I recently took my girls to the drive-in to see the remake of a film I enjoyed when I was younger–The Karate Kid.  Now, several days removed from seeing it, I find myself struck by how much it resonates with a key Ignatian theme.

First, a note for parents: there are some hard scenes for younger children, notably bullying and fighting.  I brought my seven year-old, but I don’t think I’d bring younger children.

The story is about a child whose widowed mother is moved by her company to Beijing.  The young man, Dre, finds himself completely out of his element and the target of racist-inspired bullying.  Through a series of developments he seeks out Mr. Han to teach him karate.  He slowly learns, and must ultimately face the bullies at a karate tournament.

Now, the Ignatian part.  Dre’s experience of disequilibrium is rooted in the difference between how he imagines himself (a kid from Detroit) and the reality of his new life in Beijing.  I think of Ignatian spirituality as an invitation to a new way of imagining oneself, specifically as a child of God called and gifted to draw deeply from God’s gifts to create beauty in the world.  What holds Dre back early in the film–and what holds us back–is a weak imagination of ourselves.  We’re only this or only that.  The first week of the Spiritual Exercises is about dropping our limited self-imagination and coming to see ourselves as God sees us, beautiful creations of a loving creator even though limited by our sin.  For Ignatius himself, the experience of convalescence gave him time to slowly let go of his limited self-imagination in order to develop new ways of imagining himself: as another Saint Francis or Saint Dominic.  The desires that this new imagination incited in him led him to the new chapter in his life, even with mistakes along the way.

For Dre, the opening of imagination to see himself as capable of learning karate was difficult, and yet in time it gave him the motivation to seek out a teacher.  This too is very Ignatian: the spiritual director is the person who helps steer our self-imagination toward the greater good that God wants to unfold through us.  Initially, Dre has to undertake a series of incredibly tedious and boring exercises.  He sees no connection between these exercises and the imagination he has set for himself.  Ignatius, too, described his early days learning Latin with schoolboys as a kind of tedium, even though in his later years he knew that these exercises were important.  The moment of insight for Dre comes when Mr. Han shows him how those boring exercises have already prepared his body for the discipline of karate.  In that moment, Dre’s self-consciousness is transformed.  He is no longer a kid just doing what his teacher tells him; he is a student of karate whose potential is without limit.  And the rest of his training becomes focused, disciplined, and oriented toward the great good that he now imagines: beating the bullies.

We could talk long about what kinds of goals shape our imaginations, how our teachers challenge us or pose obstacles; the relationship between spiritual exercises and simply resting in God’s love; and so on.  What I am simply observing about this movie (however formulaic it may be) is that it is based on some basic observations about human nature that strike me as very consonant with the dynamics of Ignatian spirituality.  In particular, I am struck by the way it suggests something about how we imagine ourselves, and how the way we imagine ourselves shapes what we do with our lives.  That dynamic was at the heart of Ignatius’ own experience of conversion.  In my experience, that same dynamic is at the heart of many stories of conversion.  The whisper of God may be the often hidden idea that God is calling me to be something else, something greater, something more beautiful.

A prof  at Loyola Marymount, a Muslim, eulogizes Coach John Wooden of UCLA as an exemplar of Ignatian values.  (H/T to Jim Campbell.)

A teacher at heart, he cared about his players not so much as athletes, but as students with promise and potential. That’s something that fits in perfectly with the Jesuit and Marymount traditions of LMU, what we call cura personalis, or the care of the whole person. What we do as teachers is a sacred trust, and Coach Wooden did it better than any of us. He didn’t like being called “the Wizard of Westwood,” and he would have hated to be called a saint, so let us call him what he was, simply and with great pride: a teacher. And let us thank God for the life and teachings of John Wooden.

The Wall Street Journal admires the Cristo Rey network of schools.

A blog you should check out: Days of Deepening Friendship.  They’re discussing Tim Muldoon’s book, Longing to Love over there.

What happens when Jesuit colleges play each other in basketball.

The Jesuits open seldom-seen houses in Rome, including rooms where Ignatius lived.

A business guru on the takaways from Ignatius (“Be open-minded, form your organization with a purpose, and don’t be afraid to redefine that purpose.”)

The top 10 moments in the history of Jesuit postseason basketball. (Two of them involve Al McGuire.)

NBC News profiles a remarkable community service program at Loyola High School in Los Angeles.

Paul Lickteig, SJ, has some questions about Jesus. (Did he ever forget what he was supposed to do?)

Michael Magree’s favorite sad songs and why he loves them. (“Isn’t it grand, boys, to be bloody well dead.”)

Six Ignatian methods for attending to God.

Peter Schineller, SJ, laments the lost art of penmanship.

For many years basketball has been the top sport at most of the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the US.  An all-star team of Jesuit alumni could beat just about anybody.   This might be a bit of a down year for Jesuit basketball.  Only two teams–Georgetown and Gonzaga–are currently ranked in the top 25 men’s teams.  But I wouldn’t be surprised to see five or more Jesuit teams in the playoffs next March.

Jesuit schools play each other many times this season. The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities has compiled a list of these games.  Tonight Marquette takes on Canisius in Milwaukee.

Time magazine profiles University of Detroit Jesuit High School, the only Catholic college-prep school left in the city.  Last year, 99 percent of its graduates were accepted into college.  Most students volunteer some of their time in community projects.

Students are told hundreds of times during their education at U of D that they are training to become community leaders, what the Jesuits call “men for others.” The phrase comes up in nearly every conversation with current and former students. “It’s kinda corny,” says Keith Ellison, class of 1981 and a Democratic Congressman from Minnesota, “but that motto really made me think about service. And it set a course for what I’m doing with my life now.”

The Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy, an ambitious venture in online education, recently celebrated its first year of operation. The JVLA provides online for-credit courses, workshops, lectures and other learning opportunities for students at Jesuit high schools. It also offers faculty at those schools online professional development and collaboration opportunities.

Courses are those not usually offered as part of a traditional high school curriculum – such as a Chinese language course and certain advanced placement (AP) courses – and are primarily taught by faculty from Jesuit high schools. Course list here.

Can you name all 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the US? Test your knowledge here. I thought I knew them all, but I missed four.