The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [46]
Silf asks us if we consider our lives in this way. Can we use the examen to look backward, to find the hidden sources of the “landscape of your circumstances”? What parts of our landscapes resisted the flow of water, and what encouraged them? (Remember Félicité, the heroine of “A Simple Heart”? Flaubert describes her as every morning recalling “the days gone by and the smallest details of unimportant events, without sorrow, quite serenely.”)
Put another way, can we use the examen to look back over our entire life? You might call this the “life examen.”
BEAUTIFUL YESTERDAYS
The daily examen is of special help to seekers, agnostics, and atheists. For them it can be altered into a “prayer of awareness.” The first step is to be consciously aware of yourself and your surroundings. The second step is to remember what you’re grateful for. The third is the review of the day. The fourth step, asking for forgiveness, could be a decision to reconcile with someone you have hurt. And the fifth is to prepare yourself to be aware for the next day. Gradually they may begin to connect the events of their lives with God’s love, presence, and care for them.
A few years ago, I started to lead large groups in this prayer. Most were familiar with Christian spirituality. But even people who had never prayed before were enthusiastic about the examen. And around the same time, as I mentioned, I was invited to work with a group of actors putting together an Off-Broadway play. The summer after the play closed I was invited to their summer workshop, where they staged brand-new plays and offered courses on various facets of theater arts. Most “guests” were asked to offer the company a workshop on something like Shakespearean drama, or voice, or movement.
What could I offer? I had had zero acting experience. Then it dawned on me: the examen. One afternoon, in an airy dance studio, I led about fifteen actors, writers, directors, and playwrights through the five steps. Some had meditated before, others hadn’t, some believed in God, others didn’t, some weren’t sure, others didn’t say. At the end of the session we discussed what we had felt.
My favorite response came from a young New York actor who said he always had a hard time meditating and wasn’t even sure if he believed in God. But when the examen was finished, he said, “I never knew that my yesterday was so beautiful.”
That’s the theme of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, first performed in 1938 and beloved by high school performing-arts groups. One character, Emily Webb, who has died in childbirth, asks to return to the world of the living. As she sees the simple things that make up our days—ironing, hot baths, meals, sleeping, and waking up—she says, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”
The examen helps you to “realize” the presence of God. For me, it transcends any proofs for the existence of God by asking you to notice where God already exists in your life, where your yesterdays were beautiful. With that awareness you will begin to notice God’s presence more and more in your day.
Let me end our discussion of the examen with a story from the Indian Jesuit Anthony de Mello. His book The Song of the Bird includes several marvelous parables about the awareness of God. This one is called “The Little Fish.”
“Excuse me,” said an ocean fish. “You are older than I, so can you tell me where to find this thing they call the ocean?”
“The ocean,” said the older fish, “is the thing you are in now.”
“Oh, this? But this is water. What I’m seeking is the ocean,” said the disappointed fish as he swam away to search elsewhere.
“Stop searching, little fish,” says de Mello. “There isn’t anything to lookfor. All you have to do is look”
Chapter Five
Beginning to Pray
So I’ve Found God.