[Day 14] Why our noticing matters

Liminal dispatch on desire and how what we’re drawn to is the perfect entry point to conversation with the Divine, 05.06.20

In St. Ignatius’ First Principle and Foundation — a kind of intro to the spiritual exercises — he describes the purpose of spiritual practice this way:

All the things in this world are gifts of God, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily. … In everyday life, then … I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening God’s life in me.

There were several things that were new to me, at nearly 40 years old, when I first encountered this approach to prayer and contemplation.

The first thing was just the idea that the Divine is quite okay with subjectivity — meaning, okay with the totally normal, unavoidable reality that we experience Spirit in different ways. God shows up for each of us in ways that are unique to our needs, our preferences, our cultural contexts, our joys, our longings, our struggles, our innate gifts. That uniqueness is not a threat to God, but rather a delight. The Absolute, which contains all things and all possibilities in all times, does not require uniformity from us.

The process of Ignatian prayer itself if very simple: you notice stuff, you have an experience, you tell God about it, and…