A few weeks ago my family and I had the opportunity to go on an eight-day Ignatian silent retreat in a small, mountainous village in Romania. This experience of withdrawing “to a quiet place and resting for a while” (Mark, 6:31), away from contemporary technology, excessive comfort, and urban noise was recomforting.
Inspired from St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, and Fr. Anthony de Mello’s The Way to Love, this retreat was a memento, a reminder of how much we live up in our “attic” (aka, in our heads), and how beneficial it would be for us to descend back into life, a reality that often happens all around us, and even passes by us, while we are busy doing other things.
Thus, my fruits of the retreat that I would like to pass on are a few simple yet meaningful spiritual exercises, to help increase the quality of your daily living.
1. Gratitude exercise.
A good Christian is a grateful Christian, the saying goes. We have been and are constantly being showered with so many gifts. Just think about the daily things we take for granted: air to breathe; fresh water to drink, wash, bathe (warm, cold or in-between); food of an enormous diversity; a place called home (which is probably warm in the winter and cool(er) in the summer); clothes to wear (probably more than one kind); people (family, friends, co-workers, neighbors); a body that can take you places; a mind that can process millions of information daily, and many, many more.
Consider: what are the things/people/experiences/events that I’m most grateful for in my life?
2. Awareness exercise.
Are you aware that you are breathing? Can you hear the words you are reading? How about the symphony of noises that are all around you? Can you sense the air in the room, the temperature, the fragrance? Can you feel the clothes touching your skin? What emotions are you experiencing right now? Being reconnected to our senses can be a powerful thing and a great way to descend from our minds into our bodies.
Take a moment and ponder: what am I seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, sensing, feeling right now?
3. Living in the present moment exercise.
We live most of our lives torn between our unresolved past or concerned about the undisclosed future. To live mindfully is to live in the present moment, here and now. Here is where happiness exists, because now is the only thing that we have. Right here, right now. That is how the Kingdom of God can be at hand.
Consider: what object(s) or word(s) can I use to get me back into the now?
4. God’s presence exercise
God is infinite in love, magnitude, and expression right where you are – whether healthy or sick, in good spirits or miserable, job or jobless, with family or alone, whether in sinner or saint mode. So, independent of my circumstances or how I feel,
God is present, actively and unconditionally loving me as I am every moment of the day.
Think: what are felt experiences from the past that can remind me of God’s loving presence?
In conclusion: We do not see the world as it is, but as we are. External change or change of our reality can only come once interior change is in place. Transformation comes only when we are gratefully aware, in the now, of God’s unconditional and loving presence. I think that is a pretty good way of getting God down from our “attic” back into our lives. What do you think?