God's Communication
And
Our Interior Awareness

       Here we focus on our growth in interior awareness in order to notice how God communicates with us. Hence this article will help to deal with the following issues/questions implied in this focus:

        We believe that God enters our world, that God speaks to us, and that we can respond. "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets, but in these last days God has spoken to us through God's Son" (Heb. 1:1f). We believe and we tell each other that God speaks to us through visible creation, through the events of our lives, through the words of scripture, through our churches, and through the signs of the times. These are avenues of God's speech to us, and if we pay attention, we can come to recognize what/how God is communicating with us through them.

        But what does this all really mean? Are these messages, coming from all these various sources, like little notes placed in bottles floating up to our shore from some distant island where someone is trying to reach us? "No," we answer, "it is not like that. God communicates with us personally. The realm of God is within us."

        We believe that God speaks to us personally and uniquely, person to person. But how does this happen when God does not have vocal chords and use sound waves? In the Bible, many people seemed to receive God's communication as if sound waves were used. God spoke to Moses from the burning bush. Mary received a visit from an angel. Paul was struck down on the road to Damascus and heard Jesus' voice. On the other hand, when we consider people we know who listen to God's communication, we are aware that they are not talking about sound waves and speech patterns. In addition, some of our mental institutions have people within their walls who claim that they literally hear God's voice and their experience is treated as hallucinatory. So when we 'listen' to God's word, are we not using a metaphor (which is a form of an analogy)?

        The answer is that we are using a metaphor as we must because we are dealing with the mystery of communication from one who is completely other than ourselves: the Holy One who transcends and is beyond all human experience and ways of understanding. Though we must use metaphor and example to convey the meaning of such communication, these metaphors (speech, listening, hearing, movement) are nevertheless pointing to something real. It is the reality of God's communication through our experience. For example:

These and many other experiences are vehicles of God's communication. This means that our feelings, our emotions, our fleeting thoughts are carriers of God's presence and God's personal word to us. We call these interior reactions "movements" or "affective movements."

       Affectivity, which we distinguish from romantic affection, implies the two components of thought and feeling in conjunction with each other. 'Spiritual' affectivity implies that these components are experienced in a faith context. Let me use three examples to show what affectivity is and how affectivity can be spiritual:

  1. One evening as it is getting dark, I walk outside my cottage by the lake. I look at the beautiful sunset and I am filled with a sense of well-being and elation.
  2. It is the same situation the next evening, only now, as I am filled with a sense of well-being and elation, I am aware of God's beauty in God's creation and I am filled with gratitude.
  3. It is the same situation on a third evening, but now I am filled with a sense of well-being and elation only as I begin to look at the sunset. Then when I return to the cottage, I begin to interpret this feeling and I begin to understand that God must be beautiful to have created this setting.
        The second example of me looking at the sunset and experiencing a sense of well-being and, AT THE SAME TIME, being aware of God's relation to it is a 'spiritual' movement. In the first example, my sense of well-being might be no different from that which my pet dog might have experienced. And in the third example, the understanding comes after, through an interpretation of my former experience. Indeed, this interpretation may be a carrier of another spiritual movement, but in the third example the actual sense of well-being is not.

        What makes the second example a 'spiritual' movement but not the first nor the third? It is the 'meaning' contained within the movement itself. In the second example, the affective response is known and understood to be directed to God. The sunset, given as a gift from God, is the object towards which the affective movement itself points. The meaning is received and appreciated from within the interior reaction itself. The affective movement, immediately contains the faith perspective. It is the context of meaning that makes an affective experience 'spiritual.' It is not the meaning that I impose upon the experience (as in the third example) but the meaning contained within the experience.

        It becomes important in the spiritual life to distinguish one's spiritual experiences from one's biological, psychological, and physical, experiences. The roots of our feelings can be understood from these various perspectives. Most of the time, our feelings do not need any particular perspective for us to read them correctly. Most of the time, our feelings are simply natural human interior reactions to a given situation.

      However, there are moments when it is helpful to understand them from a certain perspective: biological, psychological, physical, spiritual, etc. Growth in the recognition and separation of these contexts is helpful in discernment. Otherwise, we might spiritualize falsely what is really going on. "When it waddles like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and flies like a duck, call it a duck."

1. Biological Reactions
      Some people respond to low air pressure by a feeling of listlessness. ...  Others to fatigue by irritability. ... Others to noise by becoming manic. ... Others to the biological changes of midlife by feelings of uselessness.

2. Psychological Reactions
      To grow in self-knowledge is to know one's own psychological history: the way we grew up, our past scars that influence us now, the ways we have learned to cope with life, our own unresolved adolescence. All through our lives, we repeatedly relive these realities in our present feelings and imaginings and in their consequent behaviours. Most people who are not in touch with such inner facts unwittingly live out 'dramatic scripts' that have been written into their personalities and experiences from early childhood. For example:

      A child of immigrant parents who was frequently called lazy when young may grow up always trying to prove him/herself as being worthwhile.

      Another person may have learned to play the 'good guy' role to cover feelings of inadequacy.

      Whenever confronted by an unexpected happening or spontaneous response, another person, interpreting this as a threat, may have learned to clam up in panic.

3. Genuinely Human Reactions
      Many of our interior experiences are simply natural, suitable reactions to given, here-and-now situations. They can indicate exactly what is going on in our surroundings and in ourselves in reaction to the situation. Inasmuch as we are in contact with those 'genuine' feelings which are not distorted by a wounded past or by some present hidden reaction, we can use them to pick up and understand what is really going on outside ourselves. For example, a remark at the meeting I have just attended provokes a feeling of uneasiness. I recognize this feeling as a genuine reaction to a dishonest remark. The uneasy feeling is a real indicator of possible dishonesty. Having acknowledged the feeling and having recognized the situation to which it points, I can begin to judge how to handle the situation. At another time, I find myself feeling tense as I recognize the other's attempt to manipulate me.

        If the affective movements in the context of faith awareness are the carriers of God's word to us, can we then say that God always speaks directly with us? No, we can not. There are definite instances in the spiritual life where some persons do receive DIRECT manifestations of God's word, but most of God's manifestations with which we deal are INDIRECT manifestations of God's word. They are, as it were, filtered down through human and psychological causality. The affective experiences in the context of faith awareness are merely the vehicles through which God speaks. 'Spiritual' movements are indirect carriers of God's word and are the means by which we can know that God is speaking to us. However, many experiences can be accounted for, to a great extent, in other ways: the warmth of a group sharing in faith, the sense of loss of a beloved, the quiet stillness in the members of a congregation listening to a moving sermon, the beauty of a sunset, the meaningful awareness of a number of events coming together. This does not mean that these communications of God are unreal or fictitious. What it does mean is that we have to distinguish those spiritual movements that we think are influenced by God from those movements that really are. Otherwise, we run the risk of misinterpreting the movements within our being and making wrong choices and decisions as a result.

        It is important in the spiritual life first to distinguish among the psychological, physical, biological, and spiritual movements within our being. Next, it is important to distinguish authentic 'spiritual' movements from movements that we think are spiritual. Since most spiritual movements are indirect, we are liable to read into them or to jump to conclusions as to what they must mean. We must always remember two fundamental principles in our spiritual lives:

        As a human being, I have written within me an entire universe of physical, historical, biological, and psychological movements that correspond to similar movements in all conscious creatures: animals, birds, fish. My being contains many levels and dimensions: urges, feelings, imagination, memory, desires, intellect, reason, consciousness. All of these influence my behavior and the choices that I make. That which distinguishes me from non-human animals is not so much my consciousness but rather my ability to reflect upon my experience and, through this ability to reflect, to experience my own behavior and to reflect on my reflections. I can operate as an unaware or non-aware person but, in this case, I am only the combination of the psychological and biological processes which program my behavior and choices. I can work busily away and not know where I am going. On the other hand, I can operate out of awareness, and then I have the potential to go beyond the psychological and, through this awareness, to program myself, and to act more freely. It is in acting out of, and making choices in, the context of this reflective awareness that I become unique and truly human. Unfortunately, in many people this skill is not highly developed.

        Any person -- believer or non-believer -- can develop the skill and practice of reflective awareness. For example, a business man can become more aware of his aggressiveness and his manipulation in order to become a more effective business man and to work more harmoniously with those in his office. An atheist can learn to become more aware of his unconscious motivations in order to communicate more appropriately in various life situations. In both of these situations, the intellect reflects upon itself and upon all the other movements of affectivity: feelings, needs, drives, emotions.

        But there is a further heightened awareness which the person of faith is able to develop. This heightened awareness presumes, and takes for granted, the kind of reflection upon experience that we have just mentioned in both the materialist and the atheist. It can be called a 'transcending faculty' because it also presumes the work of the Spirit and the enlightenment of grace.

        Grace means God making God's self personally present to me in a variety of ways:

        As these examples should make clear, 'grace' for me now means any or all of the gifts of God insofar as I recognize the Giver of the gifts. Faith is the key to this world of grace. A 'faith-full' person has an awareness of God permeating the events of the day. Spiritual awareness is a skill or habit of faith in cooperation with the Holy Spirit by which a person reflects upon all the various dimensions of one's being in order to be in touch with the spiritual dimension or the spiritual movements that exist within one's being. It is only when I am acting out of this spiritual awareness that I am able to make choices in keeping with the God's desires. Hence the ability to listen to God's communication through a spiritual awareness has both 'psychological' and 'spiritual' dimensions. A person who pays no attention to the skills  that can be developed in the psychological dimension runs the risk of misinterpreting and spiritualizing life experiences. On the other hand, someone who does not operate out of the spiritual awareness dimension runs the risk of confusing good decision-making processes with discovering God's will. Both dimensions are important and both need to be developed.

        The following model may help you to picture these movements and awarenesses:

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1. The core or center of my being which I do not know directly but only indirectly through the experiences in the other circles of my being. One may picture the Holy Spirit as residing here through the gift of sanctifying grace. Some people think of this as the heart.

2. The level of needs and drives and sensing.

3. The level of reactions to these needs and drives and reactions to life: some of which are unconscious, some of which are pre-conscious, and some of which I am very aware. For example, I may feel irritable as a result of a need for sleep due to overwork. The danger is that I am totally programmed in my behavior and choices by this level.

4. The level of memory and imagination which flows back and forth from the intellect to the affective areas.

5. The level of intellect and will which has the capacity to reflect upon itself.

6. The level of spiritual awareness which operates in the context of faith, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit. To the extent that I operate out of this level, to the same extent I become truly spiritual and am able, with grace, to make good decisions.

7. ........ affective movements arising from level 2.

8. ******** spiritual movements arising from level 1 but filtered through all of the other levels. At times, spiritual movements are the same as those from level 7 and it is the faith context that makes the difference. At other times, these movements are different. Both must be differentiated through spiritual awareness.

        In summary, God is always communicating with us in a variety of different ways. It is important to be open to these experiences and to be able to determine when an experience is spiritual. By growing in the ability to reflect on, and to understand, these experiences, we become aware of the meaning of these spiritual movements and discern within them the leadings of our God.

        Among all the methods in Ignatian spirituality that help one grow in awareness of spiritual movements, there are three that can be mentioned here. Each is linked to an explanation given elsewhere in this website:
1.  Awareness Examen (sometimes called Examen Of Consciousness);
2.  Review Of Prayer;
3.  Repetition.

For Reflection And Discussion

a) How do spiritual movements differ from other affective movements that we experience?

b) What does 'listening' in prayer mean?

c) What do we mean when we say that God communicates with us personally yet indirectly?

d) Why should spiritual awareness presume psychological or physical awareness?

e) Why is reflection on experience necessary for spiritual growth?

f) How would you help another person to pray in order that he/she would be open to and allow spiritual movements to happen?


Prayer Exercises
To Help Growth
In Awareness Of Spiritual Movements

Prayer Exercise 1--

For 5 or 10 minutes each day, be silent and try to get in touch with the different feelings that you have had through this day.

i)    Place yourself in the presence of God.

ii)   Simply stop and let come to the surface of your consciousness all the feelings of the past day. Some of these words may help you to identify these feelings:

joyful,   in turmoil,   being accepted,   peaceful,   bitterness,
 resentment,  defensive,   angry,   alienated,   loving,   hostile,
longing, desire,  distant,  confident,   fury,   indignation,   bugged,
bold,  relieved,  fearful,  loved,  hyper,  tense,   confused.

Prayer Exercise 2 --

Scripture texts for prayer that deal with listening to God's communication:

Luke 11:1-13;   John 14:16-28;   Romans 5:1-11;

Romans 8:26-34;   Ephesians 3:14-21;   Psalm 95;

Isaiah 6:1-9;   Luke 18:9-14;  Acts 9:1-20

Deutoronomy 30:14;  Romans 10:8;  1Kings 19:11-13

Prayer Exercise 3 --

The purposes of this exercise are to become more attuned to the different levels of movements within yourself and to grow in the skill of distinguishing 'spiritual' movements from the physical and psychological dimensions of your being. Each day spend about ten minutes on the following:

i)    Place yourself in the presence of God and pray for enlightenment. ... Relax. ... Let your real feelings surface and name them. Choose one or two of these.

ii)   Ask God to help you uncover what is really going on beneath your experiences. Talk with God about them.

iii)   Talk with Jesus about these experiences. You may want to thank him for them. Of course, if they were problematic, you may want to ask him for growth in freedom or some enlightenment. You might discuss with him how you might handle them in the future. Perhaps you could imagine yourself in a similar situation in the future and ask Jesus how you might handle it. Then let go. This process of recognition with Jesus is itself a freeing process and leads to recognition of what is happening when it is happening.

iv)   Ask yourself if you have responded freely to situations of the past period or if your behavior has been dominated by psychological unfreedoms.

v)    What experiences have you had to-day that you would call 'spiritual'? In other words, where have you met the God to-day:

presence?   absence?   peace?
 struggle?   awareness?    insight?

vi)    Toward the end of the week, spend some time reflecting on the movements of the whole week. Make a graph using three colors -- one for psychological experiences, one for physical experiences, and one for spiritual experiences. Hopefully such a graph will help you notice how all these different levels co-exist and intertwine at the same time.