Admitted we were powerless: Step 1 and the Spiritual Exercises

Step 1 and The Spiritual Exercises 1: Reading of this post

I posted a while back on The Spiritual Exercises and The Twelve Steps and I notice that it is one of my most consistently read posts. I have been talking a lot about the steps recently with someone who is new to the program, and these two things are making me think more deeply yet about the steps myself, and about how they integrate with The Spiritual Exercises, and my with spirituality and how I find God in all things. I will say at this point that the opinions expressed here are my own and not representative of AA or Al Anon as a whole. The full first step is:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/About-AA/The-12-Steps-of-AA

In Breathing Under Water, Richard Rohr draws a connection between addiction and sin, and makes four basic assumptions about addiction:

  1. We are all addicts.
  2. “Stinking Thinking” is the universal addiction – we are all addicted to our patterned way of thinking.
  3. All societies are addicted to themselves and create a deep codependency on them.
  4. Some form of alternative consciousness is the only freedom from this self and from cultural ties.
Redemption mandala
Step 1 and The Spiritual Exercises 2: Reading of this post

Some years ago I went to a talk given by Laurence Freeman organised by the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre, and his talk made a deep impression on me in lots of different ways. One part of it that stays with me was that he explained that the desert fathers saw sin as compulsions, and when I researched Dante’s nine circles of hell for the Redemption mandala that I was creating, I was taken by the fact that the first seven circles equated to the seven deadly sins. These stimuli gradually changed my thinking on sin from being a single event – something that I did, or failed to do – to a pattern of events, a path that I walked on that led me away from the one God lays down for me. In “The Me I want to Be”, John Ortberg talks about our signature sins. He says:

We do not get tempted by that which repulses us….It starts close to home with the passions and desires that God wired into us and tries to pull them a few degrees off course. That subtle deviation is enough to disrupt the flow of the Spirit in our life, so coming to recognise the pattern of sins most tempting to us is one of the most important steps in our spiritual life.

The Me I Want to Be. John Ortberg

and further:

Our sin takes a consistent and predictable course….the pattern of your sin is related to the pattern of your gifts.

The Me I Want to Be. John Ortberg

Put in this context, it might be easy to see how difficult it can be to notice that we are being pulled off course. We can be walking along steadily, in tune with God, and we come to a fork in the path. It might not be obvious immediately which fork is the one God is calling us to since the enemy is a deceiver, we do not always recognise him as the imposter. Ignatius himself warns us in the Spiritual Exercises:

It is characteristic of God and His Angels, when they act upon the soul, to give true happiness and spiritual joy, and to banish all the sadness and disturbances which are caused by the enemy.

It is characteristic of the evil one to fight against such happiness and consolation by proposing fallacious reasonings, subtilties, and continual deceptions.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius trans. Louis J Puhl

It is a mark of the evil spirit to assume the appearance of an angel of light. He begins by suggesting thoughts that are suited to a devout soul, and ends by suggesting his own. For example, he will suggest holy and pious thoughts that are wholly in conformity with the sanctity of the soul. Afterwards, he will endeavor little by little to end by drawing the soul into his hidden snares and evil designs.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius trans. Louis J Puhl

There is tell of Ignatius spending hours in the night contemplating a glorious vision instead of sleeping, night after night, before recognising that it was making him too tired the following day to carry out the work he knew God was calling him to. By noticing where it was leading, he was able to recognise it for the spiritual desolation that it was. The scene of his vision at the Cardoner river, as depicted in the film Ignacio de Loyola, moves me and strikes me as particularly relevant here, when Jesus says to Ignatius:

Do you think your sins would have any power over me had I not chosen it to be so?

“Discernment”; St. Beunos
Step 1 and The Spiritual Exercises 3: Reading of this post

Distilling these thoughts down brings out the essence of “I am powerless”. Our strengths are also our weaknesses, and our weaknesses can be our strength. It is in noticing the movement within us, the discernment of where our thoughts, feelings and actions are coming from and where they are leading to, that is the admission of our powerlessness. St. Paul says:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Romans 7:15

In the second exercise of the first week of The Spiritual Exercises, we spend time meditating on our own sins. The desire we ask for is:

…a growing and intense sorrow and tears for my sins.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius trans. Louis J Puhl

and the movement leads to:

a cry of wonder…How is it that the earth did not open to swallow me up, and create new hells in which I should be tormented forever!

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius trans. Louis J Puhl

Here, in the cry of wonder, is the movement in the first of the twelve steps. In the twelve step program, we may be talking about alcohol, drugs, food, our codependency on an addict we love…fill in your own blank here. In the Exercises, we have already spent some time, deepening our relationship with the God who we already know loves us from the Principle and Foundation, and we have come to recognise our own pattern, our own signature sin. In the cry of wonder, we are admitting our powerlessness over it, and that in our being pulled along that particular path, it is getting in the way of our living fully, with God, and as the person He created us to be. The First step, like the First week, is about having the scales removed from our eyes and recognising it, and the effect it is having on our lives.

Bodwellian Castle
Step 1 and The Spiritual Exercises 4: Reading of this post

I make it sound simple, but it is not. We stumble along blindly, not always or easily recognising the path we are walking on, or where it leads us, but thinking we are heading in the right direction. Have you ever been lost? You will know what I mean. There is always another fork in the path to lead us away. However, if we do happen to go down the wrong one, there is always another fork encouraging us back onto the path God would have us walk. Every temptation is another opportunity to choose God. The feeling of powerlessness can be in itself a source of fear, or lead to the abdication of responsibility. That might be spiritual desolation and is not the movement I am referring to here. The consolation of powerlessness allows us to let go of the perceived control we do not actually have; to recognise that these things around us are outwith our control and that we do not have to try to control them. We cannot prevent spiritual desolation: we cannot prevent the fork in the path, the temptation to follow our compulsions, our signature sin, and sometimes, we may well take the wrong path. It is who we are. The first step, the cry of wonder, allows us to put that hard headed will power down. We are not in control of it, we cannot manage it, and there is great consolation in admitting it and being able to put away our efforts to try to control something we have no power to control. It is a relief to let it go. To be in this place, to take the first step, to release the cry of wonder, opens a window and allows God’s light into that dark area in our soul. It is the beginnings of a wondrous transformation.

A conversation between friends.

I went to the meditation event run by the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre and it has given me much food for thought. The first, and maybe most obvious thing to explore is that Fr. Korko, being a Jesuit, has integrated aspects of The Spiritual Exercises with other aspects of his Indian culture. St. Ignatius tells us that:

The Spiritual Exercises must be adapted to the condition of the one who is to engage in them, that is, to his age, education and talent.

Annotation 18; The Spiritual Exercises trans: Loius J. Puhl, S.J

Fr. Korko used the specific term “Spiritual Exercises” near the beginning of the day and from his Jesuit background, and from his teaching on the day itself, we can infer that he means:

By the term “Spiritual Exercises” is meant every method of examination of conscience, of meditation, of contemplation, of vocal and mental prayer, and of other spiritual activities…so we call Spiritual Exercises every way of preparing and disposing the soul to rid itself of all inordinate attachments…

Annotation 1; The Spiritual Exercises trans: Loius J. Puhl, S.J

His interweaving of the Exercises and his Indian culture was seamless, and presented as a conversation between East and West, and between West and East, a true representation of God in All Things.

For example, there was an image of Christ the Guru, not this particular one, but the video illustrates the principle I am trying to elucidate.

It reminded me of a time I visited the Westminster Interfaith project and I met the founder/director, Brother Daniel Faivre SG, one of the most inspiring people I have ever had the privilege to meet in my life. Like Fr. Korko, his mystic character, as described by Wayne Teasdale in The Mystic Heart, was evident.

Summarised from The Mystic Heart by Wayne Teasdale

And I remembered visiting the mosque, and the Sikh and Hindu temples that day, seeing how highly regarded Br. Daniel was by the other faith leaders, and how our group was welcomed into each by the communities there as guests and friends. This conversation moved me and has stayed with me all these years: as has another comment about the day from one of our group:

Yes, but all of those deities would have to go.

It saddened me. Here “Deep is calling to deep” as the psalmist sings, and the blue note was not heard by all who were there. It is the insistence that I am right, and you are wrong, and you need to come over to my way of doing things.

It’s let him live in freedom. If he lives like me.

Jim Croce. Which way are you goin’?

It seems to me that God is far more generous than this – we only have to look at how Jesus behaves towards Samaritans, the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Roman centurian. Openness, listening, seeing, profound peace – these are some of the fruits of the spiritual journey.

Summarised from The Mystic Heart by Wayne Teasdale

A few years ago, I was on retreat at St Beunos in North Wales and I was wandering in the herb garden. There was a bed there that had seven different varieties of lavender: all clearly recognisable by their scent, even though each was subtly different. I had a conversation with God about it, as one friend speaks to another:

“Why have you made so many things that are very similar but are variations on a theme?” I asked Him.

“When you draw and paint mandalas, why do you do so many that are similar, but with slight variations?” He asked me.

I thought about it for a moment before answering. “Well, I have all of these ideas in my head, and I can’t decide which one I like best, so I do them all.”

“Exactly.” He said. “That is how it is for me. I have all these fantastic ideas and I can’t decide which is best, so I make them all.”

It seems to me then to be very disingenuous for one variety to turn round to the others and say:

Yes, but you’re not true lavender, are you?

When I was a teenager and in my early twenties I spent some years attending a twelve step fellowship, and I wrestled with the third step:

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Step 3 of the Twelve Steps.

There is a whole journey in this step alone, but here, I’m specifically referring to the last part: God, as we understood Him. When I listen to people in my capacity as a spiritual director I realise that everyone understands God differently, according to their own unique experience of being in relationship with Him; and I am listening for the One I know in what they are saying. When I hear of Him, my love for Him deepens, as does my love for the person telling me about Him: I get to view my beloved through the eyes of another. And I do recognise Him in the story of the other when I think: “Yes, that is just like Him.”

That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare.

You might have experienced such a thing by meeting someone who is a friend of a friend. It’s natural then to swap some stories of the mutual friend, and this only enhances love for both your friend, and the friend of your friend.

I don’t consider it my place to deny or criticise another persons experience of God, wherever they are coming from; I do consider that I have a role, as a spiritual director, to listen and to help someone to discern for themselves what is of God, and what is not of God, just as others do the same for me. And here, as further food for thought, I offer Natalie Merchant’s song of the poem by John Godfrey Saxe, and a mind map of the guidelines for inter-religious understanding discussed in The Mystic Heart by Wayne Teasdale. This inter-mystical bridge is good ground from which open-hearted, respectful and loving conversations can take place with others that have a different perspective from our own. The Ignatian way is that God is found in all things, and we can ask for the grace to find Him in all things, including in conversations with others of different cultures, denominations and faiths, and even of no professed faith, as one friend speaks to another. Imagine a world where we all spoke to one another as friends.

The Blind Men and the Elephant. Poem by John Godfrey Saxe, song by Natalie Merchant.
Summarised from The Mystic Heart by Wayne Teasdale