Each Friday through August Pastor Harry will be writing on Growing the Beloved Community to stimulate ideas and discussion on how we might live into this vision.
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us that all life is sacred and spiritual.
Look, hmm, toss. That became my cadence year after year upon receiving a missive in the mail from the Ignatian Spirituality Institute. I would look at it, wonder what in the world Ignatian meant, then toss it in recycling. Look, hmm, toss.
Until 2009. I was having breakfast with a clergy friend from a neighboring church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and he mentioned two of his members were part of a spiritual direction program. It was called the Ignatian Spirituality Institute. I sat up straight, put my fork down, and listened as he told me how much they loved the program and how it was doing such great things for them personally and for the congregation as well.
That afternoon, what arrived in my mail? You guessed it. This time I looked it over more carefully, called the Director within the hour to set up an interview, and began a two-year intensive training program that fall to become a spiritual director, Ignatian-style. I was the only non-Catholic in a class of twelve, and one of only two men. Apparently, male Presbyterian pastors didn’t do such things then.
But I did, and honestly, it’s the best thing I have ever done as a pastor. I started a spiritual direction group soon after I arrived in Santa Fe and a portion of that group continues to meet today. Leading up to our 150th anniversary in 2017 I ushered the congregation through four years of spiritual direction, a year for each of the four movements of Ignatian Spirituality.
And then it was put on the backburner, where spiritual things are apt to be put. More pressing needs came to the forefront (there are always more pressing needs, right?) and I directed my attention and energies to those places with the loudest voices and the greatest needs.
But what if spiritual direction was our greatest need? What if we need to experience a God who loves us deeply, and fall in love with Jesus and his teachings? What if we are given a choice in our own Garden of Gethsemane to either fall asleep like the disciples or follow Jesus to the cross? If we fall asleep we go no further, but if we follow Jesus to the cross we experience a death, whatever that might be to us, it leads to resurrection, renewal, and new life. These, you see, are the four movements of spiritual direction.
It’s tempting right here to say we should drop everything and focus only on the spiritual and the sacred, but that’s a false statement. Everything is sacred, everything is spiritual. It’s never a choice between spiritual and non-spiritual. Wait, you say, what about buildings, and budgets, and committee meetings? All sacred, all spiritual. Ah, but then what about conflicts and money and people not getting along? All sacred, all spiritual.
Nothing, you see, is beyond God, whether we like it or not. Growing the Beloved Community understands that. Hopefully, we do and will as well. Look, hmm, yes!
Grace and peace,
Harry