Hi there,
My name is Lee and I'm Britta's husband and Britta asked me to sit in for her for these next few days to offer you a practice that's very near and dear to my heart for our Daily Grace practice.
So I'm very excited to be here and share something that's very personal to me that I've found very inspiring over the years and that's the examined prayer of Ignatius of Loyola.
So that's what we're going to be doing this week and I'm going to share the steps with you one or two at a time and we'll do a simplified version and this is a,
Over the course of several days we'll build it together but each one of these steps is very very rich so even today just the first step that we're going to get into is a very very rich way to open to grace and that's really what this is about.
Let me say a quick word about Ignatius of Loyola,
Talk for hours about Ignatius and that's something for another time but one thing you should know about Ignatius is that for him his connection to grace was very very personal and the word God was quite resonant for Ignatius and for him this prayer in his life was a way of seeing grace in everything that's what this prayer is about seeing God's grace God's presence as everything in fact for Ignatius you might say all of life was kind of a love song being sung to him right in that great mystic tradition of Rumi or Teresa of Avila you know it's God speaking and loving him and he saw that everywhere all of creation and all the comings and goings of the day and all the challenges and the graces and the gifts and all of it so this is really an invitation to open our minds and our mindset and our vision to in from Ignatius' perspective the deeper truth of what life is about so one thing we can take from that is is this personal notion so I may use the word God and you can trade that out any way you like but one thing you can you can take with from Ignatius when we say the word God is it was very personal it wasn't just a cosmic energy it was being like being loved by a grandmother or a dear father or a dear friend or even a pet so perhaps you want to borrow this week something that Britta introduced recently and maybe last week or so which was the idea of the compassionate image which is something we use in the compassion cultivation training the compassionate image maybe there's an image for you that that's so loving and so deep and letting yourself be loved by that that we that you can tap into that as your source of grace or God so you can play with that this week so for now just two steps there's a pre-step to the examine prayer and that pre-step is to just simply remind us that we are in the presence of grace we are in the presence of God that's the first step and the second step is to call to mind and heart the gratitudes of the past 24 hours or any gratitudes that come to your heart so that's what we'll do today okay so just finding a moment to to close your eyes or a position that feels good in your body a straight spine and if it feels good closing your eyes taking a few deep breaths and just turning your attention your awareness to the presence of grace simply reminding yourself that you are forever and always in God's presence or as we will say during the course of these daily grace videos in the presence of grace and perhaps you want to call to mind and heart that compassionate image or that image of grace that is your gateway to that acknowledgement in your body and your mind and your heart that you were so deeply loved for me the image I've often used is of my grandmother such a clean deep uncomplicated sense of being loved so what is it for you that you can rest in for a moment in this pre-step this pre-step to the exam and reminding myself that I am forever and always in the presence of grace and whatever that is for you just breathe into it sit into it settle into it perhaps deepening your breath even further and in the spirit of Ignatius we could just if that fills you up you just pause the video you stop and you stay there Ignatius being the mystic that he was would say with I feel the overwhelming presence of grace I need go no further into the exam but we will now build on that foundation go to the first real step of the exam and that's welcoming the gratitudes of the day so keeping your eyes closed if that still feels good for you and turning towards these gratitudes what are you grateful for and in a daily way we would look back over the last 24 hours and and see there's so many blessings from my just my very existence when I slow down when I pause maybe there was just a realization that I'm here or that someone loves me or maybe maybe there was a kind word spoken to you earlier today maybe you got a phone call that touched your heart or maybe you just like me sometimes you look at the trees and you feel an overwhelming sense of being loved by grace but taking a moment to sift through to let these come these graces these gratitudes and just hold them in your heart in your mind breathe into them let them move you let them touch you and just letting those reverberate with you today and we're gonna pause here we're gonna stop and conclude our exam but know that you can sit with those graces silently longer or just just bring that eye of gratitude with you into your day and let gratitude be a part of your day today.
