Dots in the Gym:Remedy for Discouragement

I wrote previously that the first thing I noticed after officially retiring from active diaconal ministry was how I was able to attend to the prayers and the music of the Mass. No need to double track about what was coming next in the liturgy and what I needed to get ready for. I think I understand why our former pastor used to say back in the days when we had 11 Masses of Christmas, that HIS Mass was the 10 pm Christmas Eve Mass. Things had quieted down and he did not have as many agenda items to keep track of as when the big crowds were present.

Another retirement phenomenon - somewhat related - seems to be the ability to be still with time. And this in turn causes dots to connect readily. I always enjoyed when that happened during homily preparation, but there is an easier flow now, it seems.

Which brings me to the gym.

We have been going to the gym for years. Treadmill is our thing (supplemented by stretching exercises at home.)  When I started chemotherapy in 2015 my doctor told me that my otherwise good health was going to mean everything for how I tolerated the chemo. That was our first confirmation that all that walking had paid some dividends. You may know the rest of the story. The full heavy treatment resulted in full remission. Then I read in The Lymphoma Survivors Newsletter that walking is vitally important for survivors and really for anyone, because unlike the blood system which has a pump - the heart - the lymph system which carries off impurities in your body, does not have its own pump. It relies on muscle activity. Thirty minutes minimum walking each day apparently does the trick, according to the cited research.

Which brings me back to the gym.

The development of technology, or at least my arrival at it, has meant that I can listen not only to music on my phone, but also books, podcasts, sermons, lectures, etc etc. I have been devouring texts by or about Jean Vanier, John Chrysostom, Cardinal - now Saint - John Henry Newman, Ignatius Loyola, Therese of Lisieux, (the Little Flower), and her parents (also recently canonized as a couple) Zelie and Louis.

It turns out that not only can you get the materials from a variety of sources, but there is a great website called Discerning Hearts. I do not know a whole lot about them, and I will explore further in due course. But for the moment there is a priest I am listening to a great deal, named Fr. Tim Gallagher. He is the easiest guy to listen to, ever! And guess what, he is a Spiritual Director in the Ignatian tradition (my background) and he is a very big fan of Therese of Lisieux, as am I. His series on the letters by Therese is simply wonderful for its clarity in unfolding the spirituality of Therese. He also makes frequent reference to a book by Guy Gaucher called The Passion of Therese of Lisieux. I prided myself in being aware of a lot that has been written by and about Therese, but this was new to me. On Fr. Gallagher’s recommendation I got it through Amazon and am now well into it. It pulls together her beautiful letters, her final conversations and her autobiography in a way that puts you in the room with her during her agonizing death (suffocation due to tuberculosis) over 30 months leading to Sept 30, 1897.

Another dot. Fr. Gallagher also has a series on Discernment in the spirituality of Ignatius Loyola. I would never sit for an hour or 45 minutes listening to a podcast at home, but on the treadmill with noise cancelling headphones, time flies. Hence the devouring.

And the dots.

Discouragement. It hits me: how does one get out of bed each day with the news cycles we are going to be exposed to over and over and over. In a post-truth world where grown adults sell their souls every single day in favour of profit, electibility, illusions of legacy, power and influence, or whatever. Name your poison. And in the middle of all this when we try to turn to our faith, we find bad news even there, in the behaviour of our leadership, including the severe push back against our Pope by some members of that leadership.

And then we look in the mirror, and we notice our own struggles. I do, for sure. Interpersonal, moral, financial. They are the same as yesterday. And the day before. The thought of solving the issues with others, or of conquering our own struggles, is daunting, some days overwhelming. We try not to think about them, and we carry on. Doing pretty well for the most part.

The thing is, it is sometimes too big to think about all at once. And that is why the dots are important here. Because what they give us is a return to our roots, our foundation.

Here are the dots I have rediscovered.

Foundation is the word Ignatius used in the opening of his Spiritual Exercises: Introducing everything that was to follow, he said: “The purpose for which were created is to praise, reverence and serve the Lord, and by this means to save our souls.’ We were loved into existence, and our gifts, our desires, and deepest yearnings are included in there. Our job is to trust that, and to trust the God who has known us from all eternity (Ps. 139) At the end of the Spiritual Exercises, after going through all the implications of the introduction, Ignatius concludes with his famous prayer: Take Lord, receive, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me, now I return it. Dispose of it according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me..

That is an awfully big mouthful of surrendering. It basically means, Lord I know you love me. I place all I am in your hands and trust you to lead me even when things are going really badly. During my cancer treatment, I surely did not know where things were going. I leaned heavily on that prayer. It was very freeing and would have remained so with any outcome.

Therese of Lisieux comes at the same thing, but differently. She stated many times, I am not one of the great thinkers or theologians. My relationship with God is that of a little child to its parent. In the face of complicated teachings, she said she simply turned to the Gospels, everything was there, Yes indeed. In the face of lofty prayers, she looked into the face of God as a child would their parent. She cut through a lot of what we might call over-thinking. She said this: " ..... I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short and totally new."

Straight, short, and new. Her ‘Little Way’ was her contribution.

Between Ignatius’ grounding us in our relationship with God who loved us into existence and continues to hold us in his love; and Therese’s childlike (not childish) trust in this same loving God, we hold the answer to discouragement. Step back and get re-anchored. On the worst of days - of our own making or the making of others - we belong to God who will never forget us, will never stop loving us, will never stop supporting us. We are safe. Remember to keep the dots connected, is all.