. Carrie later told us this image was of a man and pregnant woman in the lower 9th ward of New Orleans, one of the areas hardest hit from the storm. While this painting wasn’t of an actual couple, there were so many people in this predicament-walking through the brokenness wondering how they would ever recover. The painting felt like the current state of our world.

Our world feels broken right now.

There is so much uncertainty and unknowns with COVID-19. For five months our lives have been in limbo. We have been quarantined and social distancing. People have lost jobs and lost loved ones. Celebrations of graduations, weddings, and birthdays have been celebrated alone or over a computer screen. Parents have been faced with the difficult decision of deciding to send their children back to school or to continue virtual learning. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

If dealing with this wasn’t enough, we have also experienced a radical reaction to the tragic killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and others of our Black brothers and sisters. Emotions are high and more and more people are being hurt. I’ve read article after article of people of color being mistreated, hurt, and even killed because of the color of their skin. It makes my heart truly ache to know people are still being mistreated solely based on the color of their skin. 

In the story of the raising of Lazarus in John’s gospel, we read: 

When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. (John 11:33-35) 

Jesus, in his humanness, felt sorrow and deep compassion for those suffering just as we do.

Our world feels broken right now. I can still see love.

During our current pandemic we are making and donating masks to help stop the spread of this novel virus. We are donating money to organizations providing food to those in need. Front Porch Projects popped up in cities around the country offering free family photos to help lift spirits. Here in New Orleans, currently unemployed musicians are delivering food to our front-line workers, with donated money, helping the musicians and restaurants still earn an income.

People are protesting the mistreatment of our Black brothers and sisters. Organizations are offering racial equity challenges to educate us on all the injustices people are facing and actions we can take to end it. People are donating money to organizations that help support our Black and Brown brothers and sisters in ways they have not before.

As we continue to read about the raising of Lazarus, we know Jesus took action, too. 

Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice,* “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” (John 11:41-44)

Time and time again Jesus would show compassion by healing. We are showing compassion, too, by making and wearing masks, donating to help those in need, and peacefully protesting the mistreatment of people because of the color of their skin. We, like Jesus, are showing love in times of brokenness.

Our world feels broken right now. I can still see the face of Christ.

In Matthew’s gospel, the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Jesus replies,

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39)

Even through the brokenness, through all the pain and suffering we are facing, we are doing what we have been told and shown by Jesus to do-love our neighbor, show compassion to those suffering, and help those in need. We are all in this together. So, let’s continue to imitate Christ by our actions. Let’s continue to help those who are in need. Let’s continue to be grateful for those who can help us during this difficult time. And let’s continue to remember, that even though everything feels broken right now that we can continue to love God and show our love by imitating Christ. 

Go Deeper:

You can read the entire story of the Raising of Lazarus here.
Here are a few other examples of Jesus showing compassion and helping others:

Matthew 15:29-39
Matthew 8:1-4
Mark 6:53-56

Spiritual Support for COVID-19 and Racial Justice 
You can see more of Rolland Golden’s work here.

Photo “Escape from Eden” by Rolland Golden, used with permission.

To Know, To Love, and To Follow: Knowing Bravery

Our next blog series focuses on the grace we pray for in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises: to know, to love, and to follow Jesus. Today Kathy Powell shares with us how we can be brave like Jesus. 

With the laptop in the middle of the living room floor, my three kids and I gathered around to listen to the bible story. This year’s virtual Vacation Bible School has been quite different from the usual week of camp with its bright t-shirts and jam-packed mornings, but it has been a nice addition to our socially-distanced summer days.

With the week’s theme of compassion, this particular day’s focus was on the healing of the paralytic in Mark’s Gospel (Mark 2:1-12) and the theme of bravery. The VBS leader, in her brightly colored t-shirt, talked through how each member of the story was brave. When she said, “And Jesus had courage, too,” I felt myself nodding. Of course Jesus had courage. In my head, I instantly listed times he stood against the scribes, against the norms of current society, against hatred and cruelty – all of those times took boldness and bravery.

By this time, my kids were yelling responses at the screen, so I joined in and asked them when they had been brave. My middle child couldn’t think of any examples, so I instantly listed, “You were brave yesterday when you had to hold your leg still so I could wash your cut. You were brave biking up the big hill. You are brave every time you help Anna be brave when she’s scared.” When we had finished talking about how brave the friends were to make a hole in the roof and how we can be brave to help others, the kids ran off to grab a snack and I was left laying on the carpet with a small nugget of quiet time.

In my ease of listing the actions of Jesus and my daughter, I realized that in some ways, I know Jesus in the way that I know my family. In my time spent with Jesus in prayer throughout the years, turning to my inner chapel daily, reading the scriptures, and learning from others, I have come to see Jesus as my friend and to know Jesus in the way I know those close to me. 

As I thought again of the bible story, I leaned into my love of imaginative prayer and placed myself in the story. In the past, I have imagined myself as the paralytic and the story has taught me the importance of leaning on others and accepting help. This time, I placed myself as one of the friends holding the mat. As the scene played out in my mind, I paid special attention to how I felt as I made the hole in the roof. It didn’t feel like bravery. I felt such peace that it was the way to bring my friend to Jesus, so my bold action seemed like just the next right step. When I heard Jesus say, “Rise, pick up your mat, and go home,” I was not shocked or surprised or awed like I had been in previous readings of this story. I was overwhelmingly thankful. My friend Jesus had done what I knew was of Jesus’ character. Jesus saw my friend’s faith and acted out of love and compassion, regardless of the naysayers.

In these last few months, as COVID-19 has continued to spread and affect every facet of our lives, even ordinary tasks have needed extra courage and bold action. There is bravery in choosing to stay home. There is bravery in choosing to go out. Setting aside time for prayer, and bringing the reality of my current situation and all of my emotions to the Lord, has grounded me in hope and empowered me to have courage like Jesus. I do not know the details of how I’ll get there, but I’m committed to continuing to walk. Like the friend holding the mat, my daughter biking up the hill, and all of us making decisions in this current time, bravery seems to be simply taking the next step when you don’t know the outcome. Jesus has helped me realize that simply continuing to walk into the unknown is brave. In surrendering my plan and destination, there is tremendous peace, even in the midst of chaos.   

As I moved in my prayer to thanking Jesus for our friendship and steadfastness during this storm, I was sneak-attacked by my plotting kids, who had been slowly crawling over to me while my eyes were closed. “Ok, Jesus, we’ll meet up again later, I need to go tickle my kiddos.”

How are you being invited to be brave? I challenge you to dive into scripture, try imaginative prayer, and draw on the courage of Jesus. 

Go Deeper:

Listen to Becky guide you in your own imaginative prayer using the scripture of the paralyzed man here.
How to pray with your imagination: Ignatian Contemplation Prayer Card
Scriptures for Support: 

Paralyzed Man (Mark 2:1-12)
Hemorrhaging woman (Luke 8:40-56)
Peter walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33)

Photo by Joyce McCown on unsplash.

To Know, To Love, and To Follow

Dear Friends, 

I hope you are each doing well!  I also hope you enjoyed getting to meet our new team of writers.  As I read each woman’s story, I found myself, yet again, standing in awe of God’s work in our lives.  I continue to remind myself that God continues to work in each of our lives, even in this time of continuous change.  

I am writing this letter just minutes after finding out Louisiana remains in phase II for another couple of weeks.  The uncertainty of life and what the fall may hold looms out there.  There are so many unknowns and yet, I continue to see a small beam of light continuing to illuminate the next steps before me.  There is this holy tension in me of both hope and fear. In prayer, Jesus keeps reminding me to not forget the path we walked together these past months that brought clarity even in uncertain times.  Every time I felt afraid or lost or unclear of my direction, Jesus appeared in my imaginative prayer reminding me I am not alone.  

Jesus truly is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).  An important part of our spiritual journeys is getting to know the One who calls us, Jesus.  In the second week of the Spiritual Exercises the grace we seek is “for interior knowledge of the Lord so we can know, love and follow him more closely”.  

Our next blog series that our team of Into the Deep community of writers will explore is focused on this grace.  We are calling this series “To Know, to Love, and to Follow”.  Over the month of August, the team of writers will explore what it means to get to know Jesus, to love Jesus, and to follow Jesus more closely.  Let’s take a brief look at each of these to get us started.  

To Know Jesus: 

Getting to really know Jesus happens in our interior lives in prayer.  It is in our inner chapels as we pray with Scripture especially that we come to know Jesus personally as a friend.  We begin to understand who he is in both his humanity and divinity.  We learn the way he moves, he speaks, and he acts.  Knowing him in this way helps us come to really know him on a heart level and not just know about Jesus.  

Spending daily time in our inner chapels getting to know Jesus during this time of uncertainty can help anchor us into the hope that we are not alone.  Jesus is with us and is here ready to show us the way forward.   

To Love Jesus: 

As we spend time in our inner chapels getting to know Jesus, we fall more in love with Jesus.  He becomes someone we know intimately and care for deeply.  Our hearts begin to connect with what matters to him the way our hearts would for anyone we love.  

To Follow Jesus: 

As we get to know Jesus and love him more, the desire to follow Jesus even more closely wells up in us at the same time.  We desire for our actions and words to mirror and align with Jesus’s actions and words.    Jesus continues to call us deeper and deeper into relationship with him.  Jesus also calls us to use our gifts and talents to share in his work of building the Kingdom.  

Upcoming Opportunities to Know, to Love and to Follow Jesus:  

In the next few weeks, I want to offer you three virtual retreats that can help you get to know, to  love, and to follow Jesus.  My hope is these retreats offer you a chance to pause and to simply be with Jesus.  

Morning of Reflection: Living Anchored in Shifting Winds   

August 15th, 10am-1pm Central 

A live virtual retreat with Becky Eldredge

We have this anchor of hope, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:19).    

Even though life changes, there is a constant. Throughout the centuries, God is a steady, unshakable, and enduring presence.  The presence of God in our life offers us the gift of the Promises of God that provide a firm foundation to build our life upon and anchor our hope.   

This retreat will illuminate the promises God made to us.  It will share practical tools and prayer practices for going to our inner chapels that will help us anchor our lives in God’s firm foundation and increase our hope even with steady shifting winds.    

Register here! 

A Weekend Retreat: Seeking Grace

August 28-30, 2020 

A live virtual retreat with Becky Eldredge & Stephanie Clouatre Davis

Rest in the graces of God from wherever you are! Join us for a live virtual retreat in daily life with Becky Eldredge & Stephanie Clouatre Davis, August 28-30 We’ve adapted our annual weekend preached retreat to have live online talks via Zoom, guided prayers, community prayer gatherings, times of encouraged silence and reflection, and optional online spiritual direction – all designed to be done in your own space as an individual retreat with Jesus. With the title of, Seeking Grace, and based on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, come as you are to experience the truly amazing grace of God that we find in love, mercy, friendship, companionship, compassion, and joy.

Register here! 

A Six-Week Retreat in Daily Life: Overwhelmed No More

September 7th- October 16th 

A self-paced virtual retreat with Becky Eldredge (optional community gatherings on Friday at 12pm central)

Facing the realities of COVID-19 this Spring, we offered our self-paced online retreat, Overwhelmed No More, as a community journey with newly added elements of connection and discussion. It was truly glorious to walk together. In one retreatant’s words, “I loved the online format and being able to “fit” it into my life.  This retreat has helped me tremendously to hear God’s voice and the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I prayed for clarity and direction and received both! Thanks be to God.”

Another retreatant said, “The retreat was just the exact thing that I needed at this exact moment. I really liked the practical prayer tools given in the materials and videos. Most of all, having the ability to connect in a deep, spiritual way with people from all over the country and the world from all different stages in life was tremendous.” 

We are once again opening this online retreat as a community journey, so that we together can discover and live God’s vision for our lives – a vision where we are overwhelmed no more! We will begin on September 7th, and finish on October 16th.

This opportunity includes weekly themes that help us walk in God’s truth. For example, we will discuss the joy that comes from knowing you are not alone, ways to pray in daily life, and the steps to boldly walk in peace. Drawing on the discernment and wisdom of St. Ignatius, we’ll take stock of what is keeping us busy and learn how to discern and prioritize our greater yes.

Register here!

I hope you will join me for one of these upcoming retreats to spend some time with a community of people seeking to get to know, to love, and to follow Jesus.  

Know of my continued prayers for you in this time of uncertainty!  May we all continue to lean on and trust Jesus, who is our way, our truth, and our life.  

 

Peace,

Becky

Photo by Aachal on unsplash.

Drawn to Ignatius: Applying the Wisdom of the Creative Life to Nurture Spiritual Growth

During our first Into the Deep blog series “Drawn to Ignatius” members of our writing team will tell us the ways Ignatian Spirituality has informed their lives, prayers, and their desire to go into the deep. Today Vinita Hampton Wright shares with us how she has applied the wisdom of her creative life to nuture her spiritual life. 

I grew up in a tiny town in southeast Kansas. My mother’s people were Assemblies of God; my father’s mother brought me up in the United Methodist Church; after visiting a Southern Baptist mission church when I was about twelve, I decided that I wanted to hang out with Christians who knew the Bible—I was baptized into that church at age thirteen. There was a Catholic church in my little town, but we Baptists considered those people to be far from God. Yes, it was a rather fundamentalist subculture, and I managed to escape it as a young adult, first by spending a few years teaching English and music in Ajloun and Amman, Jordan, then by moving to the big city, Chicago, for grad school and a second career, which turned out to be as an editor in religious book publishing.

All this time (beginning in fourth grade), I was writing: poems, stories, songs, and reflections on faith. My Christian faith was a constant, even though it evolved drastically over the years. Working with words was the other constant. As I did my own writing and helped authors with theirs, I began to understand some fundamentals of the creative life. Creativity was a spiritual process. And if I followed the creative gifts God gave me, they would take me where God intended. I learned about the process and paying attention. About logical knowledge and intuitive knowledge. About truth residing in the same interior place where my prayer happened. About spirituality and creativity involving the whole person: spirit, emotions, body, memory, dreams, and desires. After just a few years as an editor, I was leading writing retreats and workshops. In 2005, I published The Soul Tells a Story: Engaging Creativity with Spirituality in the Writing Life. By this time, I had published my first novel and was working on the second.

Then I went to work for the Jesuits. Loyola Press brought me in as a senior editor of trade books. Within a couple of years, our company went through a process of reconnecting with its Ignatian roots, and soon I was editing books about St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Spiritual Exercises, Jesuit ministries, and Ignatian spirituality. I did the 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises, then helped lead multiple small groups of employees through the same experience.

As I became acquainted with St. Ignatius, I began to experience sensations of recognition. His work with a person’s physical sensations, memory, imagination, and emotion rang true, but it was not new to me. I had been doing similar work as a fiction writer for some time. I had been teaching other writers to honor their senses, pay attention to their interior shifts, trust their intuition, and handle their work lightly, not trying to force it—similar to developing spiritual freedom, not clinging to any particular outcome. I had encouraged them to use their emotions as cues to what was important and to notice what fed their creativity and what drained it.

So, St. Ignatius and I had landed on some bedrock principles of the inner life, only he had developed them to nurture spiritual growth. How exciting to understand that I could apply the wisdom of the creative life to the health of the spiritual life. All of it is woven together; God has designed the human person to have a strong and brilliant interior life—but we must practice how to nurture and use it.

Then, I began to see that St. Ignatius was perhaps the original Evangelical Catholic! His emphasis that we are made to become friends of God certainly echoed all that the Pentecostals, Methodists, Charismatics, and Baptists had taught me about a personal relationship with Jesus. And Ignatius was not afraid to invite ordinary laypeople to engage directly with Scriptures—another hallmark of evangelicals everywhere.

I’m not saying that all these denominations are the same, only that we have discovered independently the same central messages of the gospel: God longs for our friendship, and the Scriptures communicate God’s love to us.

Now that I’m a spiritual director, I accompany people in prayer, turning to all the gifts I’ve discovered through decades of writing, teaching, editing, and praying. The depth of Scripture, the power of prayer, the dynamics of friendship with God, and confidence in our daily experience and specific lives to carry us into God’s great dream for us. Ignatius and I came from vastly different cultures and have taken quite different journeys. But we have fallen in love with the same God and do our best to take part in whatever God is doing.

 

 Go Deeper?

You can check out some of Vinita’s other books here:

Days of Deepening Friendship: For the Woman Who Wants Authentic Life With God
The Art of Spiritual Writing: How to Craft Prose That Engages and Inspires Your Readers 

 

 

 

Photo by Ed Robertson on unsplash.

Drawn to Ignatius: Dominican Fire with an Ignatian Heart

During our first Into the Deep blog series “Drawn to Ignatius” members of our writing team will tell us the ways Ignatian Spirituality has informed their lives, prayers, and their desire to go into the deep. Today Stephanie Clouatre Davis shares with us how both Dominican and Ignatian charisms have helped her go into the deep.

 

In a voice of wisdom and deep knowing, Sr. Mary Noel, OP drew me to St. Ignatius. Years ago when at Rosaryville, a beautiful but now closed retreat house, Sr. Mary would walk the paths around the retreat house in prayer. Her contemplation was visible. It was after these long walks that she would sometimes reveal the most profound words. Once she said to me, “Is that it?” I could see in her eyes that she saw more. St. Ignatius would call this the magis. I realized after several sincere invitations by Sr. Mary that God was inviting me to more. My sight has grown short through disappointments, failings, and natural disasters, like so many. God invites us all to more.

More understanding
More inclusion
More grit
More compassion
More voices
More courage
More actions of justice

I like to think in my contemplation that St. Dominic gives me my spine and St. Ignatius gives me my heart to serve as a woman in the church today in these modern times. After working more than twenty years with Dominican Friars and Sisters, I joined the mission of the Dominican Sisters of Peace as an associate about five years ago. It was through my passion for living a life as a Dominican “preacher” that I found my path back into the heart of my original formation in Iganatian spirituality. As a spiritual director and retreat facilitator presently, I am graced in the great opportunity to accompany people as they encounter God.

St. Ignatius provides tools that assist us in seeing not only who Jesus is but how we are called to see Jesus’ way of love, forgiveness, and justice as a path laid out for our own lives. Ignatius draws us in and points us toward Jesus. Ignatius draws us in and invites us to try on the life of Jesus Christ. Sr. Mary echoes the words of Ignatius and Dominic. As a spiritual director and preacher herself, she speaks Dominican fire with an Ignatian heart.

Grounded in the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, Sr. Mary spent more than a year reminding me of who I have always been in God. Inviting and sure, she illuminated the path like a true Dominican holding the light of Veritas for all, even including me, to see.

The Ignatian Way had long been in me, though. Place me in front of a group of people leading a retreat, and you will hear some of my old tried and true phrases:

Close your eyes so your ears can hear
Imagine you are in the scene with Jesus
Think back over the last day, year, etc.
Remember you are loved and created uniquely by God

All of these words are Ignatian inspired. In my early years as a teacher, youth minister, and retreat facilitator, I did not clearly understand that my spirituality was seeped in Ignatian spirituality. I felt drawn to curate an environment that allowed for an authentic encounter with God so that the young people gathered in front of me might be compelled into action.

Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt describes Ignatian contemplation as taking a “long, loving look at the real.” I love this description because to be contemplatives in action we are called nearly simultaneously to give pause for the long view; be loving even amidst pain, misery, sin, challenge; look, even when we might want to look away; engage with the real even when the idealized or sensationalized might be easier. The Ignatian Way is neither contemplative or active alone. We are called to be contemplatives in action.

As I was being drawn into Ignatian patterns, I was surrounded by Dominicans. I worked at a parish run by Dominican Friars and schools run by Dominican Sisters of Springfield. It was a more recent venture as a minister in a retreat house run by Dominican Sisters of Peace who, in their great spirit of hospitality, invited me more deeply into my understanding of myself, that I discovered the theme of Ignatian Spirituality in my own prayers and thoughts. What a beautifully gifted experience to be tied to such rich and wise traditions.

The Ignatian Exercises are truly Exercises. Like any exercises one might undertake to become a better swimmer, dancer, actor, or mathematician, the Spiritual Exercises are exactly as they say they are: spiritual exercises. My spirit becomes stronger in every exercise of prayer, journaling, contemplation, experience in nature, and action of care for my family and the needy. Sts. Dominic and Ignatius can agree on that.

Illuminating paths that connect the Creator and the creature allows me to see the power of discerning our gifts and activating our call. This collection of Ignatian voices is a true testament to the more. I pray our voices give you depth so that we all sink closer and closer to God who beckons us. 

Go Deeper?

You can learn more about being a contemplative in action here.

 

 

 

Photo by Ray Fragapane on unsplash.