Category: Spiritual Life

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July 31 Feast Day of St. Ignatius Offers Annual Opportunity to Reflect on Meaning of Adult Learning

This week’s post is a promotion of the upcoming feast day of St. Ignatius, which is being celebrated by Georgetown at a 12:10 p.m. ET mass in Dahlgren Quad followed by a reception. Event details are here. 

The Catholic ritual of feast days helps to remember, honor, and celebrate persons who have been important in building up the community of faith. The diversity of holy people honored by feast days is a sign of the Catholic Church’s global reality and invites deeper gratitude about how a long historical tradition has endured and evolved in ways that nurture and encourage people of faith. It is with this appreciation that we approach a sacred milestone for every Jesuit institution in the world: the July 31 feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola. At Georgetown, community members can participate in the feast day by attending a 12:10 p.m. ET mass in Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart followed by a light reception in Dahlgren Quad. It is important to note that this celebration is open to all at the University. 

Mission in Motion regularly reflects not only on the significance of the Ignatian feast day but also on many personae of Ignatius and the various ways that anyone in the Georgetown community, regardless of their religious tradition or relationship to spirituality, can find something inspiring and relevant in the life of this Sixteenth Century figure. At SCS, there are obvious ways that St. Ignatius relates to the unique dynamics of our learning community and our particular mission and values as Georgetown’s vibrant home of professional and continuing education. I would like to highlight one feature of the Ignatian biography, the Jesuit patron as an adult learner, and offer some relevant connections with the learners who comprise the SCS student population today. 

According to the most recent SCS Dean’s Report, SCS students range from 19 to 79 with an average age of 32. This means that most of the more than 9,000 registered degree and non-degree students that call SCS home are adults. Such a demographic reality makes sense given the School’s emphases on employability, workforce development, and the diversity of lifelong learners. Teaching adults requires a specific kind of pedagogical attention that differs in important ways from younger students. The adjustment that SCS faculty make to effectively guide their adult learners can be supported by certain resources in the Ignatian traditions of spirituality and education. Adult learning is one of the less appreciated subjects in Jesuit higher education and I believe that SCS contributes to the national and global Jesuit discussion in important ways. 

First, adults tend to prioritize their own experience as a text for learning. With so much life lived, especially professionally, SCS adult students arrive at their classrooms with much to share with their teachers and fellow students. In this way, faculty are especially encouraged to make space in class activities and learning strategies that give adult learners the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of their considerable life experience. And like St. Ignatius, a significant proportion of SCS students have military-connected experience, which adds even more dimensionality to classroom discussion. 

Second, adults tend to need special permission for reflection. Leading busy lives of work and family obligations means that reflection time, including prayer and meditation, often gets pushed to a backburner. But certain resources in the Ignatian spiritual tradition, like the Examen, give adults an opportunity to spend a short amount of time (five to 10 minutes) pausing and slowing down. The intense practicality of Ignatian spirituality, its ability to be implemented in the course of a busy day, appeals to adults in a special way. I think that adults are especially inclined to welcome class activities and teaching approaches that emphasize slowing down and reflecting as part of the course experience. In leading retreats and in teaching courses, I have found that many adult students express gratitude for the opportunity for silence, a gift not easily afforded to them because of many other commitments. 

Third, contrary to assumptions, adults are not fully formed just because they have lots of life experience, including considerable time in a career. In this way, adult learners benefit greatly from Ignatian discernment and ongoing reflection about how to realize one’s meaning and purpose vocationally. Discerning vocation does not only happen before finding one’s first job placement. Rather, vocational discernment, an ongoing reflection about how my gifts and talents are aligned to my professional choices, is a lifelong practice. Ignatian resources are especially helpful for adults seeking to transform the knowledge, skills, and values of a Georgetown SCS program into an even more meaningful professional journey.

As you can tell, adult learning and the Jesuit traditions that St. Ignatius developed have so much relevance for our SCS community. I hope this feast day presents an opportunity to gratefully enjoy our Ignatian heritage and its enduring meaning for our community. 

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Juneteenth Holiday Presents Opportunities for Spiritual Growth and Communal Reflection

This week’s post is a reflection on the Juneteenth holiday and the spiritual resources necessary to sustain the long struggle for freedom and equality. Explore Georgetown’s Juneteenth resources. 

Earlier this year, Mission in Motion shared a particularly Ignatian approach to the spiritual work of anti-racism through the 6-week retreat co-facilitated by Georgetown and Holy Trinity Catholic Church entitled “Setting Captives Free: Racism and God’s Liberating Grace.” With next week’s Juneteenth celebrations on the horizon, I would like to offer encouragement to consider how the ongoing struggle for true freedom and justice for all includes a spiritual component. Highlighting this dimension of the work of racial justice is rooted in Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit identity and mission and the Spirit of Georgetown, particularly our expressed values commitment to being a “Community in Diversity.” 

In reflecting on the personal meaning of Juneteenth, Georgetown undergraduate Bilquisu Abdullah emphasizes how this occasion helps her connect with the pride of her identity: “For me, this year Juneteenth is about nurturing the joy I find in my Black identity. That means doing the things I enjoy most with my BIPOC peers and recentering the conversation of Black liberation in a positive way.” 

Ella Washington, Professor of the Practice in the McDonough School of Business, echoes this affirmation of joy when she says:

“Whether by attending a Juneteenth celebration or supporting a Black-owned business, I look for opportunities to define what the holiday represents to me and Black people across the U.S. I also consider joy to be the greatest form of resistance, especially as a Black woman. Finding opportunities of joy and jubilance with my family and friends is a way to live into the dream of my ancestors and into the spirit of honoring Juneteenth.” 

Together, these testimonies reinforce how Juneteenth is a critically important annual milestone to celebrate the joy and jubilation of freedom. But the holiday also presents a spiritual opportunity to reflect on how individuals and social structures continue to challenge this journey to greater freedom.

In a recent article in the Jesuit Higher Education Journal, Marquette University Director of the Faber Center for Ignatian Spirituality Michael Dante reflects on a “A Spiritual Direction Approach Aimed at Creating Belonging.” Dante maintains that meaningful confrontation with racism and white privilege means understanding these dynamics at the “spiritual level.” In order to realize this dimension, Jesuit campuses need to develop spiritual programs that help community members “see and live out of the understanding that all people are created in the image and likeness of God.” Members of the majority community whose perspectives and identities dominate need to get in touch, Dante argues, with how their vision often excludes the experiences of others who are “marginalized, excluded, and invisible.” 

Thankfully Ignatian spiritual direction and retreats, like the Setting Captives Free program, offer participants the opportunity to undergo their own “inner journey around blindness” to become more aware and more conscious of why many BIPOC members of the university community do not always feel like they belong. Pope Francis has described these dynamics, referring to racism as a “virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting.” 

While Juneteenth is certainly a time for celebration of the struggle for freedom and equality, it is also an important time at Georgetown to re-commit to this long-haul work of racial justice. Spiritual resources can accompany that journey. 

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An Examen Meditation for Commencement Season

This week’s post is a suggested reflection in advance of Commencement. 

In a few short weeks, Georgetown will host more than 10 different Commencement ceremonies that celebrate the graduating class of 2024. As staff and faculty, the annual occasion of Commencement is a refreshing reminder of the ultimate academic purpose of the university. For graduating students, the excitement of walking across the stage marks a terminus, an end point that is also the beginning of something new. These days of Commencement stir up so many emotions, some in concert and some in conflict. How am I different today than when I entered my Georgetown program? How am I being called to use the gifts of my Georgetown education in service of the world’s great and pressing needs? What does the future look like in a time of great disruption, uncertainty, and instability? 

These questions are natural and present an invaluable opportunity for deeper reflection, prayer, meditation, and counseling with trusted guides. With these much-anticipated graduation events on the horizon, I invite all of us in the Georgetown community to contemplatively consider these prompts in an Examen style of meditation. My hope is that taking time to quietly recollect our feelings in advance will lead to more grounded savoring of the exciting events to come. 

Composition of Place – First, take some time to notice the context of your life. Where are you? As you prepare for Commencement, how would you describe your world? Bring to mind all of the rich descriptive details that compose the scenes of your daily life. For example, to what communities (professional, personal, civic, religious, etc.) are you devoting yourself? What are the situations you observe on a daily basis? How are you being influenced by the places and spaces that surround you? 

Gratitude – Second, for whom and for what in your life are you the most grateful? What are the experiences, persons, and places from your time at Georgetown that arise as the most significant gifts? Allow yourself to notice everything that constitutes gratitude, but sit with the most important gifts for a longer period of time. Relish these gifts. 

Emotional Review of Experience – Third, go over the major experiences of your time at Georgetown and permit yourself not only to recall and remember these times but also how you feel now, in the present, about them. Try to notice the most significant feelings that come to the surface during your review of the Georgetown experiences you’ve had. What  brought you deep gladness and joy that put you more in touch with your sense of purpose and belonging? What brought about the opposite inner movements, namely dryness, desolation, or discouragement about your sense of self and how you relate to a larger purpose in life? 

Make a Commitment to Your Future – As you prepare to enter fully into the time of Commencement being ushered forth into the next steps of your life, make a resolution about how you would like to commit yourself to choices and actions that help realize your true self. Are you noticing yourself being challenged or invited to make a positive impact in some small or large way? What is justice and the common good asking of you in your particular situation of life and work? 

I invite you to cherish any opportunities for some quiet reflection in the week leading up to the formal ceremonies of Commencement. Look back with delight as you look forward with hope! Congratulations, Class of 2024! 

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SCS Daily Digital Meditation Enters Its 5th Year – Join Today!

This week’s post celebrates the fifth year of SCS Daily Digital Mediation, which takes place on Zoom Monday through Friday from 12:00 to 12:17 p.m. ET. Sign up online to receive a link to the virtual meeting. 

Four years ago, in the week that global lockdowns began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, SCS started offering a 15-minute daily digital mediation over Zoom. The virtual practice, which you can sign up online , was never intended to be a permanent event, but a temporary resource to help ease some of the disquiet and anxiety that surrounded the early days of the pandemic. 

Since March 2020, more than 350 people from across Georgetown have signed up to receive the link to participate. Throughout the four years, a remarkable community has formed through this contemplative convening. What is beautiful about the daily event is that there is no pressure to attend and who shows up on a daily basis is almost always a surprise. And even in silence a community has formed, with unspoken bonds of affection and solidarity created by the fact of simple presence in a virtual meeting room.

While each attendee brings their own invisible needs to the space, there is a shared understanding that all are seeking quiet, centering, stillness, self-awareness, and pause (among other things). 

This week, I want to highlight the value of this resource that is “here to stay” and no longer considered a temporary event. Past posts from Mission in Motion have explored the meditations from different angles, include participant testimonials about their value:

In recent weeks, Mission in Motion has touched upon the value of mindfulness and its relationship to professional practices and concern for the common good. For instance, Becoming Spiritually Grounded Strategic Thinkers and Discerning Leaders examined the relationship between effectively mediating conflicts and achieving organizational objectives. Good leaders need to be able to tap into their own inner life and sensory awareness in order to manage high-stakes disagreements occurring in a group. 

In another post, SCS Retreat Invites Students Into Reflection on the Meaning and Practices of the Good Life, I emphasized the importance of taking “retreat” from one’s daily habits and obligations, even if for a single day (as is the case for the annual SCS student retreat). What so often emerges in these experiences is a recognition of how easy it is to forgo regular reflective practices in busy daily life, yet how important it is to reclaim this simple habit of an examen reflection or a “mental pit stop” as a way of staying true to one’s ultimate purpose and identity. 

Most recently, An Ongoing Journey Toward More Belonging: Some Recent Efforts took a closer look at some Georgetown efforts to create a more inclusive community . Central to the task of building inclusive spaces is the cultivation of individual habits of growing in greater awareness of how one’s own blind spots get in the way of recognizing barriers to flourishing for all members of an organization. The positive contribution of mindfulness to this work of inclusion is affirmed by Rhonda Magee (the subject of this Mission in Motion post in 2020) in her piece, “How Mindfulness Can Defeat Racial Bias.”

What better time than now to treat yourself to the treasure of quiet mindful contemplation? Sign up today! 

If you have any questions about the SCS Daily Digital Meditation, please reach out to me: Jamie Kralovec, SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration, at pjk34@georgetown.edu. 

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SCS Retreat Invites Students into Reflection on the Meaning and Practices of the Good Life

This year’s SCS student retreat, “Journeying the Good Life,” sold out and brought together participants from 15 different degree and non-degree programs. 

Every year, SCS hosts an overnight retreat at the Calcagnini Contemplative Center that is made available to degree and non-degree students. There is a certain rhythm to this yearly experience. First, the retreat developers brainstorm a theme around which the event will be organized. Second, marketing, communications, and program staff teams work to amplify and promote the retreat. Third, students across the School sign up and claim their spots. Fourth, participants receive detailed instructions (mostly logistical in nature) about what to expect at Calcagnini. Fifth, the retreat day arrives and participants descend upon the 640 Massachusetts Avenue SCS campus to meet the departing bus and each other. Sixth, the retreat takes place and all who are gathered deeply engage with the schedule and activities. Seventh, the retreat ends with a bus return to the SCS campus, evaluations are shared, and the community disperses back to their respective home locations. Eighth, reflective evaluation of the experience leads to new insights and new ideas about how to meet the spiritual needs of the SCS student community. 

Each of these steps necessitates great leaps of faith and trust that the retreat will be received in nurturing and life-giving ways by all who engage it. There is certainly some doubt that finds its way into the process. Will students actually sign up? Will the retreat theme and the practices inspired by it resonate with the group? How will this seemingly random collection of individuals, diverse in every indicator of diversity, come together in unity and form a group? Will the weather challenge the contemplative spirit and recreational activities? Will everyone find the food and accommodations suitable to their expectations? 

This year’s retreat involved asking all of these same questions and receiving some resoundingly positive feedback about what is possible when SCS students say a big “Yes” to an uncertain experience and allow themselves to be personally transformed.

The 2024 retreat, “Journeying the Good Life,” certainly had some unexpected and unplanned moments. No one could have predicted that a steady and strong downpour of rain would persist throughout the first day of the retreat. But instead of worrying about the weather, the group made a firm commitment to accept the sogginess and make the most of it. This embrace of wet slightly complicated the nature hikes sprinkled throughout the agenda, but it also led to some memorable moments. 

It was somewhat unexpected for the group to gel so quickly, becoming interested from the beginning in each other’s stories and making space for intimate and vulnerable sharing in small and large groups. One measure of a fruitful retreat is the vitality and volume of chatter over meals in the dining hall. In this case, I was struck by the handful of engaged table conversations happening over delicious meals. 

Rabbi Rachel Gartner presented on the good life by sharing “Arguments for the Sake of Heaven” from out of the Jewish tradition. 

The retreat’s principle content is shared through two short talks delivered by me and Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Adviser for Spiritual Care. I shared some insights, “The Good Life from the ‘I’ to the ‘We’ to the ‘Universal,’” based on two primary sources. Philosopher Adam Adatto Sandel’s recent book, Happiness in Action: A Philosopher’s Guide to the Good Life, and Jesuit Greg Boyle’s book, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness, get at the topics of the good life in slightly different ways. Sandel argues that ends-oriented goal-setting, a hallmark of contemporary economic culture, needs to be upended by three virtues—self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature—which cultivate flourishing and deeper happiness in the means/practices themselves. Boyle contends that the root of some of our individual and collective despair has to do with the need to recognize the “unshakable goodness” that exists in ourselves and in each other. Finding goodness in this way leads to loving, especially important when loving is made harder by structures that exclude those we allow to be “othered.”  

 Students enjoyed the Calcagnini Contemplative Center in spite of heavy rains on the first day of retreat. 

Rabbi Rachel built on these foundations in her talk about “Arguments for the Sake of Heaven.” She utilized the primary source texts of the Talmud and presented on the Jewish sages Hillel and Shammai. The reflective interpretation exercise invited close and careful reading and a discussion about the ideas of the good life rooted in this spiritual reading of texts. One particular outcome of Rabbi Rachel’s talk was deeper consideration about the importance of healthy and respectful argumentation in making communal claims about what constitutes virtuous living. 

Throughout the experience, the community brought to life Georgetown’s mission values, especially a commitment to Contemplation in Action. By the retreat’s conclusion, it was evident that students would return to their engaged lives refreshed and renewed by this brief interruption in their daily habits and responsibilities. 

As with any retreat, the effectiveness of the effort depends on how participants felt about the experience. Here is a sampling of responses to the question: “How are you returning home?”

  • “I am more grounded. I take away the importance of a community and how we are all connected and can learn from each other.”
  • “I’ve discovered more about myself in the sense I know what my mission is and I should hold onto those I love.” 
  • “I feel more grounded, peaceful, and grateful. I want to hold onto that as long as possible through daily meditation and physical connection with nature.” 
  • “I am definitely more grounded. I have a better understanding of my priorities in life. I know I must continue to explore other worldviews.” 
  • “I am returning as a more open person. I take away more connection and viewpoints. I am taking away an appreciation for Georgetown.” 

SCS students can learn more about the School’s approach to sharing Georgetown’s mission values on our Spiritual Life page and can learn about more retreat options here.

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Lent Offers Opportunity to Confront Personal and Social Realities, Commit to Healing

An image of a concrete cross sculpture installed in an outdoor garden. The words
This week’s post invites deeper reflection on the Christian season of Lent. Sign up to receive daily Lenten reflections from Georgetown students, staff, and faculty

One of the greatest strengths of Georgetown is the way it honors the holidays of the different religious traditions represented across campus. As a Jesuit and Catholic university grounded in a centered pluralism, Georgetown seeks greater mutual understanding and dialogue about the broader significance of special events on each tradition’s religious calendar. In this way, those outside of a particular tradition, or no longer practicing within one or not affiliated with one at all, can still find personal and collective meaning because of the invitation to learn more, follow along, and potentially commit to some actions related to journeying alongside particular religious communities. 

This week, Christian communities at Georgetown and around the world entered into the holy season of Lent. These 40 days, which lead to Holy Week and Easter, focus on the journey to greater spiritual freedom by embracing the paths of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, which Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, described as the “the touchstones of this spiritual journey each year” in the introduction to this year’s Lent Devotional series (sign up for these daily Lenten reflections from students, staff, and faculty across the campuses, including SCS). In Christian terms, the season is an opportunity to follow Jesus along the path of suffering that ultimately leads to redemption and new life in the Resurrection of Easter. 

Such a seemingly solemn season, so often associated with “giving up” one’s favorite treats or enjoyments for a month and a half, is about recognizing the ultimacy of our lives. What are we living for? And what is getting in the way of realizing our deeper purpose and calling? In his practical theology book, I Was and I Am Dust: Penitente Practices as a Way of Knowing, David Mellott presents a “dust theology” based on the Scriptural passage, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Lent, which begins with the marking of ashes on Ash Wednesday, invites participants to consider how they form a part of the Cosmos and each of these parts, however finite, has much to contribute to the ultimate purpose of the whole. In Mellott’s telling, these Lenten practices are about “coming to terms with reality, and in particular, with oneself.” This notion of growing in clearer awareness of reality is critically important to becoming the kinds of agents of consolation and love that we are called to be. 

The broken reality of the world and the need for great repair, healing, peace, and justice should animate all of our activities at Georgetown. The commitment to using our gifts and talents, resources and knowledge in service to the common good is shared across spiritual and religious traditions. Lent presents the Christian community with a particular opportunity in the religious calendar to more deeply commit to this work. 

One excellent opportunity to deepen a personal and communal commitment to non-violence is a training being offered by Georgetown’s Center on Faith and Justice, MLK Initiative, and endorsed by the Justice and Peace Studies Program. On February 16, the DC Peace Team will offer a session on Active Bystander Intervention and De-Escalation. The purpose of the session, in the context of situations of potentially escalating violence, is to equip participants with the “tools to recognize when you’re a bystander, understand the potential outcomes for all involved, and take nonviolent action.” You can RSVP and learn more here.

Sign up to receive Georgetown’s Lent Daily Devotionals! 

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SCS Student Retreat to Explore the Meaning and Practices of a Good Life

 This week’s post considers the deeply philosophical question: What constitutes a good life? Recent publications have taken up this question, which is a welcomed inquiry at an institution like Georgetown. SCS students have the opportunity to reflect about it at this year’s student retreat from March 9-10. Students should sign up today! 

What constitutes a good life and how does one’s life contribute to the common good? I cannot think of many other questions that keep universities in business. And in a Jesuit heritage institution like Georgetown, this question has even more meaning because of the open inquiry about the religious dimensions of the potential answers. 

But the question of the good life is not just a religious concern. In fact, the history of philosophy expresses various answers to this investigation, with some thinkers religiously motivated and others who are not. The systematic consideration of the question of the good life and how one’s own individual pursuit of it factors into a more common or collective good should energize us at the University, regardless of where we sit and what we do on campus. 

It is with this universal resonance in mind that the annual SCS overnight student retreat from March 9–10 will be organized. 

What is especially exciting about this framing is the considerable increase in literature, both popular and more academic, about the philosophy of the good life. Two recent examples of this trend are philosopher and power pull-ups record-holder Adam Sandel’s book, Happiness in Action: A Philosopher’s Guide to the Good Life, and Meghan Sullivan’s book, The Good Life Method: Reasoning Through the Big Questions of Happiness, Faith, and Meaning. Sullivan, who is a popular philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame, participated on a panel at SCS (reflected upon by Mission in Motion) convened by Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. A simple internet search of this very question manifests the many paths to considering the good life, which touches upon psychology, philosophy, and medicine among many other topical areas. 

What makes the SCS annual retreat especially important this year is the way that the good life is being compromised and threatened by increasing social polarization, economic inequity, and global conflicts. The threat of harm looms in communities most vulnerable to violence and disintegration. And institutional leaders across the realms of politics, culture, and sports do not seem up to the task of inviting the society to more noble aspirations for realizing a good life together. The SCS student body, already directly impacting society, marketplace, military, and many other domains of life, is in such an important position to positively influence the shape of our collective life. Realization of the common good depends in large part on how we all work together to create conditions for individual and shared flourishing. 

The 24-hour retreat will take place at Georgetown’s idyllic Calcagnini Contemplative Center in Bluemont, Va. As in past years, the experience includes both individual and group activities, time for quiet rest and relaxation, and fellowship over food. This natural setting is a welcome home-away-from-home. SCS students with questions should reach out to me at pjk34@georgetown.edu. RSVP deadline is March 1, 2024. Sign up today! 

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2024 Dr. King “Teach the Speech” Emphasizes the Ongoing Struggle for Freedom and Human Dignity

Lionell Daggs III, Associate Director for Racial Justice Initiatives at the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service, and Tony Mazurkiewicz, chaplain for the Athletics Department, led an anti-racism examen meditation at the 2024 Dr. MLK, Jr. Teach the Speech event. 

Every year, Mission in Motion reflects on Georgetown’s chosen speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and offers some suggestions for how its content and themes might be incorporated into courses and other activities at SCS. The 2024 Teach the Speech selection, “Eulogy for the Four Little Girls,” is Dr. King’s memorialization of the four young girls killed in the 1963 terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. 

In his eulogy, Dr. King mournfully prays for the souls of Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Diane Wesley, and Carole Robertson. The speech is more than a remembrance of these lives, however. Dr. King draws attention to the larger moral and spiritual questions presented by such an act of racialized violence. How can we exercise non-violence and a spirit of non-retaliation in the face of such hate and destruction? Dr. King maintains that we “must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.” Speaking to bereaved families in the aftermath of such tragedy, Dr. King, who would ultimately be killed in an act of racialized violence, inspires a call to redemption. This road is not easy, however, and requires resistance to “evil systems” and overcoming a tendency to remain silent and complicit in the face of such injustices. 

This year’s event includes a helpful set of teaching resources that can accompany the 1963 speech. This resource document traces several approaches that faculty in any discipline might consider in making the content of the speech align with particular course learning objectives. The resource guide suggests some critical questions for individual and group discussion, including: 

  • King addresses the families of the victims and talks about death as the ‘irreducible common denominator of man.’ He speaks on the importance of faith in these moments. How do we deal with grief and the sense of loss after death? What are the practices in your culture, in your personal lives? 
  • Have I consciously or unconsciously acted to advance racism through my own inactions or silence? Am I culpable? Have I turned a blind eye to racial injustice? How? Why? 
  • How will we hold ourselves accountable to one another on the moral imperative of anti-racism? 

I was particularly interested in the suggestion that Dr. King’s “Eulogy for the Four Little Girls” could become the basis for an anti-racist self-reflection. Readers of this blog will recognize the Jesuit-inspired examen practice and will know that this framework can be flexibly utilized for particular issues, topics, situations, and events. For example, Mission in Motion has previously reflected on an anti-racist examen published by the Association of Jesuit Colleges & Universities. I was so grateful to attend the guided examen led by Lionell Daggs III, Associate Director for Racial Justice Initiatives at the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service, and Tony Mazurkiewicz, chaplain for the Athletics Department. Lionell and Tony modeled the examen practice in a dynamic way, using the audio of Dr. King’s eulogy, historical images, a recorded conversation with a survivor of the Birmingham bombing, and other media to stimulate deeper reflection. Between these visuals, groups at tables in Copley Hall were invited to individually reflect on guided questions in silence and then turn to their table partners for brief conversation. 

I was moved greatly by the sacred atmosphere of this examen and how table partners, many of whom entered the event as Georgetown strangers, developed a trusting bond formed over intimate reflection and active listening. True to Ignatian pedagogy, the examen experience focused not only on reflection but also consideration of discerned actions that can be taken individually and collectively about the ongoing struggle for racial justice in our university, our communities, our country, and the world. My impression is that participants left the morning session more grounded in Dr. King’s moral and spiritual invitation to human dignity and freedom. This struggle and the journey continue. 

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There is Always Light Somewhere: Rabbi Rachel’s Reflection to Begin a New Year

Friends,

The Hasidic masters taught that as hidden, elusive, or otherwise hard to find, there is always light somewhere. The world could not exist without it.  Sometimes we only find the light after we crack open all that obscures it. 

Life teaches us that the cracking is so often a bitterly painful thing.  Shattering hurts. And religion teaches that we must become better, wiser, more compassionate people—people who protect light, nurture light, guard it from that within us and among that threatens to obscure it—so we need not go through shatterings again and again and again.

Judaism enjoins that as we grow into better versions of ourselves, we not let our despair that we are not yet there overcome us and snuff out the search for the light that already inheres in our world, again however obscured. Judaism insists we remain unflinching in our seeking, even when we feel so very lost in the dark. 

This tenacity in the search for light and resistance to being overcome by despair is what Hanukkah has always signified for me, and it does so now more than ever.  

This is what I pray that all lights of all the holidays of the season will reignite in all of our souls.

Particularly during these heartbreaking times, I find glimmers of hope in all efforts to humanize and connect across vast differences and seeming impasses—efforts both longstanding and entirely new.  Recently, I joined such an effort as Associate Director for In Your Shoes™ Research and Practice Center.  I am moved to share with the SCS community what I wrote in the piece welcoming me to the role:

In Your Shoes™  offers me a way to double-down on my commitment to pursuing a better world, and to contribute to the ongoing, tenacious peace and justice work of the countless individuals and organizations I have been privileged to engage with over the years. Along with all those doing this work, I refuse to give up on the values and visions that we have worked so hard to bring to each other and our communities. It isn’t easy. But it is the best way I know to remain fully alive and to live purposefully, openly, and with hope in this broken and blessed world.  

For those particularly invested in engaging with the issues facing Israelis and Palestinians, I commend you to learn more from this small sampling of co-existence organizations and resources I have personally worked with over the years, including: 

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An Examen To Review 2023

This week’s post invites quiet reflection on our year together by using the Jesuit spiritual practice of the Examen. The May 2023 student retreat stands out as a moment of great gratitude. 

Readers of Mission in Motion recognize the Examen as a common feature of the blog. Many articles describe this core Jesuit spiritual practice or use it to inspire reflection about an event or program at SCS. Sometimes, the blog even constructs a post as a form of Examen. This practice is one that invites interior reflection on the events of a period of time with the purpose of prayerfully and sensorially re-engaging with those experiences and making spiritual meaning of them. 

The reflective steps of the Examen process involve settling in and becoming centered in the presence of the Divine and then growing in awareness of particular encounters with gratitude, consolation, desolation, and a hoped-for resolve for the future. The point is to sift through the data of experience to discern how one is called to move from reflection on experiences, both the joyful and the challenging, toward choices and actions of greater love and generosity. Individuals can do the Examen and so can entire groups or organizations, like Georgetown, which is currently undertaking its own Mission Priority Examen, a reflective self-assessment of the University’s commitments to Jesuit mission and identity.

As we sit on the precipice of a new year, I offer a brief Examen on SCS in 2023. In next week’s post, Rabbi Rachel will offer some reflections about the year we had and the year to come. In this spirit of deeper meditation on the meaning of our shared Georgetown experiences in 2023, I invite you to join me in this Examen. Take a few minutes to settle into some quiet. This is especially important as we transition from a long semester of work and study and prepare for some time of quiet and rejuvenation. As you settle in, I invite you to ask for insight and new self-knowledge during this time of quiet. When you feel grounded in the silence, I then invite you to ponder these questions slowly: 

  • Take a few minutes and notice all of the significant events of the last year. These might be personal events or events you experienced with a group (for example, a class, a work team, family, community organization, etc.). Allow these significant moments to flow by in your consciousness one-by-one as in a parade. Do not yet judge or assess the moments, just allow them to pass back into your present awareness. 
  • As you sift through all of these significant moments, what experiences rise to the surface? In particular, what encounters with Georgetown feel most important to you at the end of the year? I invite you to focus on the most important moments and let the less significant experiences move to the side. 
  • What is one significant moment from this last year that brings you deep gladness and joy? A moment that, in Jesuit spirituality, brings consolation? These kinds of moments stir within us an impulse and an inclination to savor more greatly, express more gratitude, and share ourselves with others with more magnanimity. 
  • Take a moment to explore a moment that brings the opposite feelings of desolation. Was there a significant experience in 2023 that challenged you to the core of your being, perhaps causing you to doubt your self-purpose or become skeptical about the good intentions of others? Did times arise in this year that drained you of energy and led to nagging self-doubt or disbelief? 
  • As you consider the year ahead, what from 2023 would you like to do differently, or better, or more lovingly in 2024? Grounded as we are in the Spirit of Georgetown, how are you called in the next year to be an agent of more justice in the world and more generosity and understanding in your communities? 

As I look back on our SCS 2023, I notice lots of gratitude that arises from my prayerful Examen. I recall the generous availability that students demonstrated during our annual retreat (“SCS Student Retreat Steps Outside of the Ordinary into Rest and Reflection”). I also remember students, staff, and faculty coming together to support one another after the tragic loss of a member of our community (“Coming Together in Times of Challenge and Loss”). I remember the inspiration I felt during Jason Kander’s 2023 Commencement address when he challenged us to reconsider what it means to be brave by acknowledging our needs for mental health support (“SCS 2023 Commencement Emphasizes Celebration, Care for Self, Commitment to Others”).  

There are so many other important moments from the year that rise to the surface of a longer reflection on our SCS commitment to Jesuit mission and values. For now, I am going to look ahead with gratitude and hope for another year of journeying together with you in this sacred work.