Recently a friend I had assumed to be atheist revealed his fledgling faith to me. He had come to acknowledge that something bigger than him was at play following the untimely death of his cousin. While any realization of faith is amazing to witness, the truly shocking part came when he began to apologize. He felt it must be wrong to come to faith only in the wake of a tragedy. I hope I was able to comfort and counsel him appropriately. After all there’s a reason we call these moments that alter our paths and our beliefs “life-changing experiences.” Whether unfathomably sad, remarkably positive, or somewhere in between these moments shake our old selves to the core and set us in a new direction.
My friend was put on a new path without premeditation or warning—and this sort of tragedy will undoubtedly strike many of us off our guard—but he is not there alone, for he has friends who have been on similar paths, and can navigate it with him. His is the sort of experience Kenda Creasy Dean wants us all to experience. To be clear, the life-changing part is what she wants for us. Any undertaking or event—happy, sad, in between—that sets us on a path closer to Jesus’s commandments is a life-changing experience. It sounds easy: Don’t we see God every day and talk about Him in Church each Sunday? The reality is a much bigger challenge. We need to be constantly seeing our lives and our call to serve God from a new perspective; and, the only way to gain a new perspective is to move to a different vantage point.
So we need to be constantly moving. Not necessarily physically, but distance is one tool that’s especially helpful for young people. Dean points out some of the positive attributes of the mission trips we send our youth on are that they remove the kids from the routine of their everyday lives, give them a chance to freely enact and talk about God’s will for them, and allow them to reflect on how they live their home lives. On a mission trip the familiar excuses for living a self-serving rather than Christ-serving life are stripped away by distance. Miles away from temptation the kids are able to step outside of their lives and, whether they realize it or not, pray reflectively. As adults we are able to think in more abstract terms. While changes of pace or scenery remain useful tools for drawing us back to God throughout our lives, if we’re able to discern God’s call to us in the mundane they are neither always necessary nor the only way we find new perspective. You may not go away as these teens do, but you can reflect on your habits; and, like the teens your consciousness and life will be altered by what you find.
One example Dean gives us for discerning God’s call to live out our faith is through Ignatius’s prayer of examen. This is a self-reflective prayer that can be split into five sections. I find this prayer to be such a useful tool that I’ve copied Dean’s modernized “Ignatian Examination of Consciousness” below:
THE IGNATIAN EXAMINATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
(PRAYER OF EXAMEN)
1. Recall that you are in God’s presence.
2. Return thanks to God for the gifts of the day.
3. Ask God to reveal the truth as you look at your actions and attitudes with honesty and patience.
4. Review the day, looking especially for spiritual consolations (places of increased love for God, hope and charity towards others, sorrow for sin, interior joy, peace, movements toward God, etc.) and spiritual desolations (places of unrest, darkness of the soul, self-focused desire, lack of confidence, sadness, thoughts that lead away from God, separation from God).
5. React and respond to Jesus personally, putting into words your heart’s desire, asking forgiveness, strength, and hope to confront desolations, and giving thanks for consolations.
By taking the time to go through this prayer we set aside a time to step outside of ourselves and look at each of our days as possible life-changing experiences. We are able to find the infinitely huge love of God in Christ Jesus in even the smallest things, and consciously change our paths to better share that love. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about the constant bettering of the self. Each day brings new experiences, so the Prayer of Examen is always new, and we are always growing closer to God through its use.
As adults, we are able to create life-changing moments through examining ourselves. When we treat ourselves as perpetual works in progress and strive to experience God’s life-changing presence (with or without an expensive trip) then we are showing our youth how to do the same. That’s not to say that Christian camps and mission trips are superfluous, but that as children grow into teens who mature into adults they should be welcomed into a community that lives into the ideals those camps and mission trips impart. Without a dynamic Christian community to which the kids return the trips are just experiences in a vacuum—there’s no longer a life-changing component to them. So keep moving, keep changing and growing. Strive to live the life God intends for you and those around you, especially the youth, will follow your lead.
Cassandra Myers is a volunteer youth leader at Grace Church in Haddonfield, NJ.
