The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [152]
My Bad Decision: A Case Study
Let’s take an example of the “drop of water” and “making decisions in times of desolation” and see how those two insights work together. For that, I want to tell you about one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. (That is quite a contest, by the way.)
One morning I came into our refugee center in Nairobi and discovered that someone had stolen our cash box, filled with tens of thousands of shillings (hundreds of U.S. dollars), equivalent to almost a week’s revenue for our handicraft shop. Furious, I summoned our staff—two refugees and two Kenyan locals—told them how betrayed I felt, and demanded that the malefactor confess immediately. Each of them vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
Infuriated, I drove to each of their houses to search for the cash box, a gravely insulting act in East African culture—in any culture. (As I said, Jesuits are not angels.)
For a few days I tried to pray about a course of action. But I was too angry. Every time I sat down to pray, I sprang up again and paced around my bedroom. Rather than focus on God and the movements of my soul, all I did was fume about this betrayal. (In my selfish state, I was angrier about someone betraying me than about the loss of funds for the refugee projects.) Though my Jesuit friends counseled patience, I ignored them and grew increasingly intent on punishing someone. So I was closing out God and my friends, on a downward path, inviting desolation, and isolating myself from two ways that God communicates: prayer and friends.
Finally, someone advised that the best way to rectify this was to sack all of them. Fire them. Send a message to everyone that stealing will not be tolerated, he said. Yes! I thought gleefully. That would make things so easy. Here the evil spirit was encouraging me, like the drop of water on the sponge. “Go on,” it said. “It’s easy, isn’t it?”
So I fired everyone. How unjust that was—to punish each of them for the sins of only one. It was a wretched scene. All four wept and begged me to keep them on: each was already teetering on the edge of utter poverty. Our stormy meeting made me weep with frustration after they left the office and briefly made me wonder if I was doing the right thing. But I forcibly suppressed those feelings. Afterward I proudly told everyone what I had done—what a big man I was to stand up to those thieves!
The next morning I awoke with a start: What had I done? And I recognized this alarm bell as my conscience. I had gone from bad to worse, from anger to vengeance, from pride to injustice. And I saw— with a shock—that I had made a terrible mistake. It was the drop of water on the stone, “violent, noisy, and disturbing,” trying to wake me up. Trying to get the attention of my conscience.
Like Ignatius did in many cases, I changed course. Over the next few weeks, I hired back two of the employees, found another one a new job, and started to provide financial support for the last person (the one who was probably the culprit). In the end, I sought forgiveness and reconciled with each of them. Once I had done this, I felt a sense of peace.
What would Ignatius say? Well, I had made a poor decision in a time of desolation. The evil spirit had encouraged me along the wrong path, but fortunately the good spirit had woken me up “with perceptible noise.” And after I had changed course, I felt consolation, the confirmation of a good decision.
Three Ways the “Enemy” Works
We’ve talked about Ignatius’s worldview, with its images of the good spirit and the bad one. You still may find that antiquated, but he had a flawless understanding of the specific