Week 10: Visualizing Your Workout

As we approach Easter Break (just one more week!), we also approach the end of our lectures on Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises. As such, for this week’s blog post Fr. Ted has requested that we select four images – one representing each of the four Weeks.

For those of you not in the know, the four Weeks of the Exercises do not correspond to four seven-day-long periods. Rather, they are stages within the Exercises, to be done at whatever pace the director deems necessary for the retreatant.

So, without further ado, here are the four images which I believe best represent the Spiritual Exercises.

Week One is all about introspection. It starts off with the Principle and Foundation, which basically says that God loves us and has created the world for us out of this love, and so we should love him in return. This sparks the series of personal reflections on our strengths and weaknesses in this goal, which characterizes the First Week. In short, I guess I thought of a word that best represented the Week (introspection), and then chose this image as a visual manifestation of that.

In all honesty, part of what drew me to this image (of a real-life statue) was the shock factor. I mean, what kind of twisted person would think to put Lenin, Mickey Mouse, and Jesus walking hand-in-hand? The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that they all fit the criteria of what the Second Week is all about: our heroes. Jesus is inherently in there, since he is ultimately the one we are asked to follow. But even Lenin and Mickey are leaders of their own kind, who have characteristics that I’m sure many people across the world can look up to. Plus, with them all holding hands, it gives off an air of friendship, which leads into the Third Week.

With the third week focusing on the Passion and Jesus’s death, it evokes a complex amalgamation of grief and gratitude. After becoming friends with Jesus in the first two Weeks, we now contemplate how he is dying for our sins. We have to ask ourselves, would we do the same for him, and are we willing to share in his suffering? It took me a good while before I finally thought of a similar sense of sorrow and thankfulness, and that’s how I feel towards the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe and free.

Finally, the Fourth Week is – in the words of Fr. Gerald Fagin – one of joy and hope. I thought this particular image captured the nuances of those two better than simply a smiling face or someone jumping in the air. Not only is the person in this image excited and joyous, but he’s also looking out on the horizon with the whole world in front of him, ready to take it on with confidence. So, too, can the retreatant move on in life with faith in Christ and the knowledge of God’s endless love. 

Week 9: A Hero of Our Stein

What constitutes a hero? Is it someone who you admire for her or his accomplishments in life? Maybe it’s someone whose actions or attitude you wish to emulate in your own? Or is it someone who you would follow to the ends of the Earth because you so believe in her or his cause?

Ignatius has us contemplate the question of who our heroes are in the Second Week of his Spiritual Exercises. This Call of the King is meant to inspire fidelity towards Jesus by first having us turn inward and ask ourselves: would we follow this man – not even as the son of God, but just a man – whose mission it is to save humanity?

Before I could even answer that, however, I had to think about who I would follow if, today, she or he knocked on my door and called me to join a transglobal mission for the greater good. I thought about movie stars, athletes, scientists, directors, but there was no one I could imagine devoting my life to.

Except one.

When this person first popped into mind, I thought it was a fluke. But after the first impression, I kept coming back to him. He isn’t anyone you’d recognize by name. In fact, unless you lived in California in the late ‘90s, you may have absolutely no idea who I’m talking about when I tell you that I think my hero is Robert Steinberg.

If you Google “Robert Steinberg,” the person I mean is the second result, right under Robert Steinberg, the Moldavian mathematician who taught at UCLA. Yes, my hero is Robert Steinberg, the co-founder of Scharffen Berger Chocolate.

Is this simply a chocoholic idolizing a chocolate maker? Maybe a little bit, but I also greatly admire Steinberg’s story, and wish that, if I were a similar situation, I would have the courage and tenacity to follow his example. In 1989, Steinberg was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, and given a 50% chance of dying within ten years. Knowing it would be difficult, he sold his medical practice in California and went out to discover his interests.

Among other things, he took drawing and music lessons, and it was at the suggestion of a friend that he picked up a 600-page textbook on the making of chocolate. With his amazing ability for analysis and investigation, Steinberg set out to reinvent the way that Americans thought about chocolate. He traveled the world, sourcing the best beans, interning with French chocolatiers, and working in his home kitchen using little more than a coffee grinder and a mortar and pestle until he got the recipe just right.

After teaming up with John Scharffenberger, a former patient who had owned a winery, Steinberg moved production to a tiny factory in San Francisco, and then one in Berkeley. It was here that Steinberg produced what Julia Child would claim was the best chocolate she had tasted in the U.S.

I could go on and on about the ways in which Scharffen Berger Chocolate revolutionized the market, including being the first American bar to have the percentage of cacao content, as well as the first bean-to-bar producer of chocolate since the process had been industrialized. But the point is that Steinberg explored the world, found what his passion was, filled a niche that he believed had been empty for far too long, and worked day and night with what he could manage, all to give the world his absolute best. That is why Robert Steinberg is my hero.

Oh, and by the way: Remember that life expectancy of ten years? Call it an act of God, fate, or just plain science, but he lived more than double that, dying in 2008 at the respectable age of 61. Rest in peace, Robert.

Week 8: The First Step is Always the Hardest

Having read the “Principle and Foundation” and discussed the First Week of his Spiritual Exercises these past few days, Ignatius has managed to turn my whole world on its head – and from 500 years in the past, no less. It’s not that he writes some new, groundbreaking theory or anything (although, for his time, that may have been the case). Ignatius really just takes the ancient Greek adage “Know thyself” and runs with it to an extent most people don’t encounter in their daily lives.

One of the main theses Ignatius introduces in his Principle and Foundation is the notion of “indifference.” This isn’t just a lack of concern – like one might be indifferent to the shade of white her or his house is painted – but, rather, an avoidance of extremes in one direction or another. When I read this, the thought that repeatedly popped up in my mind was Siddhartha Gautama’s “middle way;” probably because I took a class in Buddhism last semester, but considering he lived over two millennia before Ignatius, maybe the former influenced the latter just a wee bit.

And this is where my world gets all topsy-turvy, because Ignatius calls us to contemplate our own extremes in life: our addictions, false gods, denials, hatreds, etc. Try this out for yourself and you’ll quickly realize that midterms are not the most opportune time to be questioning your notion of “good” and “bad” practices.

So in order to try to make sense of all the thoughts swirling around in my head, I thought I’d jot them down on virtual paper, along with where I am in my “indifference” and what I might be able to do in hopes of attaining it.

Health:

I only mentioned this in passing, so you may have missed it (Fr. “Hawk-Eye” Dziak didn’t), but I truly wish that I’ll never have to play the staring game with death. Scientists have already identified the mortality gene in earthworms, so there’s still an iota of hope, but in all practicality, I realize that it’ll happen sooner or later (though, hopefully later). To that end, I try to take good care of my body, though perhaps to a fault. I spend at least an hour exercising each day, five days a week, which I think is a pretty reasonable amount – I’m not sitting on the couch 24/7, nor am I spending half my life on the treadmill. I also keep a strict diet, which some may consider a little too strict. I’ll admit that sometimes it prevents me from partaking in certain festivities with friends, but if we’re going out to eat or something, I can usually just order a salad. I also make it a point to get around eight hours of sleep each night, which similarly prevents me from going out with friends sometimes. In reality, though, many of my friends get more than eight hours of sleep on the days they go out, they just happen to move those hours to the afternoon.

Diagnosis: Terminal, but as far as addictions go, this is pretty mild.

Treatment: Take a day off from counting calories and minutes of REM sleep and enjoy life every now and then. A little trans fat and late-night ruckus does the soul good.

Indifference: 4/5

Fear of Failure:

Another topic already discussed here, so I won’t go into too much detail. My need for control often spills over into my decision-making process. I.e., if I have the option between doing something where I would be under someone else’s supervision and something else where I would be independent, I’m sure as heck not going to let someone hold power over me. Plus, part of this whole ego trip I went on a couple weeks ago has to do with my pride. I don’t really care one way or another if I do something embarrassing or dumb, but I hate failing, and it’s just made all the worse when I have to report the failure to a superior.

Diagnosis: Yeah, this one’s something I definitely need to work on.

Treatment: For one thing, realize that there’s nothing wrong with being led. Everyone has someone else above them, going all the way up to God, and once you start trying to control God, you’re in for a world of pain. Most importantly, though, don’t be afraid to fail! After all, when Edison was asked how he felt about his 1000 failed attempts at a light bulb, he allegedly said, “I have not failed 1000 times. I have successfully discovered 1000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.”

Indifference: 1/5

Monetary Success:

When I first decided to become an engineer, a large part of the impetus was to be able to support my future family. However, at the moment at least, success and money have become essentially one and the same, and both are the end, not just the means. Part of this is surely because my future family doesn’t exist yet, but all the same I’ve lost sight of what my goal once was. I am starting to move away from my laser-focused fixation on career success and take classes that I enjoy, but the greater part of my academic work is still in areas conducive to money making.

Diagnosis: Showing signs of improvement, but some therapy is still necessary.

Treatment: Devote more time to the things you love to do. You never know, often times success comes from doing what one enjoys.

Indifference: 3/5

These are the first ones that came to mind, but there are PLENTY of others, I can assure you. What do y’all think, is there hope for me yet? Feel free to comment on how accurate you think I analyzed myself, or if there are any areas in your own life that you find yourself struggling to balance.

Week 7: Imagine ALL the People

Looking back on some of my decisions, it would have been really helpful if I had had Ignatius’s Rules of Discernment to guide me. For all the religious connotations that people associate with the Jesuits, they have some truly great practices regardless of one’s spirituality. The Rules start off with some common sense: don’t make a hasty decision; take some time for tempers to cool; get away from all the stress and just think things through.

But the genius of the Rules, I think, is in Ignatius’s use of imagination. Don’t just try to describe what it would be like, but actually experience it. Put yourself in the position and live through it with all your senses. It makes decision-making not only easier, but far more effective in the long run.

In High School, back when my academic record was questionable at best, I had to face the legitimate matter of whether or not I was going to college after I graduated. Not sure if I really wanted to get a job or explore the world, I decided on a compromise: join the military. In particular, I had this idea that it would be awesome to be a scout sniper in the Marines. You know, those guys who go behind enemy lines, gathering intel and taking out designated targets. How cool would that be, especially to a budding adult?

When I told my best friend (a person whose idea of chess is to set up armies and flick checkers pieces at them, and whose favorite scene from “The Patriot” is the battle where the soldier gets beheaded by a cannonball), he just chuckled. He pointed out my…well, let’s say my lack of musculature. He was convinced that I wouldn’t pass the physical fitness test, let alone get through all of basic training. And as indignant as I felt, I had to admit that he was probably right. What I lack in physical strength, though, I more than make up for in willpower. Or stubbornness. Tomato, tomato, right?

Hmmm, I guess that doesn’t work so well in writing.

I was still convinced that I could do it if I set my mind to it, and after talking with my friends and hearing all their arguments, I felt confident that I could discuss it with my parents. Boy was that a mistake.

My mom was immediately against it. Being the daughter of a Navy engineer, I guess her idea of the military was much less romantic than mine. Surprisingly, my dad supported the idea somewhat, much to the chagrin of my worrisome mother. He thought it would build discipline, teamwork, self-confidence – all those factors that a degree really doesn’t account for. After all, my uncle was in the Marine Corps Reserves, and he saw it as a positive life experience.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew it would be difficult, but I still thought I could manage. At the same time, I had to contend with one half of my family disagreeing with the other. With all this swirling around in my head, I unknowingly followed Ignatius’s advice: I found myself sitting on the couch one day, imagining what it would be like.

I saw myself in PT, pushing my body to its limit, dragging myself through mud and barbed wire. I heard the yelling, the breaking of our spirits so that we could be rebuilt from the bottom up. I felt the 100+ degree weather of the barren Iraqi desert. I experienced the trauma of pulling a trigger and seeing a fellow human being go limp on the other end. I even considered what it would be like if I were ever caught – execution if I was lucky, torture if I wasn’t.

Then I imagined coming home, unable to properly communicate to my friends and family what it was like. Maybe an initial homecoming celebration, but eventually it would all be lost among the countless number of battles fought in war. Is that what I wanted?

Obviously, you know what I chose. In hindsight? I’m pretty happy with my decision, though I can’t help but admire the men and women who took the path I couldn’t. I don’t know, maybe it was different for them – different available options, different pros and cons, different imagery. I’m sure God (or whatever you choose as your higher power) doesn’t show us all the same things, but maybe He shows us exactly what we need to see.

Week 6: Me, Myself, and Irate Ramblings

Ever since getting back my first paper on spirituality – wherein we were to discuss the history of our relationship with God – I’ve been fixated on one question: Do I have an ego problem?

In my paper I explained that I don’t need to know one way or another if God exists, because as long as I am in control of my life then it doesn’t make any difference. In the margin next to this, Fr. Dziak wrote, “This is not a God issue but perhaps an ego issue. Focusing on yourself and abandoning anything/anyone is self-focused, self-ish perhaps.”

To read that was truly upsetting, not because I felt offended, but because I felt he was absolutely right. I don’t trust anyone to be in charge of something I can take direct control of.

Group projects? If it’s a collective grade, then I’m either checking in on everyone or (most often) doing almost all the work myself. Organizing events? I make clear what I am responsible for, and that if anything else falls short I cannot be held accountable. Many of my life goals exist so that I can better control the variables responsible for my livelihood and happiness. So yes, I admit that I may have an ego problem.

Of course, Ignatius also had an ego problem when he was young, to the point of vanity, and I don’t think I’m vain…I don’t think.

Even after his convalescence, he largely considered himself as the conduit between Earth and Jesus. His vision at La Storta told him that he would be a servant to Christ, not he and all his friends.

Heck, Chris Lowney, author of our Heroic Leadership text, even says that those leaders are best who lead themselves. So being self-sufficient can’t be all bad, right?

Ignatius preached that we should pray as though everything depends on God, and work as though everything depends on us. But how does one achieve that? How can one wholeheartedly push oneself to the limit if she or he believes that it’s ultimately out of her or his hands? I’m sure you’ve all been in a relationship where the love grew increasingly one-sided. It’s just not the same, going through the motions without any heart.

To paraphrase one of my peers, egoism is implicitly bad but inherently neutral. At least, that’s my opinion. And there we return to the problem! It’s my phenomenology class all over again. We can only really know what we know – unless you’re a skeptic, in which case you don’t even know that much.

Who can say that I have an ego problem unless I think I have an ego problem? And if I do think I have an ego problem, then what if I actually don’t, but my ego won’t let me believe it?

Maybe I’m overanalyzing this. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m overanalyzing this (as I am wont to do), but it bugs me. Like one of those splinters you get from decrepit wood, the ones that break up into smaller pieces so that even if you can grab it with forceps, there’s something left behind. 

Sorry. I know this post was a little longwinded (definitely over the 400-word range) and, at times, nonsensical, but when you’re sitting around with nothing to do (read: nothing that doesn’t involve drinking, spending money, or both), this kind of stuff bubbles to the top.

I hope everyone had a great Mardi Gras/Presidents’ Day. Y’all know what I was doing.

Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler

Week 5: Remembering What Was Lost

Death is scary.

Can we all agree on that?

True, human beings appear to have a strange fixation on the subject, what with the numerous slasher movies, half the stories on the news, murder mystery novels, and the way in which humans glorify dying for whatever we consider a “righteous” cause. But when we’re forced to put our own lives under the microscope, it’s often a very different story.

For all the dangers of the world, we find it difficult to imagine that death could ever reach our friends and family. It’s always the crazy, lone gunman, the reckless driver, the neighbor’s son – our children would never be so irresponsible to try such a thing. All the same, Chuck Palahniuk’s words ring true: On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

This past fall marked the 10^th anniversary of 9/11, a time which forced every American to acknowledge not only that there are people out there who hate us, but also how vulnerable we really were. Yet it also made us realize the bravery and camaraderie our species can have in a time of great crisis.

Stories abound of courageous men and women, firefighters and citizens alike, who risked their lives to save others from the burning buildings and subsequent collapse, and I don’t feel like I would do them justice by even attempting to describe the scenes. Father Ted sent us a video about a man he knew at Boston College. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. It’s just a glimpse at the amazing feats of humanity that came out of that horrible time in our history.

I hope I never find myself in such a situation. To be frank, I hope I never have to face death, period. Unlike most I’ve spoken with, I’d be perfectly fine with growing decrepit if it means I could live forever. But the questions in that video bring up a good point. What would my death look like? The way I see it, there are two schools of thought: the slow, calm slipping away, surrounded by loved ones, and the big, boisterous ending with a bang.

Me? I’m more inclined towards the former. Lying in a soft bed, with those I care about there to see me off, and one last opportunity to tell each of them how truly special they are to me. Then I would have a nice, modest funeral, with everyone sad for the loss, but happy in recounting my life. I’d get a paragraph (maybe even a whole page) in the family history logs, and whenever my great-grandchildren wanted to know the kind of man Papa McCormick was, my children or grandchildren would recount the stories with a tear in their eye and a smile in their heart.

And if another tragedy of such magnitude were to strike, and I found myself in the thick of it, I’d like to think that I would have the presence of mind and fighting spirit to be even half the hero that Welles Crowther was.

Imagine what they’d say about me then.

Week 4: A Sailor's Finest Ship

I have to admit that I've been rather blessed in life. Not only am I a Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon male, but I’m also a part of the 1% of the world that gets an opportunity to attend college. I can’t, by any stretch of the imagination, claim that life has been easy for me, but at the same time I realize that, simply by the status of my birth, I don't need to work as hard as others to achieve the same ends.

It’s easy to forget this fact, and sometimes, when I feel lost among a sea of incomprehensible information or crushed under a barrage of tests and papers, the simple existence of a village in the deep recesses of Vietnam seems increasingly appealing.

Luckily, it’s at times like these that I can turn to my greatest blessing of all: my support group. I have teachers and counselors who (I hope) are concerned with my well-being, a family who loves and supports me, and, perhaps best of all, a tightly-knit collection of friends with whom I truly believe I can discuss anything.

Yes, my friends from high school and I still hang out when we can, and all my college friends are loads of fun to be around, but within that larger category are perhaps three or four individuals whom I feel a spiritual (as well as intellectual) connection with. When we talk, it’s as though our brainwaves are in perfect harmony, and it’s not uncommon to find ourselves effortlessly shifting from mindless banter to the deeper questions of life, the universe, and everything.

In all honesty, I’m not even completely sure how we all became such close companions. I like to think that we all knew each other long ago, and it just took until now to meet. But whatever the explanation, I’m definitely glad to have them in my life – for those times I feel alone in the world, want a shoulder to cry on, or just need to be told an answer I already know to a question I’m too afraid to ask.

On that note, I’d like to give a big shout out to my buddy, Palvin! You matter a great deal to me, my friend, and I’m honored to be sharing in the experience of Ignatius Loyola with you.