IGNATIAN SPIRITUAL EXERCISES TRAINING (ISET)
2023-BLOCK ONE – SESSION 11
THE PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION: THE BIG PICTURE
Annemarie: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone. It’s great to be with you again. I hope you had a good break last week and some time to catch up on your assignment writing and a bit of reading. We’re going to be listening to Trevor today talk about the Principle and Foundation. But before we get on to that, I’m going to invite Anne to lead us in the time of prayer. Thank you, Anne.
Anne: Pleasure. Hello, everyone. It’s good to be with you [00:01:00] again. As usual, we invite you to switch off your screen if you’d like to while we enter into prayer.
And so, I invite you just to become still; whatever you’ve been doing up till now, maybe just notice that, and then gently put it aside.
And then notice your breathing, but don’t change the rhythm. Just notice your breathing. If your shoulders seem tense, take a deep breath, and on the out breath, just drop your shoulders.[00:02:00] Drop them until they feel soft and relaxed and then let your mind wander into the presence.
How do you feel the presence of God with you now? Is it perhaps warm hands on your shoulders? Maybe it’s a sense of someone leaning against you, gently warming you as their shoulder and arm leans up against yours?
it may be a warm breeze or a cool breeze touching your [00:03:00] skin. Maybe it’s a pair of loving eyes gazing upon you. However you feel the presence of God, just rest there for a minute or so.
I’m [00:04:00] going to read something to you. I’ll read it twice. Notice what announces itself to you as I read, and then hold on to that word or phrase and let it speak to you. How does it touch you or disturb you? And then there may be a longing in you to just share that with God.
I’m reading to you, the Principle and Foundation by Birgann and Chuan.
Lord my God, when your love spilled over into creation You thought of me.
I am from love, of love, for love.
Let my heart, O God, always recognize, cherish, and enjoy Your goodness in all of creation.
Direct all that is me toward Your praise. Teach me reverence for every person, all things. Energize me in your service.
Lord God may nothing ever distract me from your love…neither health nor sickness, wealth nor poverty, honor nor dishonor, long life nor short life.
May I never seek nor choose to be other than You intend or wish. Amen. [00:06:00]
Lord my God, when your love spilled over into creation You thought of me.
I am from love, of love, for love.
Let my heart, O God, always recognize, cherish, and enjoy Your goodness in all of creation.
Direct all that is me toward Your praise. Teach me reverence for every person, all things. Energize me in your service.
Lord God may nothing ever distract me from your love…neither health nor sickness, wealth nor poverty, honor nor dishonor, long life nor short life.
May I never seek nor choose to be other than You intend or wish. Amen.
Just spend some time with the words that have announced themselves to you.[00:08:00] [00:09:00]
Lord my God, when your love spilled over into creation You thought of me.
I am from love, of love, for love.
Let my heart, O God, [00:10:00] always recognize, cherish, and enjoy Your goodness in all of creation.
Direct all that is me toward Your praise. Teach me reverence for every person, all things. Energize me in your service.
Lord God may nothing ever distract me from your love…neither health nor sickness, wealth nor poverty, honor nor dishonor, long life nor short life.
May I never seek nor choose to be other than You intend or wish.
When you are ready, [00:11:00] just gently bring yourself back into the room and we’ll know that you’re back if you turn your video camera on. Amen.
Annemarie: Amen. Thank you, Anne. So, we’ll hand over to Trevor. Thanks, Trevor.
Trevor: Just to say hello to everyone. Whatever the time is in your place of the world it’s good to be with you. Just to give a heads up right at the outset of this lecture, that really there are going to be two parts to the lecture. I’ll do one part. Anne Marie will be doing the other part next week.
I’ll be focusing more upon the content of the Principle and Foundation, and then Annemarie will be focusing on how we [00:12:00] give. The Principle and Foundation within the context of the exercises. That may be helpful for me right at the outset to just remind you of where the Principle and Foundation, as it were, is situated within the actual spiritual exercise manual, as it were, so that you become familiar with what is in that book and where things are.
As you open the spiritual exercises you may remember this now, I hope, we have the 20 annotations, and those are those guidelines which are given on the one hand to the person giving the exercises, and some of those annotations given for the sake of the person receiving and doing the exercises.
And then we move from that, you may remember, to Ignatius’s, as it were, statement of purpose with regard to the exercises. You may remember when we looked at the purpose of the exercises [00:13:00] that a very key thread of the purpose of the exercises is that word freedom. The exercises are designed for you and I to come to a greater freedom in our life with God and with others.
Then you may remember from the statement of purpose, Ignatius has the predisposition and that encouragement for us who are giving the exercises, always to place a, as it were, positive interpretation, upon what is being shared with us. And that’s sometimes not only a helpful guideline for the exercises, but it can also be a helpful guideline for everyday conversations as well. And then, we come to the Principle and Foundation.
So, what I want to do is introduce it with a number of points, and then move to the content, and I hope I can be over as it were, on the hour. I think the first thing that I [00:14:00] want to say, and you, I hope, have the outline before you, so you can see the skeleton of my presentation, is that the Princeton Foundation announces the biggest story in which Ignatius believes we human beings, as it were find ourselves.
I know that part of the kind of postmodern critique is that there are no more meta narratives. In fact, when you just say that is quite a big meta narrative itself, that there’s no more meta narratives. But I think almost within the human heart, there is this need to be part of a bigger story, and I think this need gets expressed in so many different ways.
Usually after supper in our home, Debbie—Debbie’s the one I’m married to Debbie. Debbie will go off and she’ll watch these TV series, and I think she’s developed an inordinate attachment [00:15:00] to TV series. But it’s almost as if, They are the bigger story in which she lives. It’s almost like she has this need for a big story. And the story on TV is really quite exciting.
If she were to give you this presentation, she would say, I have an inordinate attachment to my soccer team. I just love my soccer team. I’ve even got socks that have the colors of my soccer team. They are part of the bigger story that I’m a fan. I’m fanatical, and it is a great sign of my spiritual immaturity, just how much I really support my team.
I think of just our interests in the lives of celebrities. It’s almost as if our little story of our little life is so small, and it’s much, much better to know what’s going on in whoever your favorite actress or actor is, [00:16:00] and in their life. So, we’ve got this need for a bigger story, Ignatius, here in the Principle and Foundation of as it were, offers up his faith vision, and invites us to engage with it.
Secondly, the Principle and Foundation—I want to suggest it represents a critical ingredient in our preparation to do the spiritual exercises themselves.
Now, we’ve spoken a whole lot about this—the need for disposition days, the resources that people have made available. We thank Kathi for those incredible resources from Renate, from Sembinos; resources that we can use to help people in this preparation time. You may remember that one of the—and I think if I can take you right back to Russell’s lecture—[00:17:00] that one of the key themes of the dispositional days is for us to have an effective experience of God’s personal love for ourselves.
Now, the Principle and Foundation itself is part of that preparation. I think it’s Michael Ivens who suggests that the Principle and Foundation serves as one of the bookends of the spiritual exercises, that the spiritual exercises themselves are situated between two bookends. On the one hand, you have the Principle and Foundation, and then on the other hand, you have right at the end the contemplation on the love of God. And these are the two bookends in which the spiritual exercises find themselves.
So, I want to suggest that we see the Principle and Foundation as a critical part of [00:18:00] that process. I know that Annemarie is gonna be spending time on how we give it, but I think this invites, and if I could just say this now, it almost invites a very as it were, unhurried and leisurely engagement with it.
Thirdly, as I hasten on, engaging the Principal and Foundation employs—use two words here—employs the methods of consideration and conversation. The Principle and Foundation itself, when you look at it in the book, it’s not a meditation. It’s not a contemplation. I’ve got Fleming open before me. There’s no mention of a [00:19:00] grace, of a colloquy, of prayer, and so the word we use for the Principle and Foundation is that it is something that Ignatius invites us to consider. And by that, meaning it is something that we think through with the Lord. It’s a kind of thinking through; a reflective process of wandering about with the Lord.
And it is a consideration that leads into a very natural conversation between the person giving the exercises and the person doing the exercises. I think there is a thing in which the Principle and Foundation itself, [00:20:00] it’s almost intended to lead us towards some good conversation together.
I think it’s Fleming who sees our engagement with the Principle and Foundation leading us, and I’m going to use his language, leading us to some common agreements between the giver of the exercises and the doer of the exercises around this bigger story in which we find ourselves and I think that’s one good reason why we do it in an unhurried way. We are coming to some common agreement about this bigger story in which you and I find ourselves.
The fourth introductory point that I want to make is that the [00:21:00] Principle and Foundation—I want to suggest engages both our mind and I want to also add quite strongly our heart. When you look at the Principle and Foundation, it can look quite like a wooden statement. It doesn’t have strong feeling words built into it. Fleming certainly as it were, softens something of the literal version of the Principle and Foundation (PNF), but the literal version of the PNF is certainly quite stark, and I’m sure that when we explore how to give it next week, we’ll be looking at different versions of the PNF and how it can be given.
So, the danger is—and this is why I’m talking about this—the danger is that at this point it can be a [00:22:00] temptation for us to enter into some kind of intellectual, theological discussion about the PNF that is somehow disconnected from our affective experience.
I want to suggest, and I’m sure this is going to be underlined very strongly, that somehow, we also need to have an affective, an experience of the heart, experience of the Principle and Foundation. The Principle and Foundation, this kind of bigger story, hopefully, as we engage it with our mind and our heart will generate longing and desire.
[00:23:00] As I say, it’s just one of those bookends. It’s the launching pad and so, it can serve as a wonderful launch pad for real desire and longing now to really get engaged with the spiritual exercises. And also, do you remember Annotation Five—the importance to have those dispositions of generosity and openness and courage.
Well, the PNF, if we have an experience of it that goes beyond just purely intellectual, rational, it can have the effect, and this is part of the purpose of all the dispositional days of generating a great deal of longing and desire. I really want to get involved now with this— with the exercises. I’ve often noticed that happening quite naturally with [00:24:00] people when they take their time with the Principle and Foundation and when they make it their own.
Fifthly, again, by way of introduction, the Principle and Foundation offers us a map for the journey. I get this phrase, map for the journey from Gerard Hughes. He’s a Jesuit, God of Surprises. You will know that book is kind of structured around the exercises themselves. But he suggests, Gerard Hughes, that we have in the Principle and Foundation, as it were, a small-scale map—a small scale map for the journey that we’re going to be embarking upon.
Now, we know the map is never the territory. It’s one thing to have a map. It’s another thing to actually inhabit the spaces that the map [00:25:00] points us towards. But here we have Gerard suggest a direction for the journey that we are going to embark upon. And he suggests, and I find this quite helpful, that the basic direction of our whole journey is found in the very first sentence of the Principle and Foundation.
That line really is basic to our whole journey, and we will discover that when we look at all the exercises of the first, second, third, and fourth week, because in every exercise we do, we always have a preparatory prayer, and the preparatory prayer is a request that our whole being be directed towards the praise and the [00:26:00] reverence and the service of God. That preparatory prayer, “Lord, will you direct my whole being to your praise and glory.” Now, where does that come from? It comes from the very first line of the Principle and Foundation. And so, there’s a sense in which the Principle and Foundation companions us throughout the whole exercises through that preparatory prayer that is part of every exercise that we’re going to do.
And the last thing I want to say by way of introduction is that the Principle and Foundation expresses—I want to choose my words carefully here—God’s creative and personal love for each one of us and your immediate [00:27:00] response to that may be, where did you get that from? The word love, I don’t think, is mentioned in the literal version of the text itself. Fleming softens it by introducing the word love into the Principle and Foundation.
I just want to give a heads up to the article that I have suggested at the bottom of my handout, and if there’s anything that you read about the Principle and Foundation, can I warmly encourage you to read Tetlow’s article? It’s not easy reading. It really isn’t, and I have found it really helpful to go over it a few times.
And each time I go over it, it seems to yield more treasures as I look at the carefully constructed [00:28:00] sentences of that article. One of the things that he says, and I’m just giving you here a little bit; I’m whetting your appetite. He suggests that the Principle and Foundation both—and here are two big words—both expressive and conceivable; it expresses, and it conceals a foundational experience that is crucial to our doing the spiritual exercises. And this foundational experience, and you will know it by now, is a deeply felt experience that each one of us has been lovingly created by God who loves us personally, creates us personally, cherishes us personally, and who is constantly creating us every moment of our lives.[00:29:00] Tetlow, in that article supports what I’ve just said. I’ve almost given you a kind of brief summary of his understanding of the central point of the Principle and Foundation.
Sheldrake, and I find him helpful too, he asserts very strongly that the most basic image of God necessary to the process of the spiritual exercises is that we come to know God as our loving creator, that that image of God as our loving creator is foundational to our experience throughout the exercises and the Principle and [00:30:00] Foundation is designed—and hopefully we will see this before this lecture is over—the Principle and Foundation is designed to lead us into a deeply felt experience of God being our loving creator. That’s why Anne’s meditation that she shared with us gave us that lovely version of the PNF as part of our prayer time earlier today.
Let’s look at some of the key themes, and you can almost say theological themes of the Principle and Foundation. Remember, this is Ignatius’ faith vision. This is his biggest story, that he believes human beings live within. He’s offering us a bigger [00:31:00] story for our lives. I’ll often say we choose the story by which we live by, and then that story defines the rest of our life.
And that’s why the bigger story in which we live is so, so important.
So, let’s just look at the very first sentence or paragraph. In the literal version “humankind is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save their soul.” And then Flemings, and here you notice he inserts the word love. “God who loves us, creates us, and wants to share life with us forever. And our love response takes shape in our praise and honor and service of the God of our life.” I want to suggest that for Ignatius, this is God’s original purpose. This is kind of God’s original human project in human history—that [00:32:00] we have been desired into existence, that we have been lovingly created by God because God wants to share God’s life with us that we have been, as it were, made by love in love to love.
Michael Ivens calls this the foundation of the Principle and Foundation. That each of us—now, this is me speaking, so I take full responsibility that our lives are not random, we’re not accidents, we’re not coincidences, that each one of us has been designed into existence, that our very existence is an expression of God’s creative love. When I look in the mirror at myself, [00:33:00] this is God’s creative love. The key word in this first sentence is creative. Remember, Sheldrake, the basic image for our own journey, God, our loving creator.
I’m taking you back to Tetlow, and this is just a game changer. Tetlow, In his article on the Principle and Foundation, he almost argues that Ignatius uses the word created, and he argues for this in a very careful way, that Ignatius uses the word created in terms of God’s ongoing, continuing creation, and not only in the past tense.
Can I say that again that [00:34:00] the word created, used in that first paragraph, Tetlow asserts, is not only being used in the past tense. It is used in the sense of God’s ongoing creation of our lives. Yes, on the one hand, if we want to speak biblically, God knitted us together as it were in our mother’s womb—Psalm 139. God was intimately, creatively involved in our original creation, but Tetlow would argue that the good news is that God has not put those knitting needles down. God has not stopped knitting. God didn’t knit me together 72 years ago, or whenever it was, and now has stopped knitting. That [00:35:00] ongoing creative activity of God in my life continues, not in a generic way, not in a generalized sense, but in the particularities and specifics of my everyday existence.
You think of Paul—1 Corinthians 8:6—That we are in the present. Our existence is held in the presence of Christ. You think of the words of Jesus in John 5: 17—My Father is still working, and also, I am working. That God is still creating, still loving. It’s not only in the past. That just as our universe expands in the present moment through God’s creative activity, that same creative activity is at work in your life [00:36:00] and my life, and our response to that is praise and reverence and service.
Gerard Hughes says, and I love this, he says when Ignatius is speaking here of praising and reverencing and servicing, this isn’t just with words, this is with our whole life. It’s like if I come to your house for a meal and you prepare a meal, and throughout the meal I keep saying to you, I praise you for this meal and I reverence you, but I don’t eat the meal, my words are going to be empty. But if you give me a meal and you watch me eat it and I ask for seconds, you will feel praised by my life my living into the reality of that meal. And that’s the sense that Gerard Hughes puts to this first [00:37:00] sentence of the Principle and Foundation.
Secondly, and this for me was just such a gift, I will always say thank you to Ignatius for this, and I’m saying thank you to him again tonight, and I hope he hears me, that everything is given to us for the sake of God’s original project and purpose. And let me just take you to the actual literal translation “and the other things on the face of the earth are created for humankind and that they may help humankind in prosecuting the end for which he or she is created.”
And then Fleming’s translation, “all the things in this world are also created because of God’s love, and they become a context of gifts presented to us so that we can come to know God more easily and make a return of love more [00:38:00] readily.” Will you notice there’s no split spirituality there.
Everything is given to us. Everything means everything. Everything. We live in a context of gifts. We live in a context of giving. Everything is given. My energy, my capacity to decide and make decisions, my emotions, my feelings, my sexuality, my body, other people, creation, technology, the whole works—everything is given for the sake of my relationship with God, and for the deepening of that relationship.
And then that discerning challenge that we need to always be discerning around what helps us and what [00:39:00] hinders us—what helps us and what hinders us. But I just want you to get a sense of the whole life spirituality of Ignatius, and that’s obviously where that phrase, finding God in all things. You know, it comes from this kind of theology.
Notice thirdly, the invitation to become indifferent and to grow in interior freedom. I invite you to have a good look at the third paragraph as well as the early parts of the fourth paragraph in the literal version, and I’m also assuming—I’m not reading it only because for the sake of time—that you will look in the contemporary reading of Fleming as well look at the third paragraph as well at the fourth paragraph. [00:40:00] There’s a very important word here, and it’s a very important word in Ignatian spirituality. It’s going to crop up again and again when we look at discernment, and it’s the word indifference.
By now I hope we have a sense that when Ignatius uses this word indifferent, when he talks about how necessary it is for us to make ourselves indifferent, he’s not speaking about us becoming apathetic or not caring about things at all.
The best interpretation I put on the word indifference is the word freedom; that indifference and freedom are two sides of the same coin. Here we come back to the purpose of the spiritual exercises. We do the exercises so that we may grow in freedom.[00:41:00]
So again, can I just give you a wide-angle view? God has given us everything, everything for the sake of the deepening of our relationship with the Trinity. The problem, however, the human problem, is I become attached to some of those things that God gives me, and they become idols, and I end up buying socks with the colors of my football team. I am attached inordinately. So, what was meant to deepen my life with God, suddenly has become an attachment and an idol, and the exercises have their place in the loosening of those attachments which sabotage our life, our relationships.[00:42:00] and our country as well. So, we are always seeking that freedom, that greater freedom, which will free us to be available for God, to do what God wants us to do.
Notice, and this is my last kind of “theological theme” that I want to pay attention to. Notice fourthly, how the Principle and Foundation affirms the theme of our unique vocation and response to God’s personal and creative love. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but I want to take you to the last sentence of the Principal and Foundation, which is a very important sentence.
I read [00:43:00] parts of that last sentence from the literal version where we are asked to make ourselves indifferent and so “in all the rest, desiring and choosing only what is most conducive to us, for us, to the end for which we are created.” In the contemporary translation, “our only desire and one choice should be this, I want, and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me.”
Can I just quickly ask you to notice three important words in that last sentence? Notice the word desire. The Principle and Foundation is meant to lead us to a [00:44:00] place of greater desiring, of greater longing. And that’s why, if I can just take you back a bit, we engage the Principle and Foundation, not only with our mind, but also with our heart.
I’m sure we will do a lot of this work next week of how we help people into an affective experience of the Principle and Foundation so that desire and longing rise within us. The Principle and Foundation is designed to arouse desire and longing, and if we only talk intellectually about it, it is highly unlikely that it’s going to lead us to deepened desire and deepened longing.
But there is a way of doing the Principle and Foundation, and I’ve seen this repeatedly, that can take a person into the place where [00:45:00] they are 150 percent ready to embark on the spiritual exercise journey. It really can have that effect in a person’s life. So, notice the word desire.
Notice, secondly, a very important word, the word conducive—that we will begin to desire that which is most conducive for the deepening of our relationship with God. That we will begin to want in our lives that which most facilitates our participation in the life of God.[00:46:00]
I want to suggest that ultimately this becomes also one of the basic guidelines for discernment. When we face a myriad of choices, often, one of the most helpful things, and this is what the Principle and Foundation did for me. I just asked myself, I wonder what’s most conducive for me in terms of the options that I’m facing at the moment.
What is most conducive to the deepening of my relationship with God? What is the most conducive to faithfulness, to greater faithfulness? And greater obedience to Christ? What’s going to be most conducive?
Can I tell you a story? And it’s a true story. About 15 years ago—I don’t know, this is a guess, it’s in that region—a businessperson asked me to take them through the exercises, and I really was hesitant at first as to whether I had the [00:47:00] capacity or whether this person had the desire. I wasn’t too sure why this person wanted to do it, but we chatted and chatted and chatted and eventually I decided, let’s do it. And I will never forget this person’s passionate engagement with the exercise journey. I’ll never forget it. Anyway, I did the exercises. We came to the end of the exercises, and I kind of moved on with life.
A few years after the exercises, this person who owned property in Benoni put up his property for sale and he was offered for his property, and this is a lot of money for South Africans, he was offered eight million rand. Now, that is a lot of money. As he was about to sign off as it were, Ignatius came [00:48:00] knocking on the door of his life, and the question was, is it more conducive for me to sell this property or to give it away? And he made what seemed to be really, in many ways, a reckless decision, but an extremely generous way of giving that property away. He gave it to the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. If you go there now, there’s a retreat center and a conference center. There is a sanctuary with two or three hundred people who worship there. It’s just quite something.
So, what I’m saying is when you do those exercises, it gets quite dangerous, you know? When [00:49:00] I start asking the question, what is most conducive for faithfulness, for obedience, for generosity, in terms of my response to God’s love and creative love?
And then the last word that, and it’s found in the literal translation, is the word more. More. So, the word desire, the word conducive, and the word more, the magis—the more. Again, a very important Ignatian phrase, that I will desire what is more conducive, most conducive for us, for the end for which we have been created. And so, then we’re introduced again to the theme of the magis. I’m never too sure how to pronounce it [00:50:00] in true Ignatian needs, but I will learn afterwards from my colleagues.
Now, again, we need to be careful that when we think of the magis, when we think of the more, we do not think of the more in terms of more productivity or more achievement or more success. I encourage you, if you’ve got Ashen Brenner’s Stretched for Greater Glory, he really is brilliant on this. In his description of what is more conducive for us, that what is more conducive; and he offers us this imagination for this phrase, is what is more suitable in terms of our own unique, specific vocation [00:51:00] that God has in mind for us. What is more conducive in a unique way for my unfolding vocation in this world? Remember, God is always creatively engaged, so vocation is never a once and for all thing. Vocation is unfolding all the time.
At the age of 72, I’m wondering what vocation looks like, and it’s a day-by-day discerning. What is more conducive for me at the moment in terms of my faithfulness and my obedience to Christ, and there’s this ongoing discerning of what is more conducive. How can I bring into alignment my personal vocation and the [00:52:00] uniqueness of my being? And I say that again, how can I bring together a little bit more my vocation and the uniqueness of my being? Parker Palmer would say, how can I integrate more deeply my soul and my role? What is more conducive to the unfolding of my vocation with God and in God.
Now I hope that’s been helpful. I know it’s a lot of info and, but I’m just hoping that somehow the Principle and Foundation is just beginning to live a little bit for us. It really is rich. It really is rich and the theological themes of this bigger story [00:53:00] are profound and they are robust, and it’s really worth careful consideration and conversation.
I want to say in closing, and I’m hoping here to build a bridge for Annemarie, that in the end, I need to come to my own affective experience of the Principle and Foundation. How have I experienced God’s personal and creative love in my own life? How am I experiencing God’s invitation into interior freedom at this stage of my life, a greater indifference? What kind of choices do I need to make that are more conducive in terms of bringing soul and role together for myself. And the lights have just gone [00:54:00] out again, where I am, but I’m hoping that you’re still hearing me as I say, Amen.
Annemarie: Amen. Thank you so much for that, Trevor. It’s really helpful. Thank you. So, we’re going to have some time now as we always do to reflect a little bit ourselves, and then to move into the rooms for sharing. Anne has just put the questions that we want you to look at in the chat box there, so you can see them there. Things to ponder.
What has become clearer to you in the Principle and Foundation as you’ve listened to Trevor?
What is still unclear to you?
What do you struggle with? What stands out for you?
So those are some of the questions. We’re not going to go into the kind of experiential side of how to give it because that will be next time, but to maybe stay with some of these questions around the themes and the content that we put up here for you in the chat.
So, we look forward to seeing [00:55:00] you at quarter past the hour. And we hope you can have a good break and time to just ponder that a little bit. So, thank you.
[Break]
Annemarie: Welcome back, everyone. Wonderful. Trevor.
Trevor: Welcome back. If I may add my welcome, and it’s an opportunity for us to have a conversation together, and the conversation can revolve around many things. It can revolve around those rights that have gone on for you around the Principle and Foundation and sometimes just giving voice to that. It can be helpful for us as a group.
That’s one way we could also maybe speak a little bit about things that are not clear. We could speak about [00:56:00] just insights that you have, that I have failed to mention. So, it’s really an open conversation, but we won’t move across to the giving of the Principle and Foundation and the doing of it, and we’ll try to save that for next week.
So, I’m ready to go with anyone who would like to enter into conversation. Looking around the screen and “Hi.”
Vivianne: Hey Trevor. In our group, it was really interesting. A lot of people were noticing that as much as you said, it’s a bookend, people were also mentioning that they felt that it’s still something happening in them and like just a movement that they haven’t really finished with, or that seems to still be doing lots and is activated.
So, I appreciated you talking about it as a bookend, but also, I think I also appreciated you talking about how it was kind of the theme and I think you said, the meta- narrative of all of [00:57:00] life. So, just to notice that it ought to, if it is what it is, continue to keep doing in us and working in us. Is that right? You wanna speak to that?
Trevor: Thank you. I think what you’re helping us to see, Viv is that maybe the image of a bookend. The downside of that is it can become quite static, and once I’ve done it, then the Principle and Foundation is in the past and I move on to the rest of the exercises. So maybe, and I really do hear that, that that is the downside of the bookend image.
As you say, the Principle and Foundation is a dynamic thing and it goes on throughout the exercises expressed in that colloquy prayer and when we come to the contemplation on the love of God, we will notice again the kind of interconnection [00:58:00] between the Principle and Foundation and the contemplation on the love of God, It just keeps living –the Principle and Foundation and let me even add a little bit more to that, that it keeps living beyond the exercises.
Just the other day, I was from Cape Town. That’s down in the Cape Point side of South Africa, Southern Africa. I gave the exercises to someone many years ago, and they were facing a decision now at the moment, and this person had kept his own laminated version of a personalized Principle and Foundation and was 15 years down the line was using it, even as he continued to explore his own sense of calling.
So, there is a sense in which the [00:59:00] Principle and Foundation—yes, is to some degree, bookends as we move into the exercises, but it’s certainly dynamic and not static at all. Thank you just for giving me an opportunity to really emphasize that.
Vivianne: Yeah, and especially because the other end is the contemplation on divine love which certainly doesn’t ever end.
Trevor: Right. Right.
Vivianne: So, there are really nebulous sort of things. I feel more like an accordion that is like expanding and just stretching us out into eternity. But I think because we’re finite beings, we need a little bit of concreteness to know where we’re starting and where we’re headed towards. So, I appreciate it. Yeah.
Trevor: Have you got copyrights on the accordion image?
Vivianne: Run with it. Run with it.
Trevor: Thank you. That really is lovely. Special. Thank you. I Again, I just also want to keep the colleagues who would like to maybe come back to this particular point.[01:00:00] If not, I see a hand and it’s Heather.
Heather: Hi, Trevor. Thank you. It’s funny now. My book end was a house. So, the Principle and Foundation were a building, and I thought every building needs a strong foundation and that’s what this was. It was a strong foundation. And then I started to think about the Principles as being the walls and how often we renovate our homes. So that it is moving as well, but it’s a solid building. I just found that it helped me to draw it all together, how it sort of stayed together.
Yeah, so the strong foundations with the heart’s best interest, the home, and how that also changes as well. Sometimes you need to take a window out because you’ve [01:01:00] moved on, but now you need a door. You need to make the house bigger kind of thing, so it was changing. It brought it all together for me. The bookend became a home, a building. I don’t know if I am explaining it right but that’s what I’m meaning, It solidified it with strong foundations as a building. Yeah.
Trevor: Heather, thanks for that. Yeah, I’m just going to go offline and ask Annemarie to just hold this for a moment because of a battery problem here and I’ll be back, I’ll be back within a minute.
Heather: Okay.
Annemarie: Thanks so much for that, Heather. And tell us how that came to be. Was it as you were going through the exercises or as you were praying that particular part? How did that metaphor, that image evolve for you?
Heather: Actually, I think it was just sitting [01:02:00] here thinking about how the exercises were for me made me realize and gave me the image as I sat here this evening. I can’t remember exactly. I don’t think it came from when I did the exercises, but it sort of just brought it together as I answered the question. And as I thought about it this evening, I thought, wait, so that’s how it came for me today. Yeah.
Annemarie: Thank you for that. Thanks for sharing that, Heather.
Heather: Each home is built on principles—in our homes and in our families, these principles, and I suppose that’s where it all came from, yeah.
Annemarie: Thank you for that. It’s really interesting how there are these different ways of understanding and experiencing the PNF. You can get the kind of sense of the flow of it, but you also have the sense of a much more solid image in the one that you’ve given us, in that image of a house, a home. And how it’s very specific and very [01:03:00] unique and it’s got those strong foundations, and it’s got the walls and it’s something about an evolution as well. Your kind of sense of you can renovate the house; it can become bigger as you live in it. So, I think there’s something very beautiful about that image. Are you okay, Heather? Trevor, did you want to comment?
Heather: I’m fine.
Trevor: Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t hear the whole response Annemarie, but what drew me to the image suggesting that the Principle and Foundation can ultimately become a home, which I live and move and have my being in a sense of. It’s something of a habit more and more deeply and also the image opening up to possibilities of renovation and change and deeper understanding, et cetera. So, I appreciated that. Thank you, Heather.
Heather: Thank you, Trevor.
Trevor: Diana, Hi. [01:04:00]
Diana: Hi, Trevor. I think what really struck me in listening and I’m still trying to formulate this, but how the PNF is healing. Before it was a map which helped to orient, but actually now that I thought about it more, it’s just how healing it is to our origin story and how it affects how I tell my story moving forward.
So, it’s become this invitation to retell my story with God and it’s a story of love and not of guilt. Yeah, I was just sharing my group how like the evangelical story is so much rooted in guilt and shame and how we’re totally deprived creatures or hopelessly lost, and I think the PNF is a [01:05:00] healing corrective or a healing balm to say no, we’re created in love and for love and with love. Yeah, I think that’s been a precious gift in realizing that.
Trevor: You are opening many doors for us, Diana. Thank you. I just want to just hold what you’ve said and stay with it a bit. I think it becomes so healing in the sense when I place my life—and you’ve obviously hinted at this and I’m maybe just using a few different words—when my narrative, my own story gets placed within the story of God’s creative love in my own life. So maybe rather than, just focusing on, as you were saying, maybe like shame and guilt, et cetera, but to see my life in context, in God’s [01:06:00] creative and personal love, which encourages me then to really go looking for evidence of that within my own story, for the story lines of God’s creative and personal love in my life and how that can be profoundly healing in terms of the way we see our lives, and our own image of ourselves.
So, I think you’re opening that door in what you’ve been saying, and I think also just your I grew up in a fairly evangelical background and part of my understanding of my own faith history was, God only got going in my life after I gave my life to Christ. And somehow the Principle and Foundation opens up a much broader landscape of my own [01:07:00] salvation history—that God has been loving me, creating me at work within my life from the very word go. And it kind of just reframes and that’s also for me a very healing reframing.
I think the last thing I want to say, and then maybe open it up to other folk. is that more and more, I’ve come to learn that the spiritual exercises for many people have a profound healing dimension in terms of healing of just image of self, my own, how I see my own life and my own life in relation to God and God’s relationship to me and my life to the world. I think that there is for many people, a very deep healing motif in the exercises. And very often, as you’ve [01:08:00] suggested, it can begin with the Principle and Foundation. And again, coming back to Anne’s prayer earlier, just that rendition of the Principle and Foundation and just situating myself within that rendition is a profoundly moving experience—when God’s love spilled over God, thought of me—that image.
So, thank you just for bringing the word healing onto our landscape, Diana. Enormously thankful for that. And again, I’m not sure if anyone else would like to add to that.
Annemarie: Maybe just one thing. I think, I would really affirm that sense of how extraordinarily healing the exercises can be for people in that journey—about the image of self, their image of God, image of creation. And I think part of that is what I’m [01:09:00] hearing you saying, Diana, which is that Ignatius has a very positive sense of the human person, very positive anthropology and that kind of infuses everything.
And there’s a phrase that I really love about Ignatian spirituality, a kind of definition that says Ignatian spirituality gives us an optimistic vision of a world shot through with divine love, and that’s a guy who, Peter Schineller, who’s a Jesuit in Zambia, who said that. And I think that one gets that sense when we really unpack and live into and pray into the Principle and Foundation. Maybe that’s also part of that healing dynamic of that very positive sense of God’s love and light going through all of creation, all of humanity, that there is a sense of goodness in all of that. So, just to maybe add that in.
Diana: Can [01:10:00] you write down that quote in the chat?
Annemarie: Sure, I will.
Trevor: Adri-Marie, would you like to say anything?
Adri-Marie: I will say something in the end, thanks.
Annemarie: Trevor, it’s quite hard to hear you still, so maybe just the volume is still low
Trevor: Thank you. thank you for that. And I see Elizabeth.
Elizabeth: Yes. Thank you, Trevor. Two things. One quick comment. One of my favorite things from your teaching was that God hasn’t stopped knitting and I love that from Psalm 139. So, thank you for that.
I had a very discreet question. It’s come up twice on this call, The idea of writing one’s own version of the Principle and Foundation, that’s a new concept to me. I wondered; perhaps everyone else on the call is familiar with it and if so, I can have a sidebar [01:11:00] chat with one of you. But if you think it’s worthwhile, just spending a minute saying what that’s all about for our own personal use.
Trevor: The emphasis on God’s ongoing creative activity in our life, I think is so, so important, and that it’s happening in the present, and I think it just invites real attention to how God may be creating me in moments.
I wonder, Elizabeth in terms of your second question— I’m not going to duck it, but I think it’s going to be a very important part of next week when Annemarie explores how best to give the Principle and Foundation and the possibilities of a retreatant [01:12:00] engaging in it more personally and how that engagement could happen in terms of maybe them writing their own. So, I’m going to go and be stealing Annemarie’s thunder on that one.
Elizabeth: Okay. Thank you.
Annemarie: That’s a relief. Thanks, Trevor. Trevor, I’m just thinking maybe don’t hold it because the feedback is coming through; maybe just to speak more loudly. It might make it easier. Sorry to jump in again.
Trevor: Thank you. I need all the help I can get.
Liz: I was thinking that he Principle and Foundation of God’s creative continuing love for us gives us permission to look at our faults and mistakes and our sins without hating ourselves, knowing that God ultimately loves us and that when we have [01:13:00] sinned, we are not trash. We are just working on God’s creation, being remolded by God and that our sins and mistakes are opportunities for God’s greater love.
Trevor: Oh, that’s a beautiful image that you’ve given us, Liz of God’s creative love, that it is not blocked by our mistakes or our failure or our sinfulness. There is nothing that separates us from God’s creative love and the potential of that healing love to weave some of our own sinfulness and failure and bad choices; [01:14:00] the power of that creative love to redeem that is, I think a very deep ingredient of our gospel of this loving creator that does not stop creating us.
Also, the invitation, Liz is for us to become co-creators in that ongoing creation. That invitation to participate, which we will obviously explore more and more in the exercises themselves, with passion comes to labor with God, to co-create with God, to work with God, to be God’s partner in the ongoing project as it were—the original project that God has for humankind and for creation and for the world.
Thank you just for opening doors for us. But also, just for [01:15:00] emphasizing the hopefulness of the Principle and Foundation, particularly when we work with someone who brings into this a sense of regret and remorse about the past.
Liz: And that God is in everything, even in our negative past. Even when we’re sinning. God is with us and trying to redeem every moment of our lives.
Trevor: Thank you, Liz. It’s that image that Annemarie spoke of that everything is shot through with God’s creative activity and God’s creative love. That optimistic view that we hold, which Ignatius holds for human life and for the world. Thank you, Tracy. Hi!
Tracy: Yeah. And this is kind of related to what [01:16:00] we were just talking about with Liz, but I was very hit today—and it’s so simple as this everything means everything—and this reality of a world full of gifts. I think what I’ve found interesting in Ignatian spirituality is this connection to how everything can be connected underneath to a desire or a longing or a connection to God.
And then I’m also struggling though on the flip side around when we say everything, when I think about some of the everything’s that people have been presented with in life, they’re really hard. It’s trying to grapple with that tension, I think, and wondering of your thoughts about that.
Trevor: Again, I gather my own heart’s response to what you’re saying. I think as you say, what has just been shared with us [01:17:00] Is helpful by Liz. I think holding what Liz said, I think speaks a lot. I think you are raising the massive theological question of relating to tragedy, to evil, to abuse, to injustice. So, you’re raising that, and I don’t wanna go too far down the road.
Could I suggest this? This is where somehow; I feel illusion to what you are raising does not theologically and intellectually but have at the level of our experience a sense as we allow the creator to deal with the creature. [01:18:00] As, for example, I encourage the person that I’m taking through the exercises or encouraging myself even to bring our experiences of abuse and betrayal and injustice, to bring them into the orbit of our colloquy, of our conversation with God, and to allow the creator to deal with the creature within the givens of their life.
I’m learning to trust that encounter more and more and more, rather than to enter into a kind of theological speculation, which is going to satisfy no one, I think ultimately in the end. So, I’m on the side of no denial of what life has presented us with a [01:19:00] tool, but rather putting our arms around everything that has happened—everything and by that, I mean everything and that becoming the raw material of our encounter with God; that God’s home address in my life is reality. And I need to bring the realities of God and then trust the dealings of the creator and the creature. And I’m learning to trust that more and more and more, Tracy, I really am.
I do come to the end of my own words in response to someone’s pain and heartache and heartbreak, and I’m willing to accompany them as it were into this ongoing conversation with God and openness, generous openness to allowing the creator to [01:20:00] meet with them.
I haven’t intended to go around your question, but that’s the way I would proceed. That’s the way I would go. How does that land in what you’ve said and how I’ve responded?
Tracy: I think it’s really helpful when thinking about working one on one with someone. I think I’m thinking as a teacher and a writer, like, how do we write about this optimism, this connection with God, that God is in everything, God is in all things, and still touch on what you just said, and maybe exactly what you just said.
I think that’s where my curiosity is even coming from that broader picture. That has been my experience one on one is that God really deals so individually and it’s beautiful. And that’s part of what I love about Ignatian spirituality. It’s just the talking about it; how do we talk well about that tension?
Trevor: Okay. [01:21:00] Again I’m going to limit my response a little bit, but I think maybe one way you use the role of teacher and writer is when I enter into teaching or writing about it, I do not duck the darker realities of life, that they are openly acknowledged.
So, I’m not trying to present a one-sided picture here, but I enter into all the realities as deeply as I can in my teaching and my writing. I think that helps those who maybe read your work or those whom you teach, I think to have some sense of connection with you and some sense that you are another human being also seeking, to engage [01:22:00] God in your own suffering as well.
I don’t know if others would like—Annemarie? Adri-Marie? Russell? I’ve just seen Russell back. Can we move on? Is that okay? Shirley.
Shirley: Hi there.
Trevor: Hi.
Shirley: This is this one touches my soul deeply and I didn’t hear all of your response. So, I’m wondering, would you be willing to almost just write out an answer and email it? What you just said as far as bringing in the darker reality of life into our conversation around that or if you have some place just to flesh this out for me, I would really appreciate it. Thank you.
Trevor: Thank you, Shirley. Thank you for that. I’ll do [01:23:00] my best to respond maybe either in a written way or maybe pointing out a resource that may be helpful. I think what you are drawing our attention to and what Tracy has is it’s engaging suffering on the spiritual exercise journey.
and how we engage suffering, how we engage our own suffering, and how we also engage the suffering of our world. I think the spiritual exercises, I think if they are well done, will lead us both into an engagement with our own suffering, as well as the suffering of the context in which we live –If they are well given. And we won’t duck that at all but thank you just for reemphasizing our need to be attentive to that.[01:24:00]
Shirley: Thank you.
Trevor: Thank you, Shirley.
Annemarie: We’ve merely got space for one more.
Adri-Marie: I wonder if I could add, Trevor, that I think this is where it’s really helpful to read for us as givers to really just become familiar with the PNF in the original text and there’s perhaps some adaptation. What is it that Ignatius is meaning? Going back to some of the original themes that Trevor put aside, this everything is working together, God is really activating through everything in our lives, drawing us closer. It has this feel of a cheering on, nothing can be wasted in God’s kingdom, a feel of it.
I wondered if I could even add a few more pictures of what the PNF could be? For some, [01:25:00] it could even be a bit of a compass. So, for us, even as those who guide, it’s just a bit of a compass of the mini cosmos of what Trevor mentioned of the exercises.
It is this beginning book end, and then it becomes a bit of a crescendo in our lives; the meaning continues its roots. I heard a person that Annemarie also knows as well, Nick Helm, talk about it as the hub of a wheel of the exercises, and I think we even showed it right in the beginning of almost all the weeks have elements of this PNF. So, It’s just encouragement to make it a good friend.
Trevor: And to add to that, Adri-Marie, maybe I can try to find it. I have got somewhere a kind of a handout with about 10 translations. [01:26:00] of the Principle and Foundation done by different Ignatian scholars, all bringing their own kind of imagery and helpfulness and maybe we can get that out as well.
Annemarie: Yeah, Trevor, I’ve got it from last time and we’ll send it to people. So that’ll be fine. Thank you for that.
Trevor: Okay. I’m glad. Okay, great.
Adri-Marie: I think I also just want to add, Trevor, how you mentioned about this opportunity to converse, to almost be with each other in this agreement of some sort. In today’s time where we all have such a rich ecumenical presence even here, it’s just almost this creating of mutual language and for where often people feel, what do I even believe? It’s this lived experience of [01:27:00] belief. We are kind of growing, living into it, but just to recapture that, what Trevor said in the beginning.
Trevor: Thank you. Thanks, Adri.
Annemarie: So, we probably need to pause there, Trevor, just in terms of our time. Thank you so much.
Trevor: I apologize for some the lack of battery life and electricity.
Annemarie: Our reality in South Africa at the moment. We will be without power for about 10 hours on some days at the moment. So, it’s a definite challenge. Thank you so much for that.
I’m going to hand over to Russell in a moment to end with just a short prayer and to tell you where he’s going to be for the next two and a half months, because he’s going to do something very exciting that I’m sure is going to have lots of benefit for all of us and all of you, but he won’t be with us on the course for [01:28:00] the next two or three months. So, Russell, do you want to just quickly tell us before you close in some prayer?
Russell: Sure. Thanks, Annemarie. So, I’m leaving on Friday for Spain to go to Manresa, where I’m going to be doing an immersion course there where we look at for the next eight weeks or so, we look at Ignatius, his life, the spiritual exercises, his spiritual diary, some of his letters, and also the constitutions of the society of Jesus.
It is time to maybe drill a little bit deeper into this stuff, but also hopefully to be more grounded and to have one focus, and that’s the thing I’m really looking forward to as Adri and Trevor and Annemarie know—not doing 10 different things, but just for eight weeks focusing on this.
So, I’m hoping it will be of benefit to all of us when I come back. It’s not quite three months, it’s two months, so I’ll be back. As they say in the movies, I will be [01:29:00] back.
So, maybe let’s bring our time together this evening to a close. I’d invite you just to pause where you are with perhaps what is most dominant for you from our reflection this evening. Maybe there’s something that has really struck you, just to be aware of that.
I’m going to invite you just to [01:30:00] listen to the words of a prayer written by Joe Tetlow—a prayer, which I think is very beautiful, a prayer that I often go back to myself.
Oh, Lord my God.
You called me from the sleep of nothingness
merely because in your tremendous love
you want to make good and beautiful beings.
You have called me by my name in my mother’s womb.
You have given me breath and light and movement
and walked with me every moment of my existence.
I am amazed, Lord God of the universe,
that you attend to me and, more, cherish me.
Create in me the faithfulness that moves you,
and I will trust you and yearn for you all my days.
Amen.
So, I wish you all the best in the next two months, rest of this month, May and June. And please know that you’re in my prayers. If I can pop in, I will pop in. I’m not sure what life will hold for me, but we shall meet again. We shall meet again. So, God bless you all. Have a good week. Bye, Bye.