Resistant to Care

“Resistant to care” is a general clinical term used to describe a patient who opposes or impedes the interventions made on their behalf.  (In this scenario, their caretakers must be more creative in their care for this individual.)

As it concerns our development as loving persons, on some basic level, we are all “resistant to care.”  We resist providing the body with what the health it truly wants.  We rush by explosions of natural beauty.  We don’t adequately attend to children. We get in our own way, complicating our reception of the love that life offers to us.

Our task, then, is to pray for the grace to become less “resistant to care.”

And Let It Begin With…

At home, growing up, we would jokingly sing the refrain to the church hymn “Let there be peace on earth” as follows:

“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with *you*…”

While silly, this is too often how we approach all kinds of conflict.  

Understanding my role in the system of the conflict can help untangle the situation and provide a path forward.

Conversation during the extra mile

Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. (Matthew 5:41)

Walking the extra mile (after that initial distance is completed), what is the conversation like?

Does the conversation change?  And how?

Perhaps one’s inner chatter (about what that person must be like) quiets down, defenses fall, better questions are asked and answered…

And as understanding deepens, patience is extended to the irrationality and incoherence present in everyone’s story.   

This sort of transformation (becoming human, poor in spirit) is on offer for the compassionate and curious traveler. 

The Foundational Home

Aristotle explored ethics “[not] in order to know what virtue is, but [that we might] become good.” 

With what does it begin?

The household – our management of it and the formation we internalize while in it.

When I am able to see the home not as a not a chore to begrudge, rush through, or outsource – but as a foundation for a deeply good, abundant life, a new way of living opens before me.

In Gratitude  

Understatement alert! 

Many words have been written and spoken about sin.  

What if any communication on the topic started with St. Ignatius’ contention that a lack of gratitude was the sin to watch out for.  How would that change the conversation?

“It seems to me in the light of the Divine Goodness… that ingratitude is the most abominable of sins… For it is a forgetting of the graces, benefits, and blessings received.” (St. Ignatius quoted on pg. 110 in The Ignatian Adventure)

The Professional Reader

We rightly appreciate great writing.  The value of authors that can teach a distilled concept or weave a magical world is congratulated and remunerated. 

But what about the value of readers?  How might we equally honor the student (or adult) who seeks out varied and worthy writing, courageously struggles to understand its import and beauty, and recreates their vision and engagement of the world in the encounter?

An exceptional reader may be just as valuable an exceptional writer – and perhaps more rare.  

We can choose to become and to appreciate outstanding readers.  These days, we need them more than ever.

Presupposing Goodness

St. Ignatius describes a “presupposition” that should guide the relationship between spiritual director and directee as follows:

That both the giver and the maker of the Spiritual Exercises may be of greater help and benefit to each other, it should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it.

Further, if one cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love; and if this is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved. (SE 22, emphasis added)

While meant in a very specific context, it is difficult to imagine a relationship that this kind of rapport would not enhance. 

And as far as possible without wildly being taken advantage of, adoption of this presupposition would make American political life far more productive, generous, and engaging.

A Smart Phone Benediction

Last year, I saw a US Catholic Bishop interacting with his smart phone in a remarkable way.

Before he would unlock it, he would discretely cross himself and momentarily pray.  

I did not ask him about this practice (I wish that I had!) but I wonder what his intention or petition was as he prayed.

What might a “prayer as one picks up their phone” sound like? 

It’s not a bad idea given the amount of time our devices dominate our attention.