Sometimes a new thing catches me on fire, and I just have to let it burn through me, so I can see the trail it leaves, follow the glowing embers. This poem by Mary Oliver–“Gratitude“–has taken hold of me. First, I had to copy it, using her questions, and then I had to create my own, while still adding my own regular 5-point gratitude list at the end. Tonight, more of my own questions.
And I am lifting my nose to sniff the air–there’s an aroma there of something lodged in my memory. Here it is: I have been feeling compelled to call this emerging process an Examen. I have been looking it up, and I think that perhaps it isn’t so far from the Examen of St. Ignatius. His process, according to the Loyola Press website, is to:
1. Become aware of the presence of God. (I like to call God the Mystery, or Love, or the Source, or Mama.)
2. Review the day with gratitude. (That’s the part I have been working on for the past three or four years. It has been transformative in ways I could not have predicted.)
3. Pay attention to your emotions. (Sometimes I stop at the second step. This is a good reminder. Also, I think I would add, Check in with your energy, because that is part of my practice, too.)
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it. (For me, the noticing is prayer, the gratitude is prayer. Still, I get what this is about: take one thing deeper. Oh, I do like that.)
5. Look toward tomorrow. (Bring the past and the present and the future together in this moment. How does the past [the work of #2] inform the present [#1, #3, #4]? And how can the past-imbued present inform the future [#5]?)
How is the Mystery present to you?
In silence. In the space between my breaths. In the night sounds of crickets and peepers.
What visions brought your spirit awake?
Three crows flying above the fields into morning.
A white heron flying over the city in the afternoon heat.
The hard work of preparing an essay.
What words awakened you?
“Prophetic listening,” transformation, kairos, dialectical hermeneutics
What awakened your senses?
Rice and peas, garlic, squash, long thin green beans, broccoli, and fat slices of pink tomato with coarse salt.
What does your heart say?
There is anxiety here for friends who are suffering.
Contentment, which is sometimes better than wild joy.
I am tired.
Anticipation.
New ideas flitting through the rooms of my brain excite and exhaust me.
What goes deeper?
I am one spider on this humming web,
surveying the movement from strand to strand.
We all weave and spin together,
no longer simply waiting for the Morai
to measure and cut, but being ourselves the spiders,
tending the web, minding the movement.
Where does this go tomorrow?
Tomorrow is a clearing day–
get things accomplished.
May we walk in Beauty!
Mockingbird Chronicles 