The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [146]
This is a powerful tool. Normally our minds move restlessly from one alternative to the other, jumping like a nervous grasshopper from one blade of grass to the next, never giving ourselves sufficient time to consider either alternative. But after imaginatively living with one course of action, and then the other, certain things will come to mind that you may not have noticed before. Advantages and disadvantages become more evident with time. In a sense, you’ll see the consequences of the decision before you make it. At the end of the process, ask yourself which option gave you the most peace? Then trust your feelings and make the decision.
But discernment, as Fleming notes, is not simply a matter of feeling peaceful. You must carefully assess what is going on inside of you. “Complacency and smugness about a decision can masquerade as consolation. At times, desolation can be a timely sense of restlessness pointing us in a new direction.” Honesty about what you are really feeling, and why, is paramount.
When it comes to making decisions, the First and Second Times present relatively few difficulties. The First Time is crystal clear. The Second Time may be less clear at first but, after prayer and consideration, becomes clear enough through these feelings of consolation and desolation and leads to what Ignatius calls “sufficient clarity and knowledge.”
The Third Time
For many people, the most common decision-making situation is the Third Time. You find yourself with two or more good alternatives, but neither one is the obvious choice. There is no Aha! moment. There is little clarity in prayer.
“The soul,” says Ignatius, “is not being moved one way and the other by various spirits.” And this murky time is where the clearly defined practices of St. Ignatius may be the most helpful. His techniques may also give you something unexpected: calm. Recently a young man who comes to me for spiritual direction said that simply knowing these techniques made him feel less overwhelmed by the prospect of having to make a big decision.
For the Third Time, Ignatius provides two methods. Let’s use a familiar example: whether to buy a new house or stay in the small apartment where you live. As anyone who has made that decision knows, that kind of move is notoriously complex—raising issues that are both economic and emotional.
The First Method is based on reason. Once again, start with indifference. You should be inclined neither to move one way or the other, despite the agonizing you may have done over this decision already.
This is a key insight. We cannot freely consider a decision if we have already made it, or have made it by default. “I am not more inclined or emotionally disposed toward taking the matter proposed rather than relinquishing it,” writes Ignatius, “nor more toward relinquishing it rather than taking it. Instead, I should find myself in the middle, like the pointer of a balance.”
In this First Method, Ignatius gives us six steps:
First, put before yourself in prayer the choice: in this case, buying a house or staying in your apartment.
Second, identify your ultimate objective, which for Ignatius is the desire to please God, as well as the need to be indifferent.
Third, ask God for help to move your heart toward the better decision.
Fourth, make a list, either in your head or on paper, of the possible positive and negative outcomes of the first option. Then make a list of the possible positive and negative outcomes of the second option.
The house hunter would list the benefits of buying a new house: more space, more freedom to do what you want with the place, the money now going for rent will go to ownership, and so on. Then list the negative aspects about buying a new house: you assume a mortgage and will have to tend the property, mow the lawn, worry about repairs, and so on.
Then think about the alternative. What are the positives? Remaining in your apartment would mean you wouldn