Wednesday Morning Freewrite

I have loved doing these Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola again this year. I loved it last year through Creighton University Online Retreat, but I love doing it where I have a spiritual director that I meet with every other week and a cohort of people with a small "Sacred Listening" group of 10 people (three of whom are directors of the other seven). And the best part is doing it with my sweet, gentle giant of a husband: GEORGE (DGG is my nickname for him - Diplomatic Gentle Giant)! The face-to-face contact with others in the journey make it that much sweeter. I am so thankful that there is a program here in Oregon even though we have to commute there twice a month for our spiritual direction and the monthly retreat (www.seelportland.org). It is so worth it.

So, what am I learning. Well, Mike, my spiritual director, almost became a Jesuit priest. So he so knows his stuff and is an older man (I would say he is in his mid- to late- sixties) who is steeped in these Exercises. He gives me things to meditate on, and I meditate and share every other week.

The "Preparation Week" (which is more than a week) was all about looking at the Principles and Foundation of the exercises and praying through my "Graced History" year by year. It was so good! I did this last year, and it made me sad, but this year, I was so hopeful and grateful for the "mothers" that God gave me throughout my journey! Then he gave me verses on God's love: "OH the overwhelming, never ending, restless love of God!" 

Then in light of that "LOVE BUBBLE" I looked at that Graced History and saw patterns of sin in the "first week" of the Exercises. That was so healthy and freeing for me. I had a SIN PATTERN from last year, but God brought me so much deeper still with underlying causes of these, and this coincided with me understanding my Enneagram Type 2 and the sin patterns associated with this that I wholeheartedly concur with. I was able to embrace those patterns and be up front with God about them. Giving them to Him to CONCEAL rather than me concealing them from Him. I had lots of confession and also forgiving of people. This also coincided with our Kingdom Community doing the Knowing Rediscovered videos by my friends! It all just gelled so beautifully together. 

Now, I am on the beginning of the "Second Week," and I have been steeping myself in the "Call of the King" where I imagine myself before a wonderful, kind, benevolent earthly king who calls me to great things. Then I imagine myself before the King of kings! Mike has kept me in this for quite a while since I went on to the sin patterns naturally and slightly ahead of the liturgical year where we hit the Incarnation and Nativity at Christmas. That is OK though because the "Call of the King" has made me stop and think about fears I have because I think that I am afraid to approach some people about what I feel like God is calling me to, and someone that I thought might be an "in" to this sort of blew me off! LOL! What is so great is that I did not take this personally, and I did not think I was "unwanted and unloved" (as is typical for a Type 2)! I just said, "Hmm. 'When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window" (God even had The Sound of Music on TV the day I got blown off!). So I am GOOD, and I may just have another trail to blaze. It is all good! 

Well, I better go. It has been fifteen minutes. I am thinking about doing a VLOG regarding these Exercises.