An Ignatian Prayer For Freedom

A Prayer For Freedom

God of all goodness

You created me for freedom

An abundant life, united with you

Filled with your love

Overflowed by joy

Truly myself in you

And yet there is so much that is broken

Bound up, even resistant towards you

I find myself enslaved by sin

Filled with false illusions

Tempted at every turn

Distracted, disconnected, despairing

But that is where you come to find me

Just as you came to so many

Offering freedom

You called Lazarus from the tomb

Healed the woman with a hemorrhage

Gave sight to blind Bartimaeus

Brought the demoniac back to sanity

Restored Mary Magdalene to wholeness

Free me from my bondage just as you freed them

Expand my terrain of freedom

Remove anything that stands in the way

Never let anything separate me from you, my Lord

I choose freedom

I choose you

This day and every day

For this is the deep desire you have implanted within me

Amen

© Dale Gish 2020. All Rights Reserved.

If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Ignatian Discernment with Mandy Smith

Ignatian Discernment: A few thoughts on Christendom and a wonderful video.

There may have been a time when what it means to be a faithful Christian was set in stone, clear, and unshakable. In a time of Christendom, our faith, discipleship, even scripture was unambiguous, abundantly clear, locked down, and completely figured out. This clarity and confidence was likely a lie, a temptation the church has given into for far too long.

Now that Christendom is shattering, we can discover the joy of discernment. When everything is not pinned down and codified, we have the opportunity to discern, to say that we don’t know, that we need God to lead us. We have the opportunity to depend upon God, seek the Father, and discern our loving creator’s will. We may get to rediscover the Holy Spirit, or count on Jesus resurrected and present with us on a daily basis.

As a spiritual director trained in Ignatian discernment I get to walk with people as they ask the real questions of their life, help them notice God’s work and movement in their lives, and discover the joy of a life lived in radical dependence on God, one that is always needing to discern.

In the coming months, you will be hearing more from me about Ignatian discernment as go through the Ignatian Exercises again, and I dive deeper into this theme for myself and in my spiritual direction practice. But for now, I want to share with you this video created by Mandy Smith. This is not overtly Ignatian, but I think you will find it provocative as you consider discernment and seeking the Lord. I’d love to hear any thoughts or responses you may have to this video, the theme of Ignatian discernment or my reflections above.

Enacting Discernment with Mandy Smith

If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Ignatian Prayer with Jesus And George Floyd

Ignatian Prayer -Encountering Jesus’ Love For George Floyd

This prayer exercise was inspired as I watched George Floyd’s funeral and experienced Jesus filling my heart with his love for George and his sorrow for George’s death. I hope that it may bless you and encourage you to join Jesus in his desire for and work to redeem this world, starting with yourself. I offer this as a limited attempt to join Jesus (who had dark skin) in his love for George, not believing that you will in any way capture or experience the full reality that George and African Americans face in our country but that Jesus will guide you into his heart. On a practical note: If you prefer to pray with a physical piece of paper you can print this PDF -Dale

An Ignatian Prayer Exercise

• Spend 3-5 minutes receiving the Lord’s love for you. Consider how Jesus has loved you from before you were born, as a young child, as a teenager, as an adult, sharing your joys and sorrows. Imagine Jesus with you, looking upon you with great love.  Let him tell you he loves you. Receive his love.

• Briefly pray to give this time and yourself to God.

• Ask for the grace to encounter Jesus’ love for George Floyd, to be affected and changed by his love.

• Briefly familiarize yourself with George Floyd’s life, consider the details as if you were his good friend or loving parent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd

• Pray using your imagination and let yourself feel deeply, welcoming the joy, love, tears, anger -whatever comes- that God may be at work in your prayer:

• Imagine Jesus loving George in his mother’s womb, at his birth, walking with him and delighting in his childhood, how he learned to walk and talk, and grew strong and tall, faced racism and racist systems surrounding him, loved football and basketball, moving from North Carolina to Houston Texas.

• Spend some time with Jesus rejoicing in this gentle giant, George, playing college basketball, contributing to the Houston hip-hop scene, George leading and mentoring other young Christians at his church. See the joy that George gives Jesus.

• Join Jesus still loving and walking with George in the sin and hardships he endures, as he is discriminated against, as he gets entangled with drugs, makes poor choices and spends four years in prison. Notice how Jesus suffers with him, celebrates when George then serves in a local ministry, how he is with George as he moves to Minneapolis, working as a truck driver, security guard, making an anti-gun violence video. Notice how Jesus loves him.

• Now stay with Jesus as George loses his job due to COVID, as Jesus witnesses George’s murder, his anger as George cannot breathe, as his neck is kneeled upon, sorrow in his heart as George cries out to the officers, to his mother, to God, Jesus’ tears as George dies, Jesus embracing him saying today you are with me in paradise.

• When you end your imaginative prayer, have a conversation with Jesus about what you experienced.  Tell Jesus what you want to say to him. Listen and wait for what Jesus wants to say to you about what you just experienced. What is he saying to you? How have you been moved? How does Jesus invite you to respond in your life, in our world?

© Dale Gish 2020. All Rights Reserved.

If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Resurrection: An Ignatian Guided Prayer

Resurrection: An Ignatian Guided prayer

It is Easter Sunday morning and you are there at the tomb before daybreak and you are allowed to experience the resurrection.  

The Father and the Spirit come to the tomb, to raise you from the dead.  They are experiencing great loss. Jesus is dead and they miss him. The angel rolls away the stone and they enter the tomb.

The Father proclaims, “Death, you are defeated. Death, you are broken. Death, release your prey.”  The Spirit breathes life into your body. They unwrap the grave clothes from your body. You open your eyes.  You sit up. You feel new life in your veins. Death leaves your body. You are filled with Joy. The Trinity embraces with joy, together again, separated no more. The world is right again.  All the pain and suffering and injury are healed in you, leaving only scars. And you are filled with love, love for your people, love everywhere. You have conquered death. You have won the victory. 

(Now the scene shifts as Jesus comes to you.)

Jesus turns to you and says, “you have accompanied me in my passion and death. You died with me, now receive new life with me.” You run to him and you embrace. He says, “I love you. It is so good to see you again. It’s so good to be alive and to be with you again.”

And Jesus says, “It’s good to be alive.  My dying was terrible. I was abandoned and forsaken. The whole world turned against me and crushed me. Evil triumphed and destroyed me. See I still have the marks. Bitter death overcame me, but now I am raised in power to new life.” 

And you say to Jesus, “Oh, Jesus, it has been so hard to see you suffer and walk this path.  There is an ocean of grief in me. It’s hard to even take in that you are alive. Part of me still suffers with you in your passion.” You begin to weep.  Jesus embraces you again and says, “I give you my joy.” 

Suddenly you are filled with and overwhelmed with joy.  His joy fills and overflows you. Everything is good; everything is right. You stand there for a long time, just being together.  Your heart is filled with peace. Reunited with Jesus.

Take some time to talk with Jesus. Say what is on your heart and mind.

© Dale Gish 2020. All Rights Reserved.

If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Christ's Descent into Hell Fresco at Monastery of Saint-Antoine-le-Grand

Becoming Simon of Cyrene - An Invitation To Imaginative Prayer

Becoming Simon of Cyrene - An Invitation To Imaginative Prayer

Simon of Cyrene

By Sieger Koder

I love this painting by Sieger Koder, of Simon of Cyrene helping Jesus carry the cross. They stand side by side, pressed together, arms around one another, holding the cross. In this heartbreaking scene from Jesus’ passion, Simon is the one closest to him, bearing Jesus’ burdens. As we pray the Ignatian Exercises we discover a deep desire to be close to Jesus, as close as Simon was that day. 

As an experience of love and to bind us more closely to him, we are invited to enter into the scene and become Simon. We are invited to use our imagination to become the person who is that close to Jesus, helping Jesus carry the cross when he doesn’t have the strength to on his own. 

Engage your senses. What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you taste? what do you feel? What do you see? -The crowds, the soldiers, the women, and most importantly Jesus. What emotions do you experience? Is there love and compassion for him in your heart? Is your heart heavy with sorrow? Do you get a sense of what Jesus feels, what is on his heart? What do you say to him as you carry the cross together? What does he say to you?

Let the Spirit lead you and inspire your imagination. Receive everything as a gift. If you feel the prompting to respond in a particular way, don’t hesitate to do so. Let this experience bind you to him in love.

When you are done spending time with Jesus in this scene, take a few moments to speak to Jesus, to say what you want to say to him about this experience. Then listen to see what he is saying to you in response. Give thanks for what you have been given.

© Dale Gish 2020. All Rights Reserved.

If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September 2021, please contact me.

Book Review: When Narcissism Comes To Church

In an individualistic society with a lot of individual and corporate brokenness, it’s not surprising that most of us can recount painful stories about people who have used us and wounded us, showing little concern for the damage they have done. We find it in our families, at our jobs, in our politics, and yes, even in our churches. We may not understand the psychological diagnostic criteria, its causes, or its treatment, but we have experienced the destruction and havoc narcissism causes. 

Chuck DeGroat’s new book, When Narcissism Comes To Church: Healing Your Community From Spiritual and Emotional Abuse published by InterVarsity Press, is an important resource for individual Christians and churches who want to understand, protect themselves from, and recover from the wounds of narcissism. It’s accessible for church leaders and congregants, providing us with a wealth of insight and a helpful framework on how to respond, and is deeply grounded in a vision of God’s ongoing work of healing and restoration. 

Are you the kind of person who should not read this book? Here is a helpful guide: If you want to keep your head in the sand and not see the emotional and spiritual abuses happening in our churches, don’t buy this book. If you would rather not become more aware of your false self and your own narcissistic tendencies, cancel your order. If you have been trying to avoid acknowledging and healing from your wounds from narcissism, there are thousands of other books to choose from. If you enjoy throwing your hands in the air and saying narcissism is narcissism and there is nothing to be done about it, then delete this book from your Kindle.  

But for the rest of us, this challenging book is well worth reading. This book helps us in so many ways: to better understand narcissism, to recognize the damage it causes in our churches, to become more self-aware of our own narcissism, as a step towards our own healing, to envision what a road to redemption might look like for the narcissist. 

Chuck DeGroat

A Wise Counselor, Teacher and Spiritual Director

Chuck Degroat has a lot of wisdom to share on the subject. He is a licensed therapist, a professor of counseling and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland MI, and a spiritual director. For years, Chuck has been counseling both narcissists as well as those who have been victimized by them, and brings their stories to life, to help us understand the realities of narcissism and the consequences for families and churches.

A fascinating feature of this book is that DeGroat looks at narcissism through the lens of the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a tool for self-understanding and for examining the false self, which has nine basic types, and then many more subtypes as you get deeper into it. DeGroat takes these nine Enneagram types and looks at how narcissism gets played out for each of the nine types. Since most of us have some tendencies towards narcissism, it is fascinating to read through each type and to notice how your Enneagram type lives out Narcissism. The section on each Enneagram type also includes a story of a narcissist of that type. You will likely find yourself thinking of people you’ve met as you engage with these characters. 

Two chapters go deep into the characteristics of and the inner life of a narcissistic pastor. Again, DeGroat has illuminating stories of pastors and how that narcissism plays out in the role of a pastor. If you have ever experienced a narcissistic pastor these chapters will likely ring true and may be helpful for you in your healing process. Essentially DeGroat says to us, you aren’t crazy, that’s how it is like to interact with a narcissist, and here is what was going on in the narcissist that led to your experience.

Chapter 6 looks at narcissistic systems, churches that are either narcissistic themselves or have become narcissistic as a result of a narcissistic pastor. Simply removing a narcissistic pastor often doesn’t fix the problem as the dynamics in the church have to be reworked to become healthy again. You will likely find yourself reflecting on your own church experiences and dysfunctional systems in a new way. Again, I found DeGroat naming the dysfunction helpful to me as I reflect on my own church experiences.

There are two chapters that look at spiritual and emotional abuse in the church as well as steps that can be taken to heal personally and heal churches that have suffered under narcissistic leadership. DeGroat names the dynamics, abuses, and dysfunctions, but also has eyes of hope for the work of healing and restoration that God wants to bring to those who are suffering. The recovery and healing process is not easy, but DeGroat outlines the way forward towards new life. DeGroat has a pastoral heart and does an excellent job of naming the sin and brokenness but also the hope and healing work that God is at work doing. 

I found Chapter 9, Transformation for Narcissists (Is Possible) to be moving and deeply affecting. As a spiritual director, I get to sit with people and experience God’s heart for them, in all kinds of life situations. In this chapter, DeGroat models the ability to sit with narcissists holding the destructiveness of their behavior but also seeing them as beloved children of God, holding out hope for the slow, hard work of being transformed and growing into more of the fullness of who God has created them to be. 

This is such a gift to us as we reckon with narcissism, but also to us as we seek to be human, Christian, and embody God’s love in this broken world. Deep down we all want to be seen, known and cared for in this way. Thank you, Chuck, for this gift you have given us. I can already tell that I’m going to be reading this chapter many times. 

It’s been one week since I finished reading this wonderful book and this book continues to live with me. I find myself reflecting on my own false self more and what it would be like to bring more of it into the light. I’m already considering what pastors and churches I will recommend reading this book. This book will be an ongoing resource for me as I walk with pastors, church leaders and congregations as a spiritual director, and I think for many will receive this book as an enduring gift for the health and wholeness of the church.  

A Prayer of Adoration

“Your love, O Lord reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness stretches to the skies.”

You created everything in love. Oh the wonder and beauty that you have made.

Your love humbled itself, became one of us, and dwelled among us,

Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, Messiah, Lord and Savior

And we know love because of this, that you loved us and gave your life for us.

In love, the Father raised you up, firstborn of the dead. 

You sent your Spirit, to dwell in your people.

We rejoice in the goodness of your salvation.

You are our good and present Lord, leading us in all your ways,

Offering us the fullness of joy.

Oh Lord, we rejoice in you. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We love you and give ourselves to you.

Amen

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

5 Prayer Resources from the Ignatian Exercises

Since doing the Ignatian Exercises a couple of years ago, Ignatian prayer continues to be central to my relationship with God. There are so many resources that are now available to me, that draw me close to the heart of God.  I'll name 5.

1. I know that God is always looking at me with a gaze of love and I get to look at him and receive it. This can take 2 seconds, or I could spend 20 minutes, and it doesn’t need to happen in my devotional time.  It can happen throughout the day.

2. I am always welcomed to have a heart to heart with Jesus. I can speak to Jesus as a friend, and tell him what is on my heart and mind and spirit.  Jesus listens with compassion. I can listen to what he may say to me in return

3. There is great value in stopping periodically in and at the end of each day (Examen) to remember God, to see God’s work and my openness to it, and to discern the spirits at work in and through me. This allows me to recognize what God is doing and is the beginning of discernment.

4. Having experienced some of how Jesus sees and responds to others I am invited to see others through Jesus' eyes. This changes how I see and how I relate to people. It also turns relationships with others into a way to connect with Jesus, as together with him, I see through his eyes.

5. The closing prayer of the Exercises (the Suscipe) is an opportunity to offer myself completely to God. I am welcomed to offer all of myself, even those parts I am not proud of. Giving myself completely to God makes me more open to his work and increases the terrain of freedom in my life. It allows me to be more dependent upon him and receive everything as gift, sustained by his love and grace.

I’m grateful for the gift of life that Jesus offers us.  Let us receive it with joy.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

These reflections were inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.