A Week of Indifference

I continued praying this past week with “Journey with Jesus,” Larry Warner’s guide through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. The theme was “indifference,” in the Ignatian sense of the word, so let’s begin there… 

—  Although “indifference” is often used to speak of not caring about something or having a lack of passion, in this spiritual sense it carries a different (and deeper) meaning. When properly understood and embraced, it leads to a freedom to say yes to God and no to the things that lead us away from God. This indifference is a “detachment” from those kinds of desires. (Warner, p. 94)

—  Or as Gerald May writes, it is a freedom not from desire but for desire: “An authentic spiritual understanding of detachment devalues neither desire nor the objects of desire. Instead, it aims at correcting one’s own anxious grasping in order to free one’s self for a committed relationship with God.” 

—  The opposite of indifference (for Ignatius) is a “disordered love” that would exert authority over individuals to such a degree that that they would be incapable of choosing to say yes to God and to God’s purpose for their lives. (Warner, p. 94) 

A few more thoughts from my journal this week (I hope they challenge you as they did me):

 —  We all can recite (at the very least) the first verse of the 23^rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I want.” But can we bring ourselves to really live that out? Are we content with the things we have (and have been given)? Paraphrasing Philippians 4:11-13):

Are we content and self-sufficient? This self-sufficiency doesn’t mean we can do and provide everything ourselves but, rather, that with God we have everything that we need. We can live humbly, and we can be comfortable with abundance, depending on what God gives us. Whether hungry or full-bellied, in abundance or in need, we have strength for everything through Christ who empowers us.  

—  As we look over our possessions and wealth (however meagre or grand), can we recognize them all as gift? Would we be able let go of them if they got in the way of our love of God and others? Would losing possessions and savings be the end of us or the beginning of something different? 

—   What do we worry about? What keeps us up at night? Those concerns reveal what is dearest to us, what we treasure in our hearts. Do we use these treasures to draw us closer to God and love others more completely, or are we just storing them up for another day and constantly worrying about losing them?

— “We cannot see things in perspective until we cease to hug them to our own bosom.” (Thomas Merton)

—  Inspired by Psalm 63:1, Psalm 42:1-2, and Philippians 3:8

For you I long, yearn, thirst,
Like dry land in desperate need of water 
Lifeless without you,
Desiring animation through you. 
As the deer longs for a drink from a cool stream
[or as those elephants in African documentaries walk for hundreds of miles in the dry season]
So I desire you, Giver of life, 
Are pulled toward you, somehow. 
Everything else is temporary oasis is an ever-shifting desert.