by James Martin
With the examen you’re less likely to overlook that slow work of God.
Over time, you’ll also begin to notice patterns of God’s activity in your life. Maybe you recall every night that you’re happiest when helping others with their physical needs—say, helping an elderly neighbor clean her house. You may think, That’s interesting. I’ve never noticed that before. Maybe I should do that on a more regular basis. Or you notice that every night you thank God for the same person in your workplace. That’s interesting, you think. Maybe I should tell him how grateful I am for his friendship.
Finding God in your examen makes you more likely to look for him during the day. You become more aware of where God was and where God is. Gradually you realize that God is active every moment of the day. Finding God by looking behind you makes it easier to see God right in front of you.
The examen can also be used to contemplate the presence of God over the long term. In her book Inner Compass, Margaret Silf tells of a leisurely driving trip she took in the Scottish countryside with her relatives, when they came upon a sign that said, “This is the source of the River Tweed.” In just a short time they watched the stream, which began as an insignificant spring, spread and grow, finally becoming a “stately presence in the valley town,” a great river spanned by a bridge, fished in by fishermen, a source of beauty in the countryside. By car they traversed the path of the river in a few minutes.
In All People
Finding God in all things also means finding God in all people. St. Alphonsus Rodríguez (1532–1617) was a Jesuit brother who for forty-six years served at the Jesuit college in Majorca, Spain, in the humble job of a porter, or doorkeeper. Joseph Tylenda, S.J., writes in his book_7esuit Saints and Martyrs: “His duty was to receive the visitors who came to the college, search out the fathers or students who were wanted in the parlors, deliver messages, run errands, console the sick at heart who, having no one to turn to, came to him, give advice to the troubled, and distribute alms to the needy.” St. Alphonsus was devoted to finding God in the present moment. “Lord, let me know you. And let me know myself,” he would pray. Each time the bell rang, he looked to the door and envisioned that it was God himselfwho was standing outside seeking entrance. On his way, he would say, “I’m coming, Lord!”
Silf asks us if we consider our lives in this way. Can we use the examen to look backward, to find the hidden sources of the “landscape of your circumstances”? What parts of our landscapes resisted the flow of water, and what encouraged them? (Remember Félicité, the heroine of “A Simple Heart”? Flaubert describes her as every morning recalling “the days gone by and the smallest details of unimportant events, without sorrow, quite serenely.”)
Put another way, can we use the examen to look back over our entire life? You might call this the “life examen.”
BEAUTIFUL YESTERDAYS
The daily examen is of special help to seekers, agnostics, and atheists. For them it can be altered into a “prayer of awareness.” The first step is to be consciously aware of yourself and your surroundings. The second step is to remember what you’re grateful for. The third is the review of the day. The fourth step, asking for forgiveness, could be a decision to reconcile with someone you have hurt. And the fifth is to prepare yourself to be aware for the next day. Gradually they may begin to connect the events of their lives with God’s love, presence, and care for them.
A few years ago, I started to lead large groups in this prayer. Most were familiar with Christian spirituality. But even people who had never prayed before were enthusiastic about the examen. And around the same time, as I mentioned, I was invited to work with a group of actors putting together an Off-Broadway play. The summer after the play closed I was invited to their summer workshop, where they staged brand-new plays and offered courses on various facets of theater arts. Most “guests” were asked to offer the company a workshop on something like Shakespearean drama, or voice, or movement.
What could I offer? I had had zero acting experience. Then it dawned on me: the examen. One afternoon, in an airy dance studio, I led about fifteen actors, writers, directors, and playwrights through the five steps. Some had meditated before, others hadn’t, some believed in God, others didn’t, some weren’t sure, others didn’t say. At the end of the session we discussed what we had felt.
My favorite response came from a young New York actor who said he always had a hard time meditating and wasn’t even sure if he believed in God. But when the examen was finished, he said, “I never knew that my yesterday was so beautiful.”
That’s the theme of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, first performed in 1938 and beloved by high school performing-arts groups. One character, Emily Webb, who has died in childbirth, asks to return to the world of the living. As she sees the simple things that make up our days—ironing, hot baths, meals, sleeping, and waking up—she says, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”
The examen helps you to “realize” the presence of God. For me, it transcends any proofs for the existence of God by asking you to notice where God already exists in your life, where your yesterdays were beautiful. With that awareness you will begin to notice God’s presence more and more in your day.
Let me end our discussion of the examen with a story from the Indian Jesuit Anthony de Mello. His book The Song of the Bird includes several marvelous parables about the awareness of God. This one is called “The Little Fish.”
“Excuse me,” said an ocean fish. “You are older than I, so can you tell me where to find this thing they call the ocean?”
“The ocean,” said the older fish, “is the thing you are in now.”
“Oh, this? But this is water. What I’m seeking is the ocean,” said the disappointed fish as he swam away to search elsewhere.
“Stop searching, little fish,” says de Mello. “There isn’t anything to lookfor. All you have to do is look”
Chapter Five
Beginning to Pray
So I’ve Found God. . . Now What?
THE EXAMEN IS AN easy way to discover God in your daily life. But as useful as the examen is, there is lots more to prayer than looking back over your day.
The best way for me to talk about prayer is to tell you something about my own first steps in the life of prayer, which might give you the confidence to start, or continue along, your own journey. Since I knew very little about prayer until later in life, it’s easy for me to sympathize with newcomers.
But, in fact, all of us are newcomers to prayer, because our relationship with God changes over time and is constantly being renewed.
CAN I ASK GOD FOR HELP?
When I was a boy, I used to pray a lot.
In the first grade, I used to envision God not as the Creator or the Almighty or the Supreme Judge but, as I mentioned, the Great Problem Solver, the one to whom you turned to fix things, to change things, or to help you out of a scrape. And since there were lots of things I wanted fixed (my baseball prowess, my trumpet skills, my math ability), I turned to God frequently.
It’s as natural to turn to God in need as it is for a child to ask a parent for help, or for an adult to ask a favor from a friend. Being human means being in relationship. Being human also means being in need. So being human means sometimes asking for help.
As a boy, my preferred method of asking for help from God was to repeat rote prayers, like the Our Father and Hail Mary, over and over, with the number of repetitions in direct proportion to the desired outcome. Nerves about a spelling quiz would prompt a Hail Mary as I walked to school. If I was worried about a Little League tryout or a big solo in band practice, I would pray many Hail Marys. The more I wanted something, the more prayers I said.
This type of prayer—asking for help—is called petitionary prayer and is probably the type of prayer with which most of us are familiar. Asking God for something you want is both common and natural.
Still, every form of prayer has its pitfalls. One danger of petitionary prayer
is that it can remove from our spiritual lives an awareness of God’s freedom and may move into the realm of superstition or even magic. You might feel that if you pray a certain prayer, or in a certain way, or use a fixed number of repetitions, you just might be able to cajole God into doing something, to force God to respond. But prayers are not spells or incantations designed to “make” something happen. (Which was exactly what I was hoping for as a boy!)
Perhaps because of this fear of superstition, many people have told me they feel guilty when they use petitionary prayer. Or selfish. They say, “There are so many people in the world who need so much more than I do. How could I possibly ask God for something?”
Never Mind
One joke about petitionary prayer has a man desperately searching for a space in a church parking lot on a wedding day. As best man in the wedding, he can’t be late. “God,” he prays in desperation, “I’ll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life, if you just find me a space!”
Suddenly a spot opens up. “Oh, never mind God,” he says. “I just found one.”
There are certainly many people who need things more than you (and I) do. But while it’s important to keep your own needs in perspective, it is impossible not to pray this way: I don’t know anyone who does not feel the need to call to God for help.
God, I believe, also wants us to be open about what we need. This is part of having an honest relationship with God. Let’s say that you’ve just lost your job or just received a frightening diagnosis from your doctor. How could you not cry out to God for help?
Petitionary prayers likely began as soon as human beings became aware of the limitations of their own existence. Their forms may have originated in some practices of prehistory—requesting favors from the various gods, deities, and spirits through prayer, ritual, and sacrifice.
But this does not mean that the modern believer should shun them: prehistoric petitionary prayers may simply reflect the inchoate human desire for relationship with God. And petitionary prayers have a long lineage in Jewish and Christian history. They are at least as old as the psalms. “Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint,” says the writer of Psalm 64. Nearly all the major figures of the Old Testament, as well as the prophets, at one time or another, called on God for help.
This way of relating to God continues unabated through the New Testament. Think of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, who cried out even when his friends told him to be silent. “What do you want me to do for you?” asked Jesus. Jesus himself instructs his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” This is simple petitionary prayer.
Petitionary prayer is natural, human, and common. It expresses our very real need for God’s help. It was the primary way that I prayed as a boy.
But it never dawned on me that prayer could be anything else.
MAKING LISTS, GETTING A TAN, AND FINDING GOD
That changed at age twenty-six, when I began thinking about entering a religious order. At that point I was still praying the way I had when I was nine years old. Still praying all those Hail Marys and Our Fathers whenever I needed something badly.
The first person with whom I discussed entering the Jesuits was Father Jim Kane, the vocations director, in charge of recruiting and screening applicants. Father Kane, a friendly, fortyish man with a sunny disposition, said that in addition to completing an application, writing a brief spiritual autobiography, being interviewed by several Jesuits, gathering a series of recommendations, and undergoing a battery of psychological tests, he wanted me to complete a directed retreat.
A what?
From reading about Thomas Merton’s life in the monastery, I knew that a retreat meant spending time secluded somewhere in prayer. But what was a directed retreat? Maybe, I thought, they directed you to different parts of the Bible.
But I wanted to enter the Jesuits, so I agreed. “How many days should I reserve for the retreat?” I asked.
“Well,” said Father Kane, “it’s an eight-day silent retreat.”
“Eight days!” I said. How could anyone pray for eight days?
I imagined sitting immobile in a dark room with my eyes closed for the length of the retreat. Or maybe sitting on an uncomfortable pew in some dusty chapel. It also seemed an insane amount of time to take off—over half of my annual vacation days. And silent? Praying for eight days was hard enough. Staying silent for that long seemed impossible.
The next day I asked Father Kane to fax the agenda to me, so I could prepare for my trip. He laughed. “There’s no agenda,” he said. “It’s a retreat.”
One of my most vivid memories of that time is sitting at my desk, hearing Father Kane’s response and thinking, as any businessperson might, No agenda? For eight days? Who are these people?
But my desire to join the Jesuits (and escape my old life) was so powerful that I asked my manager for time off and made plans to drive to the Campion Renewal Center in Weston, Massachusetts, where I would spend eight silent, agendaless days.
A few weeks later, in the middle of June, I arrived in Weston, a leafy suburb outside of Boston, and found my way to Campion Renewal Center. Formerly a school of philosophy and theology for Jesuit seminarians, the immense brick complex, built in 1926, now served as a combination retreat house and infirmary for the elderly Jesuits in New England. It took its name from St. Edmund Campion, one of the Jesuits martyred in the sixteenth century during the reign of Elizabeth I for ministering to Catholics in Protestant England.
My spartan room on the fourth floor was furnished like every other retreat-house room I’ve seen since: a bed (single of course), a desk and chair, a sink, a rocking chair, and a crucifix on the wall. It was also enormously hot, owing to the sticky Boston summer that year. An ancient fan did its best to move the sultry air around my room. Most mornings I woke up sweating, feeling like a turkey being roasted in an oven.
Shortly after I arrived, I met with Ron, a young Jesuit who explained that he would be directing me, helping to guide me through my prayer. I pretended to know what he was talking about. Then he said I should spend the first day enjoying nature. I was relieved—I could do that.
The next day was more pleasant than anticipated. For one thing, silence wasn’t all that difficult. For another, the novelty of possibly entering religious life was still fresh, so I could imagine myself as a silent, holy, humble Jesuit as I paced the marble floors of Campion Center and strolled the spacious grounds, carrying a Bible. After six years in a stressful corporate environment, the opportunity to lie out on the grass, read books, and work on my tan was welcome.
The next day I told Ron how relaxing the day had been. At the end of our conversation, Ron said, “Why don’t you spend some time over the next day thinking about who God is.”
Aha! A trick! The Jesuits were fiendishly clever, or so I had heard. Evidently, they were testing my religious education, to ascertain if I knew enough to be a good priest.
That afternoon I lay down on the broad lawn beside the retreat house and tried to figure out how I should describe God. Let’s see, I thought, God is:
1. Creator
2. Love
3. Almighty
Though almighty was more of an adjective, I figured this was an impressive list. The next afternoon I presented to Ron my answers, which I hoped would cement his appreciation for my awesome intellect. “Okay,” Ron said, leaning back slightly in his rocking chair. He chatted about my list but, sadly, seemed unimpressed with my theological acumen. Then he said, “Maybe today you could spend your time thinking about who Jesus is.”
Another trick—more devious than the first one! “Well, Jesus is God,” I said. “Right?”
I expected Ron to congratulate me on slipping through his Jesuitical trap. Instead he said, “Well, that’s true. But why don’t you think about who Jesus is for you. In your own life.”
After lunch I stretched out on the soft grass under the sun, and came up with a new list. Jesus was:
1. Savior
2.
Messiah
3. Prince of Peace
I finished in ten minutes and settled back to work on my tan.
Suddenly a word popped into my mind: friend. Jesus was a friend. That was something I had never thought of before. Nor did I remember anyone’s suggesting it to me. Or, if they did, I hadn’t paid much attention.
For a few minutes I lay on my back, peered into the cloudless blue sky, and imagined what it would be like to have Jesus as a friend.
If Jesus were my friend, he would be happy to listen to me. He would celebrate with me over my successes and be sad with me over my disappointments. He would want the best for me. And he would want to spend time with me and hear about my life.
Then I wondered what Jesus of Nazareth was really like. Of course I had heard the Gospel readings during Mass, understood something about his life, and knew about his miracles and his resurrection, but now I wondered what he was like as a person. What was it like for the apostles to hang around with Jesus? It must have been wonderful to be around him, to have him give you support, to answer your questions. It felt good, comforting, even exciting, to think about Jesus like this. I started to think about wanting him as a friend.
Then, with a start, I realized I was being distracted from the real reason I was supposed to be thinking about this. Dutifully I forced myself to return to my list. What else should I add?
Jesus was also:
4. Good Shepherd
5. Judge
6. Lamb of God (whatever that was)
The next morning I ticked off my list for Ron. He listened patiently and then chatted with me about those images.
As a guilty afterthought, I added, “You know, the funniest thing popped into my mind. For a moment I thought about Jesus as a friend. For some reason, I thought about the apostles and imagined them spending time with Jesus. It felt good to think about Jesus as a friend. It made me happy.”
