The founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius, is perhaps most known for his rules of discernment -- that is, his advice on how to make decisions.
For him, it's all about paying attention to the consolations and the desolations -- the things that bring you life and joy, and the things that bring only dryness, or despair.
The thing is, even when you're living a good life, doing the right thing, etc., you have those dry days. Those not so fresh moments, to quote a commercial. And it was Ignatius' intuition that those can be the times that you most doubt the decisions you've made and might want to make some sort of change. You feel uncomfortable, uneasy, whatever. Of course you want to make a change.
But, says wise old Ignatius, desolation is not a good time to make a decision. Because you're not in touch with your best self or probably with God. Basically, the Holy Spirit is ATT and you've had a dropped call. So you just have to wait until you get out of the dead zone and the line will click back in.
Someone in my community was preaching about this today, and I had the thought, maybe this isn't just a propos of jobs or career decisions. Maybe it works with relationships, too. Like, there are some days or months when we just get sick of some people in our lives, right? Maybe they were irritating to begin with, or maybe we adored them, but in this moment, we just want them to BEGONE.
I've certainly had that experience at times, and yet in the moment I don't necessarily say to myself, hey, remember three months ago when you really enjoyed your conversations with them? And that's part of the desolation -- you lose perspective. All you see is the right now, and it feels like that's going to go on forever.
It's like, have you ever been sick, and it was just a nightmare? And then you get better, and you look back and it seems like no big deal at all? It's all about perspective. When you're in the horror, it's really hard to imagine it ever changing. And then once it does you can't remember how bad it felt.
So maybe that happens with relationships, too. We drive into dead zones that are not necessarily justified by he said/she said or an itch or anything else; they just happen. And we have to just be patient and try to screw up everything by saying or doing something drastic in the middle.
Just something I'm mulling over...
For him, it's all about paying attention to the consolations and the desolations -- the things that bring you life and joy, and the things that bring only dryness, or despair.
The thing is, even when you're living a good life, doing the right thing, etc., you have those dry days. Those not so fresh moments, to quote a commercial. And it was Ignatius' intuition that those can be the times that you most doubt the decisions you've made and might want to make some sort of change. You feel uncomfortable, uneasy, whatever. Of course you want to make a change.
But, says wise old Ignatius, desolation is not a good time to make a decision. Because you're not in touch with your best self or probably with God. Basically, the Holy Spirit is ATT and you've had a dropped call. So you just have to wait until you get out of the dead zone and the line will click back in.
Someone in my community was preaching about this today, and I had the thought, maybe this isn't just a propos of jobs or career decisions. Maybe it works with relationships, too. Like, there are some days or months when we just get sick of some people in our lives, right? Maybe they were irritating to begin with, or maybe we adored them, but in this moment, we just want them to BEGONE.
I've certainly had that experience at times, and yet in the moment I don't necessarily say to myself, hey, remember three months ago when you really enjoyed your conversations with them? And that's part of the desolation -- you lose perspective. All you see is the right now, and it feels like that's going to go on forever.
It's like, have you ever been sick, and it was just a nightmare? And then you get better, and you look back and it seems like no big deal at all? It's all about perspective. When you're in the horror, it's really hard to imagine it ever changing. And then once it does you can't remember how bad it felt.
So maybe that happens with relationships, too. We drive into dead zones that are not necessarily justified by he said/she said or an itch or anything else; they just happen. And we have to just be patient and try to screw up everything by saying or doing something drastic in the middle.
Just something I'm mulling over...
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