Something to think about | To speak about finding God in all things is to admit that no doctrine, no tradition and no Scripture can exhaust the mystery that is God. It is to remember that our theology, our prayer and our teaching are limited in their ability to convey this mystery, and that as a result we must ultimately stand in awe before God. We who have grown up in a pluralistic world have seen good things in people of varied backgrounds; we know that any talk of ultimate truth must be humble before the vastness of human experience and of creation.

On the flip side, to speak of God in all things is to remind us that ours is a sacramental understanding of God—God among us in the faces, the words and the gestures that make present the reality of grace. It is to emphasize that God is not distant and “other,” but present and intimate with us. It is to underscore a belief that our lives are not beyond the scope of God’s love, but rather they are already the objects of God’s care.

Tim Muldoon
“Why Young Adults Need Ignatian Spirituality”

dotMagis blogger Tim Muldoon has been writing an excellent weekly column at the website Patheos, which is devoted to “a global dialogue about religion and spirituality.”  It’s full of interesting stuff.

This week Tim writes about the royal wedding and the beatification of Pope John Paul II, concluding thusly:

In our information age, noble ideas are hard to find. The past week, while characterized by attention to these hopeful stories, has also created conversations about the shadow side of these stories. The history of Prince William’s family is not a perfect one, nor is the history of Britain without stain. There are many who love John Paul II, but there are also many who criticize the fact that the crisis of sexual abuse was unchecked during his watch. In both stories, then, we can see something of the paradox that characterizes the human condition: we have an appetite for hope, yet find ourselves chewing on tainted food. Perhaps the appetite itself is a clue to why nothing in the world can ultimately satisfy the human heart, and why by God’s grace we find ourselves restless until we rest in God.

Fellow blogger Tim Muldoon (see his post on desire below) has written an excellent article about what’s needed to help young people form the intimate bond that sustains marriage.  Dating is passe.  The hookup culture is the norm.  Young people “stumble from one defective friendship to another without a strong sense of how to deepen and expand them in ways that are, over the long haul, life giving.”

The remedy, he says, is friendship–specifically, the understanding that “God is friendship.”  This “de-centers” the individual.

Individual feelings at a given moment in the relationship are not as important as the larger story in which each partner plays a part. The story is not about me: what I’m feeling, how I’m being fulfilled, what I’m getting out of the relationship. Instead, the story is about the friendship itself, how I participate with the other in an unfolding drama where God is the key actor. The questions are different: what is God doing? How is God challenging me to grow? What is God revealing to me about myself, about the other? Such a de-centering can be liberating, in the sense that it allows me freedom to grow, instead of being limited by my own self-interest and especially my own often unruly emotions.

Tim Muldoon argues that Ignatian spirituality speaks to the postmodern sensibility because it prizes imagination and experience rather than doctrine and analysis:

It is based on a personal, imaginative exploration of the gospel, and it invites people to choose freely to deepen their intimacy with God through a deepened understanding of who they themselves are. The invitation to come to know God in this way is radically different from the approach which has become familiar to so many: that of learning the doctrines and moral teachings of the Church in religious education, and developing the critical thinking that sometimes leads us to question whether any doctrine can be judged true. Ignatian spirituality is not primarily doctrinal, because it is not primarily an exercise of reason. It is instead a practice of imagination, with all the affective dimensions that unfold in imagination, often without the explicit consent of the intellect.

Read the whole thing.

dotMagis blogger Tim Muldoon has just published a new book, a memoir titled Longing to Love: A Memoir of Desire, Relationships, and Spiritual Transformation.  Here’s what Tim himself says about why he wrote it:

It has arisen in large part from my work trying to understand and speak to students about the prevailing hookup culture, inviting them to listen to their deeper desires for friendship, for relationship, for intimacy.  It invites people to a way of imagining the possibility of love, an way of imagining that is different from many cultural messages that in the end do not satisfy our desires.

The book is terrific.  Read a sample chapter here.

Tim Muldoon, who blogs here at dotMagis, has published an excellent article on sexuality and Ignatian spirituality in The Way, a journal published by the British Jesuits.  Here’s a taste:

To imitate Christ and to feel as Christ would feel—these constitute the method the Exercises prescribe for deepening union with God. They amount to a discipline of all of one’s senses and emotions, so that these faculties may be put at the disposal of Christ and used for God’s greater glory. Ignatius’ rules for the two types of discernment (the first, of God’s will in an election; and the second, of spirits or movements of the soul) are illustrative, because they focus attention not only on the complexity of often competing emotions and desires, but also on the fruit of the right ordering of affection. One cannot exactly ‘demand’ to feel a certain way, but one can, according to Ignatius, train the senses in a way that allows for the fruitful unfolding of love and for the eventual consolation that follows from a life ordered solely towards the praise, reverence and service of God.

I have been doing all the blogging at dotMagis since we launched the site in April.  Now I have some company.   Our new blogger is Tim Muldoon, a writer and theologian who works in the Office of Ministry and Mission at Boston College and teaches in the Honors Program. Tim’s first post is immediately below this one.  He will post here regularly.

Tim is the author of The Ignatian Workout, an excellent book introducing Ignatian spirituality to young adults. Early next year, Loyola Press will publish his new book, Longing to Love: A Memoir of Desires, Relationships, and Spiritual Transformation.  Before coming to to BC, Tim was chair of  the Department of Religious Studies, Philosophy and Theology at Mount Aloysius College in Cresson, Pa.  He and his wife have two children.  Check out his article “Why Young Adults Need Ignatian Spirituality.”

Others will start blogging here over the next few weeks.  It has always been our intention to make dotMagis a group blog.  We want it to be an Ignatian community with many voices and points of view.

The goal of Ignatian discernment is to discover where God is active in our lives.  Here is a simple two-step exercise to get started with it.  It is adapted from a “spiritual warm-up” developed by Tim Muldoon in his book The Ignatian Workout:

1. Be quiet (turn off radios, TVs, computers, video games; close books and magazines).

2. Think about what really makes you happy.

Step 1 isn’t easy.  Muldoon suggests focusing on your breathing.  Or you might deliberately pay attention to physical sensations, starting with your toes and working up to your head.  The point is to shut out the world and turn your attention inward.

When things are quiet, move to step 2.  Think about what makes you happy.   Think about what you’ve done recently. What did you do last year?  What are the key moments in your life? What has produced lasting happiness?

Focus on basic things: the people you are closest to, your work, accomplishments that you are proud of.  What has given you most joy?  What do you look forward to doing?  What work can you do without feeling tired and without noticing the passage of time?

You will probably settle on a handful of ideas and memories that are especially important.  Think about them deeply.  Why did they give lasting happiness?  What do they say about the way God made you?

This exercise is a good way to begin.  You can find more ideas about discernment and reflective prayer elsewhere on this site.  Be sure to visit the section on the daily examen.

For at least five reasons, says Tim Muldoon of Boston College: it gives  life a clear foundation; it sees God in all things; it shows us how to walk with Christ; it makes sense of suffering; and it hold up an ideal of social justice.  He writes:

To speak of God in all things is to remind us that ours is a sacramental understanding of God—God among us in the faces, the words and the gestures that make present the reality of grace. It is to emphasize that God is not distant and “other,” but present and intimate with us. It is to underscore a belief that our lives are not beyond the scope of God’s love, but rather they are already the objects of God’s care.

Read the whole thing.  Muldoon teaches in the honors program at Boston College and works at BCs office of Mission and Ministry.  He is the author of The Ignatian Workout.