“In a general sense, we are either flow people or dam (!) people.”
-Richard Rohr
Am I a flow person or a dam (!) person? I read this line in a piece by Richard Rohr. It’s a question that cuts to the core. He goes on in the same piece to say:
“In the world of grace and freedom for a channel to be opened, it must flow forward, through, and toward something else-or the channel becomes blocked. Negative energy and intention produce a negative energy response-usually quite quickly. We clamp on to it like Velcro, one study claims. In contrast, positive energy and intention produce positive energy outflow-if not now, eventually. The positive and appreciative response demands consciousness and choice-and freedom on our part.”
-Richard Rohr
Over the past few months, I’ve been practicing the Examen almost (sometimes I forget!) daily. In many ways, it’s helped me answer the question, am I a flow person or a dam (!) person. It’s a daily invitation to find the positive, to appreciate the good things, and be conscious of the arch of the day and my responses to it all, the positive and the negative.
Between each of my Spiritual Director Training sessions, we are introduced to a spiritual practice and then asked to practice it. The Examen was not new to me, but it did take it being an assignment on which I would have to report to cause me to practice it (almost) daily. IngnationSpirituality.com defines the Examen as “a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day to detect God’s presences.”
St. Ignatius thought the Examen was so important it is one of just a few rules of prayer that he made for the Jesuit order. In my Spiritual Director training, we were told that some people believe this practice is so essential that it’s better to engage in this practice for a shorter time than to skip a practice of it. It’s designed to be a prayer practice that is less than 15 minutes. It’s intentionally approachable and easy so that it is easily practiced.
The Examen has six steps (as I was taught and have been practicing)
Become aware of God (Divine, Source, Love)
Review your day. (This is a quick overview, you are not to get bogged down in too many details, just review of the flow of your day)
Look for consolations (moments you felt God’s presence, flow, love, peace)
Look for desolations (moments that you felt fragmented, not in the flow, absences of peace, dam(!)
Reflect/Pray from a moment of the day that seems important. It could be a consultation or a desolation.
Ask God (Divine, Source, Love) for what you need going forward. (Do you need more patience? Do you need more sleep? Are you finding that you are sticking like velcro to negative thoughts?)
What I’ve been finding in the daily practice of the Examen is that there IS something powerful in reviewing the day, looking for highs and lows. I’ve started to see patterns, and sometimes during the day, it’s easier to make a better choice because I know that at the end of the day, when I review, I’ll be glad to have chosen to go for a walk rather than watch another episode of Friends. The practice of the Examen helps to see when I’m being a flow person or a dam (!) person. Am I stepping into the flow of what’s happening, or am I blocking the energy?
I’ve found in practicing the Examen that I don’t have to make this practice take a long time. Before bed, I sit for a few minutes and think over my day. It’s not an exhaustive practice; I just think through the order, who I talked to, what I saw, how I felt. Then I look for consolation, moments that were moments of “flow.” Then I look for dam (!) moments where I felt stuck, negative, fragmented or blocking generosity. If there is a moment of the day that stands out, I think about that moment I might pray about that moment to understand it a bit more, and then I end by thinking about what I need for the coming day, given what I’ve learned about myself in the day just lived.
I’m coming to understand that the Examen is a tool that helps me open a channel of grace to be more of a flow person. It’s allowing me to focus on the positive to let those things stick like velcro and let the negative, dam (!) things go.
Try practicing the examen this week. Here is a printable that can help you. It’s a flow practice. It doesn’t have to be formal and doesn’t have to take more than 5 or 10 minutes. I’m finding it’s worth the investment of time.
“Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”
― Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart
Books I’m reading, have read, or can’t stop thinking about.
A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.
—Abraham Lincoln
Currently Reading:
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
A friend recommended this book, and I’m so glad she did. She said to listen to it, and that too was good advice. This is the story of Gifty, a first-generation American raised by her mother, an immigrant from Ghana. It’s the story of faith, science, drug addiction, immigration, and racism. I’m really enjoying it. It’s well written and the narrator on the audio version is excellent. (I’m loving checking out audio books from my local library!)
A Book I Can’t Stop Thinking About:
The Delight of Being Ordinary: A Road Trip with the Pope and the Dalai Lama by Roland Merullo
I read this book a few years ago. It was just a delightful story asking what if the Pope and Dalai Lama went on a joy ride around Italy for a few days. They escape from all of their keepers with the help of one or two aids, and in disguise, they leave the Vatican for adventures in being ordinary. It was funny, witty, thoughtful, and just a fun story.
ideas.poems.quotes.songs that sparkled for me this week.
(I try and pay attention to words or phrases that stand out to me in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that collects short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and put them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.)
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
(I’m sharing in italics the lines that stand out to me in these passages. Maybe it’s the same, or maybe it’s different, there is much food for thought in each of these passages)
“The truth is we don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t even know the questions we need to ask in order to find out, but when we learn one tiny little thing, a dim light comes on in a dark hallway, and suddenly a new question appears. We spend decades, centuries, millennia, trying to answer that one question so that another dim light will come on. That’s science, but that’s also everything else, isn’t it? Try. Experiment. Ask a ton of questions.”
― Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom
“Simple being is a deep sigh of relief that comes from letting go of pretense. It is also the sigh that comes from releasing a heavy burden that results from creating and managing the false selves that are substitute centers for the truth of our being. It is the sigh of release as we exchange complexity for simplicity. It is the sigh of release as we let go of preoccupations, inordinate attachments, and disordered passions. Things in the depths of our beings get aligned when we let go of these things.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life
“In the stillness of quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.”
― Howard Thurman
It was Haiku talk time this week. Click on the Haiku below to watch our conversation. We cover grief, tears, commencement and owls.
