“Kindling Your Inner Fire” was the name for a gathering of lay ministers, all alums of Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge. We assembled two weeks ago for a day of sharing stories about working in parish churches, hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and other settings. Some twenty women and men, we welcomed the opportunity to explore with others spirituality relevant to our ministry.
As a way to stir reflection on our spiritual life, the group leader proposed identifying five themes that have helped shape the persons we have become. She herself led the way, listing the following themes in her own life and explaining how each had brought her to a new stage of development.
In turn, her life has been characterized by Helping, Longing for God, Making the World Better, Holiness, and the Global Family. For each of them she supplied detail so that everyone could understand how each stage affected her life. Of course, these stages were not entirely separate from one another but, rather, all of them flowed into and out of the others.
Another woman had become a priest in middle age and now serves in an Episcopal parish church. The five themes that she identified and shared with the group sound like classical expressions of the great spiritual tradition. Starting with her thirties, she first felt Restlessness, then experienced Hurt, Discovery, Desire for God, and the Call.
When it came my turn, I needed to make two lists of five inner experiences. For me, the two groups were necessary because my spiritual life can only be understood in the light of dramatic changes that took place in my middle years.
In the first group I listed the following: Death, Priesthood, Community, Perfection, and Asceticism. These items may sound abstract but, for me, they had deep reality. In fact, they led me to leave home at age twenty-one to join a religious order.
My second group of five includes strikingly different spiritual priorities. Freedom, Ordinariness, Creativity, Fatherhood, and Friendships qualify as leading themes in the latter part of my life.
It is tempting to explain each one of the headings, some of which do not have meaning easily understood. However, I list them here to suggest one way for you, the reader, to reflect on your own spiritual life. You, too, can make a list of the dominant themes that have helped make you into the person you are.
After working in small groups to assemble our lists and explain them to one another, we lay ministers once again all came together for discussion of our findings. Attempting to find common themes, we identified several that, often in different words, ran through the lists made by individuals.
The first such general theme was called “the Hound of Heaven.” The phrase refers to a poem of the same name written by Francis Thompson, a nineteenth century English poet. There the poet envisions God as a stalker of the soul, pursuing human beings until they surrender to him in love. Some members of our group have felt themselves pursued by God.
Another such theme was described as “Churning,” the dissatisfaction that many people have felt with the world, a feeling that has stirred in them the desire to serve God. Breakthroughs, Encounters, and Struggle also came up for discussion.
Further discussion flowed from an attempt to identify those factors that have helped and hindered our “ministerial vitality and sense of God.”
Some of the resources the group found helpful include continued learning, good mentors, humor, prayer groups, annual retreats, and physical exercise. Problem areas identified included what women called “the stained glass ceiling” preventing them from going to higher levels in church jobs, isolation, possessiveness about one’s own work, and workaholism.
This brief description of the “Kindling Your Inner Fire” experience may suggest some of the wealth of spiritual experience shared by members of the group. It may also suggest to you the rich potential of your own interior life and the value to be gained from reflecting on your spiritual history. Undoubtedly you yourself have known many of the themes mentioned here and can profit from continuing to reflect on them and perhaps praying over them as well.
Richard Griffin