The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [155]
John English, a Canadian Jesuit, notes in Spiritual Freedom that the evil spirit can also use the pretext of a person’s beginning to live a spiritual life, and then suggesting, “Well, now, everything is dependent on God, so let’s just take it easy.” English writes that people “become lazy, wallow in discontent, and abandon” their enthusiasm for love and service.
This is a subtle experience. When it happens, says Ignatius, we should examine the ways that we were led by the evil spirit, in order to guard against this in the future. This is a good practice whenever we recognize how we’ve been led down this backward path.
In time, after putting these insights into practice, you’ll begin to know, really know, when you’re being led down the wrong path, because you will have the experience of having gone down that path. In the movie The Matrix, which stars Keanu Reeves as Neo, an average man invited to see the radical truth of his world, there is an illustration of just that kind of knowledge—of knowing the wrong path from experience. In one scene Neo is riding in a car with a woman who already knows the truth about Neo’s world. (Suffice it to say, this is a simple rendition of a devilishly complex plot.) Reluctant to accept her invitation to a new life, Neo opens the car door, ready to return to his former life. He peers down a dark rainy street. The woman counsels him not to choose that path. He asks why not.
“Because you have been down there, Neo,” she says. “You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that’s not where you want to be.”
It’s a good illustration of discernment. If you know that the path will lead you to a bad end, why take it? (By the way, the woman’s name in the movie is Trinity.)
By examining the ways that we have failed in the past, we’ll be better able to make good choices and lead happy and satisfying lives, nourishing our true selves and resisting our more selfish tendencies. We’ll be able to take the right paths and end up where we want to be.
SAYING YES TO EVERYTHING
One final comment about discernment: making good choices means accepting that even the best decisions will have drawbacks. Often, though, we believe that if we make the right choices, there will be no downside. Then, when we live out that choice and discover its drawbacks, we grow discouraged. A newly married man realizes how much freedom he has relinquished—he can no longer enjoy beers with his buddies as often as he used to. A newly married woman can’t hang out with her girlfriends as frequently. They start to doubt the good decision to marry.
Good decisions mean a wholehearted yes to both the positives and negatives that come with any choice. Saying yes to entering the Jesuits, for example, did not mean saying yes only to the positives— Ignatian spirituality, the loving Jesuit friends, the exciting work, the warm communities, the wonderful people with whom I’d minister, the intellectual stimulation. It also meant saying yes to the negatives—occasional loneliness, frequent overwork, problems in the church, and so on.
Every state of life, every decision, includes some pain that must be accepted if you are to enter fully into those decisions, and into new life. “All symphonies remain unfinished,” said Karl Rahner. There is no perfect decision, perfect outcome, or perfect life. Embracing imperfection helps us relax into reality. When we accept that all choices are conditional, limited, and imperfect, our lives become, paradoxically, more satisfying, joyful, and peaceful.
All this points us to the unconditional, unlimited, and perfect One to whom we say yes: God. All of our decisions should be focused on this reality. “Our only desire and our one choice,” said Ignatius, “should be this: I want and choose what better leads to God’s deepening his life in me.”
Ignatian discernment, as I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, may seem complicated—with its definitions