The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [13]
Overall, don’t worry if you don’t feel close to God at the moment. Or if you’ve never felt close to God. Or if you have doubts about God’s existence. Or even if you’re reasonably sure that God doesn’t exist at all. Just keep reading.
God will take care of the rest.
Chapter Two
The Six Paths
Spiritual, Religious, Spiritual but Not Religious, and Everything in Between
SINCE YOU’RE ALREADY READING this book, I figure that besides being interested in making good choices, finding meaning in your work, enjoying healthy relationships, and being happy in life, you’re at least mildly interested in religious questions. So let’s begin with a tough question.
Since the Ignatian way is founded on the belief that there is a God and that God desires to be in relationship with us, it’s important to think about God first. At the very least, it will make everything that comes afterward seem easy by comparison.
This doesn’t mean that you need to believe in God in order to find Ignatius’s insights useful. But to do so, you have to understand where God fits into his worldview.
So: how do I find God?
That question marks the starting point for all seekers. But, surprisingly, many spirituality books downplay or ignore it. Some books assume you already believe in God, that you have already found God, or that God is already part of your life. But it is ridiculous not to address that question in a book like this. It would be like writing a book about swimming without first talking about how to float.
To begin to answer that question—How do I find God?—let’s start with something more familiar. Let’s look at the various ways people seek God.
Even though there are as many individual ways to God as there are people on the earth, for the sake of clarity I’ll break down the myriad ways into six broad paths.
Each has its benefits and pitfalls. You may find yourself on several different paths during your lifetime. You may even feel like you’re on more than one path at the same time.
SIX PATHS TO GOD
The Path of Belief
For people on this first path, belief in God has always been part of their lives. They were born into religious families or were introduced to religion at an early age. They move through life more or less confident of their belief in God. Faith has always been an essential element of their lives. They pray regularly, attend religious services frequently, and feel comfortable talking about God. Their lives, like every life, are not free from suffering, but faith enables them to put their sufferings into a framework of meaning.
The early life of Walter Ciszek, an American Jesuit priest who spent twenty years in Soviet prisons and Siberian labor camps beginning in the 1940s, reflects this kind of upbringing. In his autobiography, With God in Russia, published after his return to the United States, Ciszek describes growing up in a devout Catholic family in the coal belt of Pennsylvania. Family life centered on the local parish: Sunday Masses, special feast days, weekly confessions. So it is not a surprise when Ciszek says this in his book’s first chapter: “It must have been through my mother’s prayers and example that I made up my mind in the eighth grade, out of a clear blue sky, that I would be a priest.”
What for many people would be a difficult decision was for young Walter Ciszek the most natural thing in the world.
The benefits of walking along the path of belief are clear: faith gives meaning to both the joys and struggles of life. Faith in God means that you know that you are never alone. You know and are known. Life within a worshipping community provides companionship. During times of hardship, faith is an anchor. And the Christian faith also holds out the promise of life beyond this earthly one.
This kind of faith sustained Walter Ciszek during his years in the Soviet labor camps and enabled him, as he finally left Russia in 1963, to bless the country whose government had caused him untold physical and mental suffering. At times he struggled with his belief— who wouldn’t