This will be our last week in Galveston. This five-month stay was necessary and is ending for equally necessary reasons. Our next move to College Station for six weeks is also necessary. It will lead to our final move to Stafford, TX, in June, where we will establish our new lives as apartment dwellers. All these necessary decisions would have frustrated me a few years ago. I did not like necessary choices. I resisted “having to make a choice” and would generally allow my frustration to choose a different path. I believed I was choosing freedom, but, in fact, I was letting unknown or unacknowledged forces dictate my choices. I was anything but free. But, despite the necessity of these most recent choices, we have freely chosen them. We are very comfortable with the changes they represent. I am not angry, frustrated, or sad about leaving the road. I may be disappointed, but I am comfortable with the path ahead. This comfort is the direct result of reading a 500-year-old book 17 years ago.
Before that book, I would find my way in life by picking a goal and then building a plan. It was not unlike using a map to find our way across the country. I would stick a pin where I wanted to go, draw a line, and then find a route that stuck as close to the line as possible. This was how my Dad planned our family vacation to Yellowstone in 1966. With the route tucked in his pocket, he backed out of the driveway on his way home. His route was dictated by his desire to get home by the shortest route possible. All along the way, he was a captive to this one goal and could not choose or even be aware of the many options for each day. He was neither free to choose his path nor able to enjoy it very much. He was either getting there or going home. There was nothing else to consider or experience. Right Lane Living, informed by a Spanish Courtier who lived 500 years ago, has allowed me more freedom and joy than Daddy ever knew in his travels.
This courtier was Ignatius of Loyola. He was born into a wealthy, merchant-class family and lived the courtly life of wine, women, and fighting. Family honor demanded that he join the King’s Army when he came of age, but he was gravely wounded at the Battle of Pamplona in 1521. We spent the next two years recovering in a religious community where all he had to read was the Bible and the Lives of the Saints. In those two years, his life was transformed. He started paying attention to the many desires that bubbled up in his mind and soul. His reading helped him understand that there were two sources of these desires (good and evil) and that they were pushing and shoving him this way and that. He began to “discern” these spirits in life. He then developed spiritual exercises to help him find his way through these desires.
He spent the rest of his life paying attention to these forces and choosing his path accordingly. He banded with two friends and founded the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, on poverty, chastity, and charity. Along the way, he became one of the dominant voices in post-reformation Roman Catholic Christianity. Over the last 500 years, his Spiritual Exercises have become a classic text for those who study the spiritual life. It is still in print and read by millions of people worldwide. (If you want to learn more about Ignatius and his exercises, look him up on Wikipedia or ask ChatGPT to describe Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises.)
A core element of Ignatius’ exercises is the discernment of the movements within us. The Good is pushing us one way and pulling us back from another. Evil is doing the same. This is the origin of the cartoon image of having an angel sitting on one shoulder and a devil sitting on the other, whispering in our ears. Ignatius learned that we need to pay attention to everything we feel and hear, discern its origin, whether it is from the good or the evil, and then make our choices accordingly. For me, the Good is love and trust, joy and hope. The evil is selfishness and distrust, resignation and despair. By listening to the movement of these elements in my mind, body, and soul, a path rises and reveals itself. Then, I can make an informed and free choice. This discernment process empowers me to freely choose the road ahead at each new intersection in life, knowing that I am not held captive by whichever voice is louder at the moment.
I am deeply grateful to Ignatius and those who have helped me find a way through life's twisted and tangled roads. He allows me the freedom to choose the road ahead and not be held hostage to my fears, prejudices, false assumptions, and unchallenged ideas. Through his writing, I have experienced a profound journey of personal growth, seeing the power of choosing love, trust, joy, and hope to reveal a future worth living. He has helped me stop and change course when new opportunities and circumstances present themselves.
Do I always listen to this inner voice? No, but when I come up short, I can stop, take a breath, and start again with the new reality of all I have learned from taking a lesser path. Indeed, this way of living has allowed me to follow Carlos Casteneda's 'path with heart' and claim the fullness of life, which is the birthright of every human being! While the way ahead may be murky, I step boldly on the road ahead with hope and anticipation, knowing that it holds ample opportunities for all I desire, a good life!
Thank you, Ignatius. I couldn't have done this without you!
Travel well, my friends!
Bob
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| St. Ignatius of Loyola |
