IGNATIAN SPIRITUAL EXERCISES TRAINING (ISET)
2023-BLOCK TWO – SESSION 13
THE FIRST WEEK: THE BIG PICTURE
AnneMarie: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. So good to see your faces again. Feels like forever ago. Welcome. It is lovely to be with you. It’s freezing here in Johannesburg or at least our definition of freezing. So, we all wrapped up warmly in this side of the world.
Okay, I think we are mostly in. I’m going to ask Adri-Marie to help us in a moment of prayer. Thank you, Adri-Marie.
Adri-Marie: Hi everyone. Nice to see you again. Before we, [00:01:00] go into a moment of prayer, just to actually just check in again, I’m going to call a person’s name, and I want you to point on your screen where are they according to you. Are they next to you? Are they at the bottom? Are they skewed like that or at the top?
Just for us to get a few faces and just reconnect as a room. So, where on your screen do you see Melanie?
Melanie: That’s me!
Adri-Marie: And if you could just point, keep pointing. I know we have two screens sometimes. All right. Where do you see Pam? And keep pointing if you [00:02:00] can find them. All right. Where do you see John? That’s fun. And lastly, where do you see Annemarie?
Wonderful. Welcome back everybody. I hope that was a good breather. I want you to take a nice big sigh out. Settle into your chair and today I’m going to invite you for prayer to switch off your screen. So, if you can do that and I hope you can hear some [00:03:00] birds chirping on my side. Great.
As we settle into this prayer, I’m going to guide you in an imaginative prayer this evening. If there is a scripture that comes to you during this time, hold it close, hold it dear. But we’re going to start with me inviting you to reconnect with a moment that you felt particularly loved.
And just sit into that moment.[00:04:00] It could be long ago. It could be recent. It could be an image.
Reconnect, and as you remember and take a moment to fully soak it in, ask God to be with you or make you aware of God present with you in a special way. [00:05:00] Remember and open your heart.
And with your eyes closed, I want to invite you to imagine that you’re standing in front of a very big door, an old door, and you are opening that door and going into a room, and it’s very, very dark in this room, [00:06:00] and you feel quite cold even in this room, and you close the door behind you.
There are no windows present, but you notice a very small candle that’s alight.
Your eyes are gently adjusting, but it’s very, very dark inside. You move towards the candle.[00:07:00]
You sit down comfortably by the candle, giving very, very gentle light to the room and as you are sitting, you remember the things this past week that have felt quite upsetting that have happened in the world. Those things that are currently happening that show truly the toughest part of being human, the darkest shadow of humankind.
You consider the shadows, the things that break your heart that’s currently happening in this world, and you let [00:08:00] the heaviness of that sit on your shoulders.
And within the gentle light of the candle, you keep on remembering the things, the human interactions you’ve witnessed that shows the turning away of love and goodness and intimacy with God; human behaviors you’ve witnessed around you that were unfree.[00:09:00]
And as you are feeling the heaviness in the room, you also turn your attention to the things within yourself and your own behavior that this week didn’t show God’s love. The places you turned away and you remember them.[00:10:00]
And in the heaviness of the remembering, you exhale in a big way and by accident blow out the candle.[00:11:00]
But your eyes are adjusting to the dark and suddenly you are starting to notice a few fireflies have entered the room. The fireflies are dancing with delight and with this light you feel Christ lightness ever present. The fireflies are starting to dance even more within this dark room, and you are noticing the candle has kept burning.[00:12:00]
As you are present in this room with some signs of light and beauty and play, you notice that there is also a light within you, and you experience and know how Christ has placed it there.
As you are present with the [00:13:00] light of the world, just use this moment to talk to God about this experience and what is coming up for you.[00:14:00]
Ever present God, thank you that your light never, never goes out. Help us to find light for our feet and also live in your light.[00:15:00] Amen.
Annemarie: Thank you, Adri-Marie.
So, just before I hand over to Trevor, who’s going to leading us tonight in beginning to open up the first week of the exercises, I just want to say a big thanks to Carolyn Hindmarsh and to James Henderson, who are going to be stepping in today for Tracy. Carolyn’s going to step in for Tracy and James is going to be stepping in for the group that would have been with Anne. So, thank you both very much for coming on board with us tonight. Much appreciated and welcome and [00:16:00] I hand over to Trevor. Thanks, Trevor.
Trevor: Thanks, Annemarie and hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening to wherever you may be in the world. Good to be with you.
I have a very, very simple. hopeful outcome for this particular lecture and that is, I want to give to you a big picture of the first week. But before we do that, it may be helpful for me to situate ourselves as it were; you know, where are we now with our retreatant as we approach the first week?
We have spent time with [00:17:00] our—I’m going to call the person our retreatant. We’ve spent time with her, with him. We call that period of time the disposition days and in this time together, we’ve helped them to find a structure and a pattern for their exercise journey.
As we’ve gone through the dispositional days, we hopefully have helped them to discover a foundational sense of God’s creative love in their life. Hopefully, we’ve encouraged in them those critical dispositions which we have learned about in Annotation Five—the annotations of generosity [00:18:00] and openness. and courage.
I’m presently giving the exercises to someone for whom English is not their first language and one of the things I asked them to do, and they were in the dispositional time of their journey, I asked them just to find words and phrases for their own Annotation Five and it was really, really quite beautiful for me to hear a person in their own language describe these dispositions of generosity and openness and courage.
So, we’ve come through a period of time, and we never know how long before the exercises are going to be. But my sense is that [00:19:00] very often as we come to the end of the disposition days, there is a sense of honeymoon. Usually, there’s a fair amount of consolation in the air now. The person has also perhaps written out the Principle and Foundation in their own words; they’ve given time to it and maybe along with a sense of consolation, a sense of being on honeymoon, as it were on the exercise journey. Perhaps also kind of a faint sense of unfreedom and a sense of perhaps, you know, of their own attachments that maybe are blocking their own response to God.[00:20:00]
Now’s the time for us, as it were, to enter into the dynamic of the first week. And just to say—and I really want to say this quite strongly—I’m only giving you a big picture of the first week. I don’t have all the hard work that’s going to come over the next four weeks. This is why I always choose this talk. Annemarie’s going to do the hard one on the details and the content of the first week. I think Brenda is going to do the talk on the adaptation of the first week, particularly within the woman’s experience, the experience of people maybe who’ve known abuse or neglect in their own lives.
And then, I think Adri-Marie is going to do the rules for discernment in the first week, and [00:21:00] then I think Russell is going to do the talk on confession. They’ve got all the hard work, and I’ve grabbed the icing on the cake—the big picture.
So, as we head into the first week, and, and I think you will know from your own experience, and I’m not going too far down this route, but the first week, Ignatius puts five exercises there. There is a kind of overall grace that we invite the retreatant to ask God for in the first week. We’re going to notice, most probably next week, that in each of these exercises, there are certain nuances [00:22:00] to the grace that Ignatius invites us to pray.
Each of the exercises in the first week has a kind of nuanced grace and I’m sure that we will be paying attention to the languaging of those graces next week. But in an overall sense, an umbrella sense, the grace that we are looking for overall, in through the journey of the first week, is for the retreatant to come to know that they are a deeply beloved sinner—come to know that they are a deeply, deeply loved sinner. To come to know that they are [00:23:00] both beloved and bent—that they are both beloved and bent. And that is the grace that kind of orientates us for the journey throughout the first week.
You will remember from one of the earlier lectures about the dynamic of the whole exercise, you know, the graces and the dynamic of the exercises as a whole kind of go together. There’s a dynamic; this journey is a dynamic one, and it’s empowered by the graces for which we pray and ask.
Now you may also wonder why we ask, why we ask for this particular grace. Why do we ask for this grace?[00:24:00] I want to make a few suggestions. We ask for this grace because Jesus is really strong on the place of asking when we come to prayer. There’s a little bit of a kind of conventional idea, I think often amongst folk involved in spirituality work that somehow as we mature and grow up in our relationship with God, we kind of move beyond asking. We don’t need to ask anymore. It belongs to the kind of shallow waters of prayer. When you get into the deep waters of prayer, asking no longer is that important.
I want to suggest that I don’t think it’s like that. You know, I’ve always been [00:25:00] struck by the fact that when Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer in the Lord’s Prayer, or the Disciples Prayer, as Dallas calls it, you know, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” has it ever struck you that every line of that prayer is a request.
Lord, I want your name to be hallowed. I want your will to come. I want your kingdom to come. I ask for bread. I ask for deliverance. I ask for help to forgive. Every line is a deep, deep request and I don’t know about you, but the longer I stay on this journey, I find my asking for those different lines in that prayer getting deeper and deeper [00:26:00] and deeper.
Jesus underlines the place of asking. That’s why we ask, and I think Ignatius knew what Jesus was about, and so he places this asking for a grace right at the beginning of every exercise. I think we ask for this grace in the first week to come to know that we are a loved sinner only because God can truly reveal to us the mystery of our own bentness; that only God can reveal to us the mystery of our own disorder; that only God can reveal to us our own tendencies towards evil; that only God can reveal to us [00:27:00] the mystery of the evil that surrounds us in this world.
You know, I think of the Psalmist in 139—”Search me, O God.” Search me, O God. God, you do the heart searching. I think as we go through the first week, we really express our need for the heart searcher, for the gracious heart searcher. We need the heart searcher to reveal to us the depths of our own heart, to which we are blind. There is a very real sense, and Ignatius was really in touch with this, that we are blind to our [00:28:00] own disorder and often we are blind to the sources of disorder within our world, and often our analysis of the disorder of the world fails to get to the heart of the disorder.
Gerard Hughes, who’s been my teacher in these things, I quote Gerard Hughes now, “God alone can teach us what sin is and God alone can draw us to God’s self in penance.” God alone can teach us what sin is. And God alone can draw us to God’s self in penance. So, we ask for the [00:29:00] grace because Jesus invites us to ask, encourages us to ask. We ask because only God can really reveal what’s going on in our depths.
We ask for the grace, and this is my third suggestion, because the grace of knowing ourselves truly as a beloved sinner is ultimately a gift. Our asking opens us up to this gift that God wants to give us, and I think this is so important for us to grasp, that when God gives us new glimpses into our own disordered tendencies, it is a profound consolation, [00:30:00] even if sometimes it is a painful consolation. It is not primarily an experience of desolation, although there may be moments of desolation in our journey through the first week, and that’s why we pay attention to the rules of discernment for the first week. But if God is involved in the revealing of the depths of our own heart; ultimately, because God is the origin of that experience, it will be an experience of consolation. And so, when we begin to drift into self-condemnation, when we [00:31:00] begin to drift into, self-accusation, when we begin to drift into a kind of, “I’m no good,” we know there is another spirit at work.
Here is a just a very simple illustration, which just helps. I’ve got to go to the doctor tomorrow, but when I go to the doctor, I’m hoping for a diagnosis, and even if it’s a tough diagnosis, it’s consoling because then I know, ah, this is what we can do about it. And ultimately, ultimately, it’s an experience of consolation, because it’s an experience of clearness and clarity, opening up [00:32:00] possibilities for healing and recovery.
So, I’m hoping that those three very simple points just, perhaps help you to encourage the retreatant to see why asking for this grace through this week and through the whole exercises is so, so important.
How do we know when we have received this grace? I don’t want to steal Annemarie’s thunder from next week, but there is a wonderful expression in the first week of the exercises, and I’m sure you came across it. Ignatius says there [00:33:00] comes a moment that when we realize the depths of our sinfulness, when we realize the depths of our disorder, when we realize that we’re caught up in a world that is really skewed, and we realize that we are deeply loved, and those fireflies are flying around the dark room, glowing like anything—when we realize that Ignatius says, We have a cry of wonder—a cry of wonder—and it’s when there comes that renewed sense of wonder, there’s the sense that the grace has been given. Yes, that in spite of everything, we are loved unconditionally. Yes, that in [00:34:00] spite of everything, God loves us. God pursues us. God loves us relentlessly. God has never given up on us. God is never going to give up on us, and when this begins to flood our whole being, heart, mind, and body, there is a cry of wonder, and the sense of the grace has been given.
Can I wave the Methodist flag just for a moment? I just want to do it very briefly, but there is a lovely hymn which John and Charles Wesley put together, which is in Methodist language. I don’t know if John or Charles Weasley did the exercises, but just listen to this.
Long my [00:35:00] imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed Thee. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed Thee.
It’s that cry of wonder that kind of comes from the very deep spaces of our heart.
Now, what I want to do as we get this [00:36:00] overall picture of the first week, and I have a reason for doing this, I want to frame the first week as an experience of ongoing repentance. I’m offering to you a frame for the first week—a frame of ongoing repentance. The one reason I do this is because often when I give the exercises, there will be people, particularly of a Protestant background who may say to me, “Trevor, why do we do all this stuff? You know, 10 years ago, Jesus forgave me, and this is just rehashing all the old stuff. Why do it?” And I think what can be helpful is to reframe this week as an experience of ongoing repentance.[00:37:00]
So let me just say a few things when I talk about reframing the first week as an experience of ongoing repentance. You will know, and I know, that repentance represents the doorway into the life that God gives us. It’s the beginning point of our conscious Christian journey of discipleship.
Now I’m not too sure about your feelings about this word repentance. It carries a lot of baggage. I’m not sure if you went into a house and you saw on the front door a sign, REPENTANCE, I’m not sure whether you would want to go into that room. It’s [00:38:00] had for many people, and certainly for myself, very, very negative connotations.
I think my earliest image of repentance was my picture of a man. I don’t know why a man in a raincoat. I don’t know why in a raincoat, holding a sign saying, “turn, repent, for the end is nigh.” That phrase is not even in the Bible-“the end is nigh.” I want to suggest that Jesus had a very positive understanding of repentance. The Kingdom of God is at hand.
The life that God wants to give—the banquet is available, now repent. It’s a wonderful, wonderful invitation. Gerard Hughes puts it very beautifully, “Repentance is [00:39:00] not a threat. Repentance is an invitation.” It’s not a threat. It’s an invitation and you may remember that Ignatius had his own doorway moment.
Do you remember that moment from the autobiography of Ignatius? Do you remember? He has that awakening experience in Pamplona when things are going on inside of him. There’s a sense of new desires and new longings being aroused within him. He wants to go to the Holy Land, and then on that journey, he comes to Montserrat. Do you remember? At Montserrat, he meets a priest who encourages him to make confession. He writes out his sins—takes a few days to do that. Symbolically, he gives away his sword, takes on [00:40:00] the garments of a pilgrim, goes on to Manresa, and there, after a long struggle, grace erupts in his life. You have the sense of Ignatius walking through the doorway into his own life consciously with God.
Now, most probably, your retreatant has had a doorway moment of repentance, a moment where they turn to God. I was so moved by Pope Francis’ address on Easter Sunday. He had a wonderful phrase and in his address, he invited his listeners to go back to their moment of conversion, to re-imagine it, [00:41:00] to reenter it, to imagine where it took place, how it took place, and then he said—and I love this phrase—“Don’t ever let the dust settle; don’t ever let the dust settle on that moment of new beginning.”
Our doorway moment, for some people, it’s very dramatic. For some of us, the doorway moment opens very slowly over a period of time. It happens differently for different people.
I want to go on and say that repentance is not only the doorway; it is also the pathway along which we travel throughout our life with God. That repentance, and this is where the first week experience can be [00:42:00] so helpful. Repentance is not a once off experience. Once converted, fully converted is a very deceptive slogan. and the reason for this is really straightforward. God is constantly showing us gently and generously our deepening levels of attachment and so I’m turning freshly to God continuously. Does that make sense? God gently reveals at ever deeper levels, our attachments to ourselves, [00:43:00] our attachments to our own comfort, our attachments to popularity and being well thought of and respected, our attachments to pleasure, our attachments to being right, our attachments to violence, and I can go on and on, but our attachments get revealed at ever deeper levels.
Our collusion with the power structures around us that sabotage human life, and we collude with it, and go along with it, and suddenly the lights go on, and we see, like we’ve never seen before; I participate in these structures that hurt people and oppress people and exclude people. And [00:44:00] it’s an ongoing revelation. And thankfully, as God does this, those fireflies are flying around all the time. We’re not being led into desolation. We are being opened up to mercy and love at a whole new level.
The biggest learning for me during the first week of the exercises when I did them again in 1999 was to realize in a new way that sinfulness, our sinfulness, and I’m using that word now because Ignatius uses it, does not simply lie at the level of action. It does not simply lie at the level of wrongdoing.[00:45:00]
To make sin synonymous with wrongdoing is to rob it of its real, deep meaning. If sin is considered the same as wrongdoing, then Apostle Paul was sinless, because he himself said, as far as the law is concerned, I am faultless. Philippians chapter three, verse six, he ticks all the boxes. He says, I’m faultless, but the gift of the first week takes us beyond action, beyond sin defined as action. It takes us to what Michael Ivens calls the Sin, [00:46:00] capital “S”, amongst and within all the other sins, small “s”.
And this is where we need the blazing fierce light of God, in our light, in our life, during that first week. When I did the first week, I must confess, I didn’t have any big, action sins stuffed away. I thought I was a fairly, you know, good guy. But as I entered into the week and opened myself up to God’s revelation of my own heart, my own collusion in what was going on in South Africa at that time, the levels of arrogance and pride and ingratitude and indifference and apathy were [00:47:00] revealed at a whole new level and I discovered that repentance is a pathway. So, every day, in one sense, we turn again to God, but we turn a little bit more deeply, a little bit more with greater awareness of our duplicities and our deceptions and of our self-centeredness. It doesn’t depress us. It’s opening our life up to transfiguration.
I want to say repentance, you know, when we reframe this whole week, it’s the doorway, it’s the pathway, but it’s in this week, we also discover the great joy of repentance. Repentance opens us up [00:48:00] to joy. The first week can in fact be, ultimately, ultimately, when well done, a deeply joyful week. On the one hand, the joy of knowing ever more deeply the loving mercy of God. The joy of being born again, once again, and again, and again, and again. The joy of new beginnings, of fresh starts, of starting over. Anthony, the desert father, says, “Every day, I begin again.”
The other day, someone said, “Trevor, when were you born again?” And I said, “Well, I have had thousands [00:49:00] of experiences of being born again. Which one do you want me to choose?” It’s just a deeply joyful experience, but it’s also the joy of knowing God’s joy.
You know, when you read those parables in Luke chapter 15, the shepherd who looks for that sheep, who nibbles its way into lostness and then finds it and the great joy. And then that woman who finds the coin, and the great joy, and then the joy of the waiting father. When I realized that I can bring joy to God, that God is not at cosmic stair. If [00:50:00] these parables are true, I increase joy in God’s heart. That boggles my mind. But there’s something here that goes on, that as we turn at ever deeper, deeper levels, there is a profound experience of joy.
So, I’m inviting you to reframe the first week as an experience of ongoing repentance. To reframe it as primarily and hopefully an experience of deep consolation, even if it be painful consolation. To [00:51:00] reframe it as an experience that leads us more deeply into the life that God wants to give us. That leads us into a fresh experience of God’s forgiving mercy in our life.
I want to do two things as we close. I want to, first of all, just read to you my favorite image, which I often give to the retreatant that I’m leading through the exercises. It’s some words that I came across in my early twenties and I’ve needed them. I’ve needed them so often over the years and I read them constantly. It’s a beautiful image and I want to share them with you. They come from a theologian, Austin Farrar who lived and worked in the UK.[00:52:00] He writes,
God forgives me, for God takes my head between God’s hands and turns my face to His to make me smile at Him, and though I struggle and hurt those hands, for they are human, though divine, human and scarred with nails. Though I hurt those hands, they do not let me go until God [00:53:00] has smiled me into smiling and that is the forgiveness of God. Though I hurt those hands, they do not let me go until God has smiled me into smiling. And that is the forgiveness of God.
And then with much gratitude to Kathi, who gave me these images, and to Adri-Marie, who’s going to show you one of my favorite, favorite images of forgiveness. It is an image by the artist Charles Mackesy, and I’m going to just let you look at that for a few moments.[00:54:00] [00:55:00]
Thank you, Adri-Marie. Thank you, friends, just for your companionship on this journey. I hope you have a sense of the big week, and a bit of the theology of the week that I hope will be helpful as we now move in to much deeper exploration in the coming weeks. I would like on one hand, just to ask you again, as we go into groups, what’s been helpful in our input today? Just what’s been helpful and whether there were any resonances of any kind [00:56:00] with your own experience of the first week.
Wha has been helpful from the input today in terms of the big picture, and then any resonances with your own experience of the first week of the exercises? Anything that resonated or maybe didn’t resonate with you and your experience? We’ll make sure that the quote comes to you. It’s by Farrar and Nada will get that to you.
AnneMarie: We’ll email it. Great. So, we’ve got 15 minutes now to stay with those questions that Trevor has offered us. Those are in the chat, and we’ll see you back here at 15 minutes past the hour. So, thanks so much. Thanks, Trevor.
Trevor: Be lovely to get a sense of, you know, what’s kind of percolating for you as a consequence of our journey so far today in terms of the opening prayer, in terms of our big picture and, [00:58:00] in terms of just your own conversation as a group. Maybe a kind of reflection on all these ingredients and what’s happening at the moment for you. It’ll be good to be in conversation with what you’re learning, new questions, maybe that are coming up in your own awareness, resonances with your own experience, broadly speaking. Yeah, I would value interaction in any way. Anyone would like to open up the conversation[00:59:00] I’ll try to spot the hand. Hi, John!
John: Yeah, I shared in the group I really appreciated the way you presented the word picture, if you will of layers of vulnerability and then kind of feeling those back and then feeling on, if you will the deeper sense of—I love the line on the wonder that in spite of all that, God loves us even deeper but the tension between that was the tension of my sin and the joy of being deeply loved. It’s not a one and done, you know. I’m not sure it was super encouraging that we’re going to have to deal with sin our whole life, but it is a [01:00:00] reality. Knowing it kind of makes it not a surprise—no surprises. So, thank you.
Trevor: Thank you, John. Thank you for that, and I wonder if just for a little bit, we can stay a bit longer with what you’ve said, and the team must please join as well. But for me, I think the two come together when there’s a sense that something has been revealed to me rather than me going digging around, you know, looking for where am I disordered, and I need to find out where I’m disordered. I think when I’m in charge of that, I think there’s a [01:01:00] tendency for me to end up in discouragement and, you know, self-accusation, self-condemnation, but I think the element, and this was my own experience, and I’ve witnessed it again and again and again with retreatants, that when there is some element of surprise in terms of God’s revealing our hearts to us. I think the possibilities of us ending up in consolation are much, much higher. I just have a sense that God’s revelation of our disordered-ness seems to flow more easily in a consoling direction, but when I’m in charge of revealing my own heart, [01:02:00] it seems to go in a direction of desolation. That’s been my experience.
And so, when I’m with a retreatant, I often look for the element of surprise. As we come maybe to the end of the first week, I may wonder aloud with them, what have been the surprises for you? What have been the surprises in terms of your own awareness of your own life? And what have been your surprises in terms of how God relates to you? I think sometimes that word surprise—and it’s significant that Gerard Hughes names his book, God of Surprises, that I think the element of [01:03:00] surprise keeps alive the dynamic of God’s self-revelation of God’s self and God’s revelation of my own heart.
And yeah, I think I’m going around now in circles just a little bit, but thank you, John, for that ongoing interplay of deepening self-awareness and deepening experience of God’s mercy and God’s forgiveness, which may even change, John. You know, you were saying it’s quite a discouraging thing to think that I might be dealing with sin, but maybe, I can look forward to the ongoing and widening awareness of my own heart and life [01:04:00] because of my deepening confidence and trust that there’s nothing that I will ever discover that will, you know, cut me off from the grace and the mercy and the forgiveness of God. So maybe there could even be, “God, I’m really open to new discoveries and new awarenesses of who I am because of my trust in your own love and grace and mercy. So, thank you. I don’t know if the team would like to come in anymore on that or if we can move around to Melanie. Hi Melanie, good to be with you.
Melanie: Thanks so much for sharing. This topic has been so redeemed for me. I’ve been on a journey ever since I made the exercises, and I just love what you [01:05:00] shared in reframing it—reframing repentance. I would just add from my own experience in response to John, that I was surprised as I was making the exercises, I was digging around, you know, for what I thought might be my besetting sin.
What surprised me was when God revealed to me that my besetting sin is envy, and it sort of brought everything into rightness, if that makes any sense; where it was revealed where I was bent, and it was a joy to be able to name it. And then to be able to see it and be alert and to continue to turn from it and receive the freedom of who I am.
[01:06:00] So. one of the things that I think about repentance and this is a throwback to Bible studies from years past, but that repentance is my right as a Christ follower, as a human being who is bent and the other thing that came out of our small group discussion that just became really alive to me as Diana and others shared was, you know, really this first week is about recognizing how I have broken God’s dream for me by being, you know, sort of sucked in to my own ways of trying to like satisfy my needs. So, really the first week is just about “Oh, this has failed miserably. God, I want to embrace your dream for me. I love what you said. If that brings [01:07:00] God joy, well, then let me keep doing this with abundance. It’s just really a cool thing.
So just for the reframing of it, I praise God for the journey that I’ve been on with this topic being raised in and Evangelical church where repentance was associated with punishment and all that, my image of God has been also transformed, which then of course changes how I feel about myself. So, I’ve probably said enough, but thanks so much.
Trevor: Thank you for that. If I may use a word from your evangelical background, thank you for that “testimony.” There’s so many threads, Melanie, I think sensing just the energy of your own—you used the word twice—your own freedom, and if I may add the word liberation, that that first week for you [01:08:00] seemed to be a deep movement of freedom and liberation that came in being able to name and to even maybe welcome a part of your life of your own envy and bring it to the party and let it be part of the banquet, and in that knowing whatever redemption it needed.
I think the other thread that you just gave a kind of side glance to, but it’s so important that I think it’s in this week that we get hints also of our default image of God. I think that it just pops up a little bit [01:09:00] more in the first week and maybe we can be alert to it. I just thank you and maybe again, colleagues would like to or anyone like to comment on what Melanie has shared to keep that conversation alive a little bit; some of the threads there.
I think the one thought that’s still going around from what you’re saying, Melanie, which has been helpful for me, is that when I can name something, there’s a sense in which I can more [01:10:00] consciously bring it into the overall, ongoing, transforming work of God in my life. And that also, I think, keeps me from a morbid desolation, but “ah, here’s another dimension of myself that I have an awkward relationship with maybe, and I can bring it to the party” of God’s deep, deep love and acceptance and forgiveness for it to find its place in my life.
So, I guess there’s also part of me that’s wondering about the holy side of envy in your life as well, you know?
Annemarie: Trevor, I was just so struck listening to Melanie, by the [01:11:00] sense of consolation, that is in what she’s sharing, and just how that connects with what you were saying about how much this can be a deeply consoling week, even though there’s often hard moments and moments of desolation that the journey as a whole. We can just see the way you talk about it, Melanie, that it was for you, it feels as I listen, an experience of profound consolation. Thank you.
Trevor: Thank you. Any other engagement with Melanie around what she shared before we move on? Jaco, good to be with you.
Jaco: It’s my joy. Thank you for the way you handled the topic and just the insights. I love it so much.
[01:12:00] I was just struck by I think two words that I think is maybe an unintended consequence of this being week one in the process of the exercises. I think one would be that it puts the retreatant in a very humble place to realize this is the stuff I’m made of—very fragile, very apt to wander off the path. So, I think that’s the one thing that I see that might be a consequence of understanding the grace here.
And the second one would be renewed teachability to want to be able to move into week two where you really live with Rabbi Jesus who is your teacher, [01:13:00] and I think you’ll be much more prone to say, I need more of him and his teaching in my life right now. So, I was just wondering concerning that.
Trevor: Thanks, Jaco. The two threads that you’re highlighting are a kind of an awareness of our fragility, as human beings, a fallibility that all that comes with the human condition and the consoling dimension of that is the—and I’m adding a few words to what you’ve said and I hope I’m staying close to what you’ve intended—a deeper embrace of my own humanity in all its dimensions before God and in God’s presence and in colloquy with Christ on the cross, [01:14:00] which we’ll see happens.
So, there’s a movement into our humanity more deeply with all that comes with our humanity, and then on the other hand, it generating in the retreatants life a new openness and teachability within his or her relationship with God, friendship with God, with Christ, that that gets generated as they move into the second week, and as they, with that new grace of coming to know and love and follow Jesus. So, there’s almost a kind of positioning of the retreatant as they move through the first week, and here we see the dynamic at work, [01:15:00] Jaco. The dynamic again, or the genius of Ignatius, that as we go through the first week, we kind of position ourselves to enter more generously and openly into the second week. So, thank you for those two threads. Appreciate that. I think I saw a hand and I think it was Lou.
Liz: Yes, I was going to say, one of the things I like about the exercises is they encourage you to make this a lifelong pursuit. You’re never too old to have God show you your faults, even as you are dying and thinking of your legacy, holding on to that attachment, or grabbing at your children’s [01:16:00] love, or deciding about who gets what, or whatever your last wishes are, or your obituary or your funeral, that God is telling you to let go of those things.
You know that it is a lifelong journey to let go of our attachments, even the ones that our culture thinks that is appropriate when we get older. But God wants us to fly to heaven in freedom and not to be weighed down by the chains of this life. And you know, there’s no rocking chair faith. We’re always on the path, running, Howard Thurman said, “If I don’t apologize to someone every day, I am missing God’s grace.”
Trevor: Thank you, Liz. If I may, I’d [01:17:00] like to stay with you a little bit. I think that one of the things you’re saying is that somehow there are elements of the exercises that repeatedly reoccur as we go through life, and there’s a sense in which we might, even after the exercises still live in dimensions of the first week as we deal with our attachments, addictions, et cetera, and that the journey to freedom as it were is never completed totally. It’s really a journey into freedom and lightness that goes on until that moment of transition. [01:18:00] and I think we’re going to discover that with all the weeks, Liz, that there’s a sense in which we might find ourselves in them again and again and again and again; that the exercises in one sense are never completed.
I think just thank you for that wide angle view of the exercises and thank you so much for that very challenging word from Howard Thurman, who keeps on saying wonderful things that our hearts need to hear, and my heart needed to hear what you were saying about each day; perhaps the need for an apology to someone somewhere. [01:19:00] Thank you. Thank you for that.
I think it’s Thomas Keating, whom I don’t know too well, who says that when he was alive that every day he prayed for one humiliation. I thought that took a bit of courage. Anyone else want to engage with Liz before we take another step? Hi Carolyn.
Carolyn: Hi! Thank you so much for this, Trevor. I have things almost inarticulately bubbling up, but I’m going to do my best here. It’s actually piggybacking a little bit on what Liz had to say and something you said earlier—connections I’m making with image of God in the first week as you taught.
So, it’s occurred to me, I think when I listen to [01:20:00] people, I’m listening for image of God. Often, I’m trying to listen for poor teaching that’s, you know, nurtured a poor image of God or ancient wounds in the family and so on. And in just a little bit of what you said, I wonder the connection between a default image of God and those very disordered attachments as a part of that idol making tendency in our own hearts to protect ourselves and we want to hang on to that default image because it’s important to us for survival.
And so, in the Lord freeing us, there’s spiritual work to be done, not only psychological or dogmatic teaching us has to be corrected, like my own heart is implicated in that default image. I just wonder and that ongoing need for repentance in allowing God to disclose himself for who he really is.
Trevor: Right. Right. Yeah. Right. [01:21:00] Carolyn, I’m going to do my best to that somehow that as we maybe recognize some dimensions of our own disordered tendencies or attachments, they also bring us into touch perhaps with our own default images of God held over the years, and maybe we held on to some of those default images because they had some kind of protective role in our life or some kind of facilitating role in our life of those attachments; that somehow there’s a relationship that, [01:22:00] goes on between the two, and that there can be some—and I might be taking you one step further here than you would be prepared to go—that sometimes I might have images of God that I keep going to because they keep me from going into a more vulnerable space.
And so, I’m using my image of God almost as an idol to protect me from becoming more vulnerable. I’m just not wanting to go into that vulnerable space, and I use my image of God a little bit as a bulwark to that.
And that somehow the first week, “Well [01:23:00] done, well done,” could open me up to an image of God—and images of God are always provisional—that really does free me for greater vulnerability. If the week is well done, I find myself in a space of being able to trust God’s love and mercy at a deeper level with deeper vulnerabilities of my life.
Would you like to come back on what I’ve said and where I’ve maybe missed you, or where maybe I have been able to reflect you faithfully?
Carolyn: No, that’s so helpful. It brought tears. So, [01:24:00] I think we’re good.
Trevor: Okay, sure. Sure. Okay. I think, and I’m just being on the spot here, but I think that essentially, we are very vulnerable beings, and I think I’m constantly protecting myself, you know, defending myself. I have a quite a defended heart and I think moving into a space of just lowering the defenses and loosening the attachments. I’ll never get rid of them, but just loosening them. I think all that happens in the flow of just [01:25:00] that river of God’s great love, forgiveness, mercy ever flowing into my life. And slowly the defenses drop and slowly the attachments lessen and slowly the freedom grows. And I think it changes everything.
Adri-Marie: Trevor, if I can add. Carolyn, that connection with the image of God made me now think almost of this picture. It’s a picture of how God every time wants to expand and get me out of the box, and I was thinking about this beloved sinner, and I thought week one is in the beginning, almost like yes, God is loving and I’m experiencing this love.
And then you almost turn the corner and almost [01:26:00] like, okay, but, but how about if I show you this God? Do you; will you still love me? And how about then if I can be honest about this, is the love still true? And if I can be honest about this and lift this rock, can it still be true?
So, I love that you connected that image and then how that is ever expanding. It’s almost like, can it be that if I really am showing up as the whole of who I am, can it be such good news that I can be free? It even graduates us into like a deeper, deeper and deeper—that’s what I mean by graduating—even deeper desire and getting in touch with even a deeper desire for freedom and so I want God to show me and [01:27:00] I do want to protect myself, but can it be this good news? Can I really be free? So, I love that connection and even for me, made in my mind now.
Trevor: Thank you. Thank you, Adri-Marie. Anyone else like to engage in conversation around something that has really touched Carolyn very deeply and thank you Carolyn for sharing both the words and the tears. Nada?
Nada: Thank you for sharing tonight, Trevor. I feel quite [01:28:00] free after listening to what you’ve shared specifically around the reframing of repentance. I recognized tonight how there was no connection that linked up God’s love with the concept of repentance. So, it was kept in separate boxes, although I would engage with it as if I thought I’m engaging with it in a connected manner.
Also, because I tend to see everything in a positive light, I would rush through repentance or kind of, you know, that expression, sweep it under the rug, but I realize I’m doing it so I’m trying to force myself to go through the process slowly. And in that way, I’m just making it [01:29:00] an even worse process for me, like what you said, that’s the movement to desolation and I’m like really down in the dumps and I’m like admitting to everything that every human being has ever done kind of thing, just to get rid of that feeling and tonight with that speech, the penny dropped for me when you used the gospels and you said this little sheep nibbles his way into lostness because I find myself in that space of lostness and I don’t know how I got there. So, I must have been doing some nibbling and that poem or that quote you used at the end of the day, where God is holding the face gently and gently turns the face towards him, even though I’ll be fighting it.
So suddenly this whole God’s love for me and repentance, the invitation [01:30:00] behind repentance has now been interwoven and I’m rid of this sense of guilt or this heaviness, this burden that I was carrying around because I knew that he loves me. But I still had this burden that I was carrying along. So, thank you so much. The penny just dropped for me tonight.
Trevor: Oh no. I think just to witness a little bit of God, you know, kind of the Holy Spirit’s doing something that goes far beyond human words in your life in this moment. I just have a sense that each of us have had front row seats to a little deep, deep work of the Spirit, the liberating work of the Spirit and you’ve [01:31:00] allowed us to have that glimpse. I think as you’ve shared your noticing of the one movement: it’s just one movement. This growing in awareness, one movement of who God is for us and who we are to God and as that movement deepens, the freedom and the liberation, I think grows and deepens all the time. And you’ve given us a front row seat witness to that, and just a big, big, thanks—huge gift to us. And praise to God. Thank you.
Well, friends, we might have time for [01:32:00] one more raised hand if there is one more raised hand and it would be a joy to engage. Maria.
Maria: I feel really confounded by the teaching today. It really awakened to me so many things, but what I found is that when I realized I’ve sinned, often I’m putting myself in the doghouse and staying there for a bit. Then I thought about Adri-Marie’s sharing today in that usually dog houses don’t have any light. Usually, there’s no light in dog houses so really, it’s withdrawing myself from Christ whose inviting me into the light and there’s no need for me to be in the doghouse, but [01:33:00] also that I put others in the doghouse when I’ve felt disappointment or hurt that they have to sort of serve a certain amount of time in there too. So, the gospel is very confounding. It’s so much richer and more beautiful, so I really thank you. Thank you so much.
Marie: I think there are just two little bits of your heart that you’ve shared that I’d love just to stay with for a moment. Your very first word in your first sentence that you awakened, that there’s been a sense of just a real awakening for yourself in your own heart. And I think that’s also something the spirit does so deeply in us and [01:34:00] I have a sense that the spirit has been awakening something in you very deeply today. I invite, perhaps if I may, you to stay with that a little bit, if I may. and I think that image of the doghouse is so powerful of putting yourself in the doghouse and putting others in the doghouse and how that ties in with the devotion that we had at the beginning.
And so, I have the picture of the fireflies flying into the doghouse and that Christ is the God of the doghouse and, [01:35:00] kind of hangs out there as well with us in those moments.
Maria: Thank you. Thank you.
Trevor: Well, friends, I think you have been very generous in your sharing, and I think it’s been a huge, huge gift to us as a community tonight and thank you to those who’ve listened so deeply and attentively and generously and those who’ve shared so generously and deeply. Thank you. Thank you for tonight as a group. I hand over to Brenda.
Brenda: So, as we come to the end of our evening, [01:36:00] it’s just a moment to, as Adri-Marie invited us at the beginning, to take a deep breath and to hold the gratitude for some aspect of where God has been close this evening. For some there have been quite profound movements, For others we’ve got to listen to the sharing of people who have risked being vulnerable,
I invite you to hold your gratitude to God, to offer your thanks,[01:37:00] and perhaps to listen deeply for what God’s invitation may be as you are conscious of these movements.
We allow God to touch our face, to hold us with hands that are wounded, and we risk looking into the smile [01:38:00] that God smiles for us.
We offer to you, beloved, our gratitude, our vulnerability, our longing, and our desire to share with those we will accompany these gifts we have ourselves received.
Amen.
Annemarie: Amen. See you all next [01:39:00] week.