Set the Wayback Machine for circa 1994 BSJ (that is, Before the Society of Jesus - I wouldn't enter the Jesuits until 1997)... I was living and working in Washington DC, having moved from Detroit a year prior. As often happens to one in their mid-twenties, I found myself mired in a bit of chaos that left me a bit spiritually, emotionally and physically undone (much of it thanks to mine own creation).
Now, I've always found a refuge in the arts - be it live music, film, or upon the walls of a museum. As chance (providence?) would have it, 1994 was the year the National Gallery of Art in DC presented the most comprehensive retrospective of photos to date by Robert Frank entitled Moving Out. I had known Frank's work as a photojournalist as well as his association with Kerouac and Ginsberg. What the exhibit introduced me to was Frank's later, more personal and introspective work from the 1970s onward.
One of the final photos in the exhibit was Hold Still Keep Going, taken by Frank in Mabou, Nova Scotia. During those months in late 1994, I found myself returning to the exhibit weekly (if not more), making my way to that sole photo and just sitting with it. Just holding still so as to keep going.
I've returned to that mantra time and again in the years that have since passed. That very holding still so as to keep going is a consideration I find echoed by St. Ignatius in the very onset of the Spiritual Exercises where the retreatant is invited to consider what I have done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ? (SpEx 53). To take the time to examine the past, present and future in terms of one's personal, unique journey with Jesus.
And so it will be in November when I make the thirty-day silent Spiritual Exercises again during my tertianship in the Philippines. Yet, in a micro kinda way, that's where I find myself these past weeks. Between my father's death and my departure from Holy Trinity parish in DC, between DC and Detroit and now San Francisco, I find myself ever-so desirous for the opportunity to slow down, to hold still with Jesus. It feels as if I've been drinking from a spiritual firehose of God's grace in all that has transpired... and I simply need the opportunity to reflect on where I've been with Christ in the past months (and years, for that matter).
To return to all of these places... all so heavily charged with so many and so much. To allow this time betwixtbetween my experience of the past years as a parish priest and my time as a tertian to just be, to just hold still, to simply relish the abundant graces... to consider the countless gifts... and those that I might have overlooked.
To hold still.
Yet as one holds still, reflecting on past, present and future, one begins to feel... well, a bit unstuck in time.
Hold still, Billy Pilgrim.
Before moving onward & upward into a series of wise, profound, provocative (and ever-so humble) ruminations which this spiritual travelogue will surely deliver, a few explanatory words regarding this business of Jesuit tertianship...
Tertianship, or third probation, is the final stage of Jesuit formation prior to professing final vows. It is my understanding (I'll surely comment a bit more first-hand in the months to come) that tertianship is, in many ways, a return to the experiences a Jesuit encounters at the beginning of Jesuit formation as a novice in the novitiate. As a Jesuit novice, one passes through two probationary periods. In Jesuit terms, probation is not a negative; rather, it is a period of deliberation in which an individual discerns (in a disposition of spiritual freedom) one's vocation as a Jesuit. The first probation occurs the first two or so weeks after one arrives at the novititate. The second probation is the two-year novitiate that follows. During this time, a Jesuit novice is immersed in prayer, study, and apostolic works. A major facet of this time is making the Spiritual Exercises, the thirty-day silent retreat created by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
So as to deflect reception of the Tolstoy Award for prolixity ("nothing a pair of scissors can't fix"), allow me to fast-forward through roughly nine years of Jesuit formation (First Studies, Regency, Theology).
Once ordained as a Jesuit priest (unless one discerns a vocation as a Jesuit brother), one usually spends a few years in full-time apostolic work and possibly further studies. For me, this has been a graced-filled, joyous, challenging five years at here at Holy Trinity parish in Washington DC as a parochial vicar (a fancy, technical term for assistant pastor).
Upon "completing" all of these stages of formation, a Jesuit enters the third, final period of probation: tertianship (from the Latin terce, for three). This occurs around fifteen or so years after having entered the Society of Jesus. For me, it'll be sixteen years (I'm a little sluggish). Tertianship is the third probationary period in preparation for final vows in the Society of Jesus. As mentioned above, the experiences during tertianship return a Jesuit to the formative experiences of novititiate: prayer, study, apostolic works, and making the thirty-day silent Spiritual Exercises a second time.
All members before pronouncing final vows must complete a third year of probation, exercising themselves in the school of the heart... (t)he purpose of this probation is for each one, in concrete and personal contact with the things of the Society, to bring to completion a synthesis of spiritual, apostolic, and intellectual or technical formation, which makes for a fuller integration in the Lord of the whole personality, in keeping with the Society's objective as St. Ignatius described it: "that, since they have made progress, they may better help others to make spiritual progress to the glory of God and of our Lord."
(From The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms, (Norms, Part V, 125)
School of the heart... you might now appreciate the titling of this blog. Such an evocative phrase coalescing Ignatius' worldview and spirituality. Such a beautiful, compelling description for the emerging chapter of this journey.
At this time God was dealing with him in the same way as a schoolteacher deals with a child, teaching him....
(from A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 27)
My brother (undergrad) passed on a copy of Kerouac's On The Road to me (high school) and everything changed. I prayed, oh-so earnestly prayed, for the life described within that flimsy paperback with the ugly sun on the cover. I prayed to be the vagabond, I prayed for a life on the road in a '49 Hudson, I prayed I prayed that I would write mad spontaneous prose atop an Underwood, I prayed to roam with
the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...
Oh yes. I prayed.
More tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones. So said Teresa of Avila.
I received everything I prayed for, but the Lord knows better our hearts' desires than we. Kerouac the vagabond was transfigured to Ignatius the pilgrim. The '49 Hudson emerged as countless minivans and Camrys (Jesuit automotive staples). And the Underwood became...
...a blog.
And yes, the mad ones.
What's past is mere prologue, dear Bard.
