Examen Ewe – A Tool for Spiritual Integrity
IHOPE YOU’RE CHUCKLING at the image above. Humor is a great place to start with self-reflection, surprisingly more useful than grim determination. So after pleading for attention to our spiritual integrity, I got to thinking about how to strengthen that inner capacity: What’s a healthy way to explore our inner life with God? Where is Spirit in our experience of ordinary ups and downs?
Spiritual integrity in the inner life
is an honest, thorough knowing of self
and self-in-God
that allows us to relate
to forces outside us
in ways that bring about
wholeness and Life.
—My working definition in a previous reflection here.
For “honest, thorough knowing of self and self-in-God” we need a focused and prayerful tool like the Examen of Consciousness, or Examen for short. I imagine it a bit like physical therapy—a simple, targeted way to develop spiritual “core” strength and flexibility. The Examen isn’t the high intensity cardio of spiritual practices. It’s not big or loud. It doesn’t require special equipment — candles, a daily devotional reading, a labyrinth, a Bible, musical ability, or even a journal. No pounding music track either. Just you and the Spirit.
Not a Test
The Examen is not a test or examination that you pass or fail. It’s a 500-year-old spiritual “exercise” from the Jesuit tradition. It really is called an exercise. Like PT, you need to practice the Examen regularly to strengthen capacity. Even five minutes a day makes a difference. Whatever you notice within you can be helpful in your relationship with God and your growth in integrity. This approach is very positive because it rests on a foundation of Divine Love. It can bring these lines from Psalm 26 alive in us: “Search me, YHWH, and test me; examine my heart and mind. For your love is before my eyes and I walk in the truth.” (Inclusive Bible). See the basic process in the box below.
Pattern of an Examen of Consciousness
- Recognize what you’ve experienced as gifts – joys, gratitude.
- Acknowledge what you’ve experienced as struggles, regrets, or sorrows.
- Sense toward the Spirit’s gentle invitation to change.
Notice your feelings as you review the day or week. Your attention can shift between the three parts in any order. What’s important is to acknowledge truthfully where you are, as well as stretch your awareness. Learn to recognize how the currents in your inner life draw you closer to the Spirit or God, or how they pull you away.
Inigo Lopez (aka Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit monastic path) developed the Examen for beginner-monks. It long ago jumped the monastery walls into the wider Christian community(1). Ignatius’ students were asked to look back through their day, noticing and responding to interior “movements.” He described, with real psychological sophistication how thoughts, feelings, memories, and urges seem to carry us along like currents that move us toward or away from the Holy.
Spiritual Muscle Groups
Back to the metaphor of PT. You can imagine that the Examen targets the spiritual muscle groups of openness and attention. To grow in spiritual integrity, we need to prayerfully open ourselves. We learn to recognize what we are really thinking and feeling with a prayer like Quaker Thomas Kelly’s, “I open all before Thee”(2). Any part of our inner life that we hold apart, closed to the Holy, is cut off from spiritual growth and healing. When we are honest with ourselves and God, we can be more aware of how the Divine is present and active within us, always urging us toward the good, and toward the best of who we could be, our True Self, or integrated self-in-God.
The openness of the Examen asks for inner hospitality rather than avoidance or shame about what we find unpleasant within us. What’s in there is all welcome with the Spirit. Our warm inner receptiveness is possible because we can trust there is that of the God within us too, helping us to see and even befriend our hidden monsters. A gracious Inner Teacher is bigger and more compassionate towards us than we could imagine. The Holy points us toward growth and wholeness, rather than condemns us for our failings.
Stretching Awareness
The Examen strengthens our “attention” beyond ordinary plans, mistakes, opinions, relationships, feelings, or tasks in front of us. With the Examen, we intentionally pause to notice more. When we invite the Holy into our reflection, we stretch spiritual muscles toward a subtle but tangible spiritual awareness. Maybe we check in with our conscience. But more than conscience, spiritual awareness is saturated with our inborn connection to the Holy.
Spiritual awareness happens like eyesight adjusting to a darkened room. Our inner vision takes on new dimension and potential: A remembered conversation glows with affirmation; a regret urges us toward apology; a surprising sense of direction rises from the confusion of choices; a fear evaporates into trust or clear next steps, or both; a deep comfort soothes our grief; a companioning presence reassures us through uncertainty or danger. Spiritual awareness can be subtle, but it’s how we sense Divine invitations into action.
Currents Within Us
The Examen encourages a special attention to inner movements that help us follow the Spirit’s guidance. They are like currents within us that carry us along, quickly or slowly in certain directions (3). Some seem to flow toward deeper relationship with the Holy, and some seem to turn us away. Sometimes these influences work against each other. The Examen helps us discern which is which. We are aiming to wholeheartedly cooperate with the movements of the Holy, and turn aside from what Ignatius named, “contrary spirits” (or currents) within us.
Ignatius wasn’t talking about “devils,” but helping unmask hidden impulses and destructive desires that are part of the normal, tangled, human condition. We all do this! We can recognize a “contrary spirit” within us by paying attention to the direction it’s pulling us, away from connection to God.
Sometimes a contrary spirit fills us with doubt or fears that keep us locked in unhealthy thinking, cut off from the Good in us and others. Contrary “messages” within us may sound like a nasty inner critic that feeds anxiety, shame, or compulsive patterns. Contrary inward influences can urge us toward self-protection rather than generous openness with others. A contrary spirit may even feel good: An overblown sense of ourselves or a desire to “win” or control others may give us a burst of pleasure. It usually doesn’t last, so we seek more, like an addiction! With the spiritual awareness of the Examen, we can see a wider truth. Something in us is wounded, hiding, scared, or running away from the wholeness (integrity) of who we could be in the love and life of the Divine.
Contrary Spirits
Here are queries that might reveal a contrary spirit in action:
- When do you feel good or about skipping something you believe is important?
- When do you put yourself down or discount your worthwhile efforts?
- When do you justify hurting someone’s feelings?
- When do you believe inner voices that shame or demean you?
- When do you avoid saying, “No,” even when overcommitment is fueling resentment?
- When do you dig in your heals about making healthy changes?
- When do you ignore regrets, avoid apology or doing your part to restore life-giving relationships?
You could write your own questions to help you recognize a contrary spirit in action. When you notice, you can pray and ask to be freed of its influence. Sometimes only Divine Power can liberate and lead us into a life of true integrity. But we can be ready. We can cooperate intentionally. Attention comes first. A regular Examen can help us collaborate with the Spirit in weaving the inner and outer life into a seamless whole.
God loves us as we are, which is infinitely comforting. God also calls us to grow and change, to become more nearly that person we were created with the potential to be, which is infinitely loving but also sometimes disconcerting.
—Lloyd Lee Wilson (contemporary Quaker) (4)
