Tag: Holy Spirit
Discernment Series: Defining “Consolation” and “Desolation”
This is the 2nd week of the Discernment Series.
This time it’ll be good to know about the terms Consolation and Desolation as described by Ignatius of Loyola in his work Spiritual Exercises.
BUT FIRST…some of you who know me know I’m not a Catholic. I’ve been trained at a decidedly Evangelical Seminary, called…not-so-creatively “Evangelical Seminary“. So why am I going on about a 500 year old book from a counter-reformation Catholic?
In short, because your soul will be blessed.
Because the tensions from that time (1491-1556 CE) aren’t here in force now so we can learn some very useful things that align with basic Christian theology. The major hostilities at the time made listening to what God was saying “on the opposing side” quite difficult. (Things were hostile to the point of murder on both sides, no less….how Jesus of them?!ugh.) So, from the point of my tradition, Protestants rejected both grimy bath water and baby.
In general, Catholics rejected what they considered a heretical and a rebellious front to the unquestionable authority of the Church, and didn’t see what was coming from Reformers as helpful or biblical ideas for doing church differently. (It took about 500 years at Vatican II to incorporate many of those needed Reformation era ideas, but a surprising number of them went through and were accepted. Masses conducted in a language understood by the people listening being just one of them. Then, it takes 50 years or so, so I’m told by Catholics, to see them flesh out at the parish (local church) level.)
SO Now-
We’re at a point (I’m generalizing here) where we don’t have to fear reading other streams of Christianity from that time. No one will be tied to a stake and torched, not literally anyway. I think we’re okay accepting that God has much truth to impart from devoted believers with various backgrounds, and this willingness to hear can aid our spiritual growth.
Ignatius was convicted and motivated to “find God in all things”.
I like that about him. This is the way we live incarnational lives. This is how our worldview and our true selves get put right by the love and dominion of our Savior and Creator, and his Son, the enfleshed God, Jesus Christ. While I find some of the ideas, concepts, doctrine, and long-ago language of Ignatius foreign to me, I don’t let it unsettle me. Instead, I let the Holy Spirit speak to my heart and guide me while I read. I pray with the ideas and ask for guidance. I admit I have a lot to learn. I leave some things behind and take in what is transformative and what will make me more like Jesus, the Christ.
Not every but of it will help me or you, but enough will that I bother to write about it and include those outside of my tradition and experience in my blog to open our eyes to some great advice and sage wisdom for understanding how to discern God’s will in transformative ways.
So now for “consolation” and “desolation”
Ignatian teaching has it that these are two terms that help us decipher what is from God, and what is not. At first blush, we may assume that consolation is “happy…yeah God…feelings” and so forth. Desolated might be unhappy ones. But, hang on while we dig a little deeper.
For Ignatius, Consolation is a word to describe interior stirrings that are aroused in the soul that has been inflamed with love for God as Creator and Lord, and too every creature made by the Creator. It’s marked in every increase in faith, hope, love, and interior joy that bring a filling of peace and quiet. A drawing closer to God. A soul in consolation may weep too at the recognition and repentance of sins, and also the relief of the abiding grace of God. A godly grief may be a Consolation, though a difficult patch to get through. Most importantly Consolation is a gift. We don’t arrive there by techniques or things we do. God graces us with consolation.
Desolation is indeed the opposite of consolation, but note how Ignatius writes about it,
“I call desolation what is entirely the opposite (of consolation), as darkness of soul, torment of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love. [In desolation] the soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord.”
Desolation then is all the stuff that stirs our souls and draw us away from God, regardless of the subjective feelings. Some in desolation will not recognize it as that. They will be oblivious. And plenty more will not associate what feelings they have with interior stirrings of the soul. Maybe they’ll blame the government, the economy, circumstances, or other things instead.
So, now that you know which is which, listen and tune in to your interior stirrings. Consolation and Desolation are not mere feelings. They have to do with a conflation of responses and influences that are the movings at the soul level (our core).
Note when you are in consolation. Note when you sense desolation. Get a feel for the movements and workings of God. Begin to distinguish them from the ungodly ones that come from the Enemy or the ungodly parts of yourself.
Next time I’ll talk about the uses and aims of both consolation and desolation in God’s work on us.
To read the (English) PDF of Ignatian’s “Spiritual Exercises” click here.
(Don’t miss the next installation of the series. Use the sidebar to get the next update.)
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Be Yourself. Everyone Else is Already Taken [Guest post from Kathy Escobar]
Kathy Escobar is a plucky spiritual formation-minded woman bearing God’s message…and she has a great time in the process. What a kindred spirit! Enjoy her contribution. How could you not, right?
Kathy co-pastors the refuge, an eclectic beautiful faith community in north Denver, juggles 5 kids & an awesome husband, advocates friends in hard places, and is a trained spiritual director who loves to teach and facilitate events, workshops, and groups.
Be Yourself. Everyone Else is Taken
-by Kathy Escobar
“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken” – Oscar Wilde
I first discovered what a “blog” was in 2006, when we planted The Refuge, the wild little faith community I am part of. Honestly, I had never heard the word before; I had been immersed in a hectic ministry role that was very insulated from the wider church conversation and I just wasn’t online. This transition from mega-church to small-church-plant was a messy one for me. I was in a lot of pain from my experience, so I reached out online after stumbling across some blogs while searching for church website ideas. I felt an instant and immediate sense of relief when I discovered I wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t alone in some of my feelings. I found others with similar stories & similar church dreams.
The men and women I read were honest, bold, raw, and pure.
They weren’t selling anything, trying to push their agenda, or attempting to make-people-come-over-to-their-way-of-thinking.
Rather, they just told their stories. Shared their experiences. Responded to other people’s comments with simple kindness and respect. And above all, they remained honest about what they were wrestling with and learning along the way.
Reading their blogs gave me hope.
They inspired me.
They pointed me toward God (even when they were wrestling with God).
They challenged me to think.
January 1, 2008, I started my own blog and dedicated myself to two simple commitments:
1. Write as honestly and purely as I could without editing or trying to worry about what other people might think.
2. Write once a week for one year.
It’s been a wild ride, and I have learned so much through the process over the past 4 years.
Out of everything, I think blogging has helped me learn to become more comfortable in my own skin, with my own voice, with who I am.
I think that is a very holy and sacred experience on our spiritual journey–learning to find safety and security in who we really are.
Not who someone else is.
Not who we think we should be.
But in who we are.
I am someone who has always struggled with the message that I wasn’t enough somehow–not spiritual enough, not quiet enough, not domestic enough, not skinny enough, not organized enough, not-whatever-enough.
Blogging definitely intersected with this message, initially making it even worse.
In the first few years of my blog, I had so much internal anxiety about not being good enough, funny enough, theological enough, wise enough, or concise enough. Whatever “enough” it was, I wasn’t.
But something began to shift in the past several years as I continued to find my voice and become more comfortable in my own skin out here.
I began to realize that the world doesn’t need another _________ or __________ or __________ (Insert name of any bloggers you are jealous of, and my guess is they are wrestling with similar feelings and go a little psycho about the same insecurities).
What’s missing is me.
Not because without me the world would stop spinning or the blogosphere would come to a screeching halt.
But because everyone else is taken.
I think God wants us to learn how to become comfortable in our own skin, to be who-we-are, and not try to become someone else.
Blogging is a great place to practice this.
Making peace with who-we-are requires the ongoing-work-of-the-Holy-Spirit. I doubt and question it all of the time. I obsess before I hit “publish” and freak out about not being more like ______ or _______ (insert name of other blogger also obsessing about the same thing).
I need God’s help to remind me: “Um, Kathy, just so you know, in the big scheme of things, it’s just a blog post. And one other thing: it’s a great place to practice just being you–with all your strengths & all your weaknesses. Just you.”
And then I hit “publish” and take a deep breath and am reminded yet again, this is what transformation looks and feels like.
This is how we get more comfortable in our own skin. This is how we learn to offer ourselves grace. This is how we become “us” and not someone else.
Yikes, it’s hard to learn! But blogging is a great spiritual practice that can help integrate this important truth into deep places in our hearts.
Yeah, my spiritual guidance for all us bloggers is this: Be ourselves. Everyone else is taken.
Heaven is For Real, but is it as silly as they say?
On the recent topic of Heaven (and soon, Hell) here at the old blog, I must bring up the baffling and sappy rendering of the heaven that we hear about quite a bit in conservative North American Protestantism.
If a boy nearly dies, and then tells you details about heaven exactly as you have taught him, what’s next? I’ll tell you what, a best seller (for people who need a spiritual vitamin B12 shot for their excruciatingly literal translations of biblical passages, and who pay no mind to historical context, linguistic idioms, let alone Hebrew and Greek).
Now, I realize young children tell silly stories. That’s part of their job. The trouble comes when the stories get massaged and coupled with a near-death tragedy to elicit a faith response from the more gullible among us. I do want to think the Burpos are on the up-and-up, but something stinks.
I heard Pastor Burpo and his little boy on a television program. What a cute kid. Some of the story seemed amazing, if not miraculous, but I got a bad whiff of something when Colton (really his dad) detailed heaven as, well, super lame.
People get around on their huge wings. Okay, I hope that’s not how it works. Boobs have been bad enough. The proverbial pearly gates make an appearance. The word “wicked trite” comes to mind, but maybe I’m just too cynical. A blue-eyed Jesus wears a purple sash over his white robe, and rides a giantic rainbow colored horse. Okay, bad wardrobe, and how could the genuine biblical Jesus from the ancient Semitic region possibly possess a double recessive gene for blue eyes? (And don’t say, because both Mary and the Holy Spirit had blue eyes, ’cause I’m not buying it.)
I don’t think Jesus rolls like that. But, I give the kid credit: An elephantine rainbow horse is pretty cool. Of course, I would have to know if it pooped rainbow too. That’s awfully critical info. God (the Father) has a body and sits on the throne, with Gabriel serving as a kind of right hand angel man on his left side, in a smaller throne…as we might expect, right? It all sounds like a bad Star Trek episode. Well, sort of.
Reader reviews often complain that only 3 pages of the book speaks of heaven in any details. But the book has done well. Very well. It spent 52 weeks on the bestseller list, and the family has since produced a children’s picture book, and you guessed it, and movie rights have been purchased by Sony. Pretty sweet deal!
Possible movie title: “Heaven is for Reel: One Boy’s Near-death experience as re-told by his literalistic dad”
When the parents are asked about authenticity, their answers center on referring to the hope the story brings. This begs the question, is the point of the book to create hope in a plenty of people already know what they want heaven to be, instead of a faithful depiction of God (who, by the way, is non corporeal) and the Bible? (Which would be far more confusing.) Both can’t be true.
If you want to read a copy for yourself, and decide, here it is.
But, I offer you some thoughtful reflection on the the topic from arguably the foremost New Testament scholar alive today.