The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [149]
Second, says Ignatius, you can imagine yourself at the point ofdeath. That sounds morbid, I know. It is also clarifying. Think of yourself on your deathbed, far in the future, and imagine asking yourself: what should I have done?
It’s easy to see why this is so effective. Often we choose something that is more expedient now, the easier course, which we know might be a decision that we will regret. The old saying that no one on his deathbed ever said, “I wish I had spent more time at the office,” captures some of this insight.
Third, we can imagine ourselves at the Last Judgment. Which choice would we want to present before God?
To use our earlier example of the house hunter, no one is going to be scolded by God for staying in an apartment rather than buying a house! But, particularly with moral choices, this method can help to focus on the demands of faith.
For example, perhaps you’re deciding whether to accept a new job, with a higher salary, but one that means you will spend dramatically less time with your family. You might imagine God, at the end of your life, being sad over that decision.
Let me add an additional suggestion to those of Ignatius, a fourth technique: imagine what your “best self” would do.
You probably have an idea of the person you would like to become, the person you think God is calling you to be or, likewise, your “best self,” “authentic self,” or “true self.” For me, it’s a person who is free, confident, mature, independent, and loving. Can you imagine your best self, the person you hope to become one day? As you consider your decision, ask yourself: What would my best self do? Sometimes the insight will come all at once—you think, if I were a freer and more loving person, I would obviously choose this option.
Making decisions with that fourth technique may seem odd at first. That is, acting as if you were your best self may feel unfamiliar. But, eventually, by acting that way, you will help yourself move in the direction of actually being your best self. As Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, a person can “act in God’s eyes what in God’s eye he is.” Making decisions as if you were your best self will help you become your best self.
The Discerning Mule
In his autobiography Ignatius tells the hair-raising story of one of his earliest, and most misguided, discernments. Soon after his conversion, Ignatius met a man traveling along the road, who insults the Virgin Mary. The hotheaded Ignatius is furious and begins to decide whether or not to kill him. He comes to a fork in the road, and reasons that if his mule follows the same path as the blasphemous man, that will be a sign from God, and he will kill the man. “He felt inclined,” writes Ignatius of himself, “to stab him with his dagger.” Fortunately for everyone involved, the mule picks the other road. When telling this story to a group of young Jesuits, one provincial drew laughs by saying, “And ever since then, asses have been making decisions in the Society of Jesus!”
THE RULES FOR DISCERNMENT
In addition to these methods and practices, Ignatius lists what we could call “helpful hints” for making big decisions. He also shows how to recognize when the “enemy of human nature” is at work and when the “good spirit” is at work in your choices.
You might be tripped up again by the antiquated terms that Ignatius uses. Make no mistake: Ignatius believed that the “good spirit” is the Spirit of God leading us to a healthy and holy life. The “evil spirit” or the “enemy,” in Ignatius’s worldview, is the spirit of Satan. That’s what I believe, too, though I don’t necessarily think of Satan as having horns and hooves. (Then again, who knows?)
Another way to think of this is to see those feelings that pull us away from God as opposing the Spirit of God. Or to distinguish between what is “of God” and what is “not of God.” Most of us feel that pull between good and evil, healthy and unhealthy, selfish