Election season can be difficult. The intense rhetoric and heightened polarization of today’s society can strain our personal relationships or disrupt our inner peace. This new miniseries offers practical suggestions for how the wisdom of the Spiritual Exercises can help cultivate a discerning spirit as we navigate another election cycle.

The Second Week of the Exercises contemplates the events of Jesus’ childhood and public ministry. The retreatant imagines the moment of the Incarnation and sits present at the Nativity. The meditations follow Jesus through his presentation at the Temple and later being left behind in Jerusalem. The sequence continues through the waters of the Jordan with some notable moments in Jesus’ healing and preaching ministry.

The Spiritual Exercises is not a scholarly study of these familiar scripture passages. Instead, the Exercises are unique in the Christian tradition because of the imaginative way in which Ignatius invites the retreatant to pray. When contemplating a scene, Ignatius invites the reader to immerse himself in the drama. The one praying might be a character in the story, such as being one of the Magi presenting one of the gifts to the child Jesus. Or, one could be a nearby observer watching the story unfold like a Netflix masterpiece. Ignatian contemplation, this imaginative way of praying, aims to deepen our love for the Lord through new insights into his ministry, personality, and relationships.

Ignatius amplifies these imaginative contemplations through the “application of the senses.” One could have the most moving prayer experience of their life, but Ignatius still asks the retreatant to revisit that prayer experience to deepen the graces that can arise by bringing our whole embodied selves to the scene. Ignatius instructs “to smell and to taste the infinite fragrance and sweetness of Divinity,” to listen to “what [the characters] are, or might be, talking about,” and “to embrace and kiss the places where such persons put their feet and sit.” 1 Instinctively, Ignatius intuited that our physical senses are connected to our spiritual senses.

In my own experience of the traditional 30-day retreat of the Spiritual Exercises, the application of the senses completely transformed my understanding of the Call of Peter (Luke 5:1-11). Sure, I always appreciated the scene on some level. Jesus reveals that he has a power unlike any human ability ever seen, and so Simon follows hoping that this man could be the Promised One of Israel. Whenever this story appears in the lectionary cycle, I remember thinking, “ah, this one again!” without any further exploration of the scene.

It wasn’t until I actually placed myself in the shoes of Simon in this scene that the dramatic emotional depths of this scene became apparent. I thought back to one of the longest days of work in my life and how I felt completely zapped by the time I trudged through my apartment door. Because I was a desk worker, I added in the physical toll of a grueling workout. Then, I thought how undignified I would feel if some stranger explained to me how to do my job in such a state of total fatigue.

Then, out of nowhere, I feel the nets lurch. I see a silvery swarm fill my net. My legs strain to keep me balanced as the boat keels over from the weight. The boards of the boat creak and I hear hooting and hollering from the shore. I smell the briny mix of fresh fish and the sea. My stomach growls anticipating a good dinner. As the scene settles, it begins to dawn on me that I am in the presence of a legendary power. I begin to let myself daydream…could this be the fulfillment of those childhood stories?  I leave everything behind because this miraculous catch of fish no longer matters–only my hope that this man could be the Messiah.

Applied to politics, the application of the senses can help us to offset extreme polarization and to better form our consciences. I wonder if the extreme divide in our country simply comes from an estrangement of the experience of others. The urban professional often has no idea how their beef and corn comes to their table, much less a sense of the immense risk and seasonality involved for farming families. An upper middle class suburban family cannot relate to the challenges of a single mother raising her children while working two jobs. Of course, we should never assume what the experience of another person has been, but we can take great strides in growing in empathy for the struggles of our neighbors.

Bringing the embodied depth of the application of the senses to news stories might better inform our consciences, our votes, and our political action. Just like with my experience with the Call of Peter, we can become burdened by an overfamiliarity with headlines that dull the depths of the drama and human emotion. The following practical tips might be helpful suggestions to apply the senses to political discourse:

 

  • Whenever a news story includes a human number, focus less on the quantitative figures and more of the lived reality of the implicated people. “20 homes destroyed by tornado” is just a superficial description of a personal underlying reality. Thinking about 20 family dinner tables disappearing and the memories associated with family heirlooms and photos helps us to enter more deeply into the other person’s suffering. This practice is not meant to raise the stakes in thorny political debate, but rather to evoke compassion for our neighbors suffering around us.
  • Instead of labeling the other side as bigots or uninformed, attempt to give a charitable interpretation for why this person would vote differently. Maybe this individual lost his manufacturing job due to the rapid rise of globalization, and he is only able to find part-time work at a fast food franchise. Or, a family member lost her job due to workplace discrimination, but new legislation secured her rights as a member of a protected class. Such empathy reminds ourselves that our divisions are fundamentally about issues and priorities.
  • Try to imagine the lived reality of politicians. They have families, friends, and personal lives that are disrupted by their more-than-often honest intentions to serve their communities. This extends beyond the national figures that often monopolize our attention, and includes lesser-known (but still as hardworking) civil servants such as your city solicitor or sanitation director. These individuals are making sacrifices as they try their best to offer their talents for the common good. It might be worth considering the impact of our online comments on the loved ones of our civil servants.

The Second Week begins with the meditation of the Call of the King. The retreatant is asked to imagine their favorite world leader personally inviting them to join them in the battle against societal ills like hunger and poverty. In this imaginative movement, the retreatant feels amped up by the collective action and their participation in something beyond themselves. Then, Ignatius replaces this leader with Jesus Christ. Each of us is then called to work alongside Christ in an even more fervent manner than our selected earthly leader.

This meditation provides a redemptive lens towards our political involvement. Anyone who has attended a candidate’s rally knows well the palpable feeling of excitement of being part of a larger movement to reshape society. But the turn in this meditation towards imagining Christ reminds us that we have a better King than anyone on this earth. Because with Christ, our victory is assured. In Him, there is no weakness or inflamed ego, only perfect love. Therefore, those deeply immersed in politics can use their engagement as a template for the service of Christ. We are part of a movement that extends beyond time and place and supersedes party and slogan: the salvific mission of the Church.

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