No Small Plans

AMDG 

I, a slave of Christ, small by all measures and yet chosen by him for some mysterious end, to you, my sister or brother, who are chosen also for the glory of God. Grace and peace.

We know that it is good to be open to the Spirit. Scripture is rife with examples of people who literally drop what they are doing to obey the prompting of the Spirit: Philip with the Ethiopian Eunuch comes to mind, as well as the calling of James and John. Many of the prophets, too. These exemplars point to a life lived moment to moment, not planning too much for the future because we wait expectantly on God, confident in his designs. Yet this is, for most of us, an extreme. Surely a lot of scheming went into the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the return of the Babylonian exiles; Paul must have employed his own mind in much of his mission work; etc. We make plans big and small without infringing upon the sovereignty of God. Ideally, our process includes prayer and our plans are open to the intervention of the Spirit. The key is that we hold our plans lightly enough that we can let them go when God prompts.

For my part, I am a natural planner. I plan my trips, my weekends, my groceries. A few years ago, if asked, I probably could have given you a rough and tentative five, ten, and twenty year plan for my life. Yet in the last few years these plans have unraveled. In December I attended the Encounter Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan (highly recommend!), in the midst of great uncertainty. I was actively looking for a new job, I was struggling financially, I had some regrets, and I was burning with desire and grappling with improbable hope for my vocation (at that time I was an inquirer in the Jesuit vocation program). I didn’t know where my life was going anymore, and I hadn’t been getting answers in prayer. I quote from my journal:

“…so I just prayed from the seats. As I started to get into worship [music], I became frustrated and even angry, asking God what I should do w/ this longing stirred up in me for him/her. I didn’t want just another emotional experience. I ran up against my position in discernment. I cried out to the Lord. Throughout the worship I had sensed the Holy Spirit there beside me, holding me or holding my hand(s). After I knelt down I sensed her again beside me, holding me close and consoling me. She told me, without words, that I am in a period right now where I must not know the plan or the path ahead. I must walk in that childlike trust and simplicity.”

At some point I would also receive an image of being in a dense, dense fog. It was not scary or uncomfortable. It just was. And it came from God, so it was good to me. I was able to accept the message with peace and with the conviction to honor it in my thoughts and actions.

Six months later, when I was rejected by the Jesuits, after a few days of shock, my mind immediately got to work. I weighed plans to contest the answer, to approach other orders, to recreate the Jesuit novitiate and missionary life for myself… my brain sketched a hundred ways forward. It was a way of coping emotionally as much as it was a way of solving the problem. Although some of these ideas were easy to confirm or discard, I found myself challenged and even stressed trying to navigate between these different, diverging paths while I prayed and tried to squint into the future. I wondered, what happened to letting the Spirit decide? That had been part of my Jesuit dream all along: to be given decent assignments and to thrive where planted.

In the midst of this confused discernment, I have been blessed to meet a few allies. I have also come to a better understanding of the position of trans people in our church. I have even begun talking with New Ways Ministries, a group that’s been advocating for LGBT folks in the Catholic church for 45 years. Although I have never been attracted to queer culture, and in general have kept my distance from anything that would remind me that I am trans, my vocation experience has reminded in a way that I cannot ignore of my wounds. These are wounds which many others are suffering in different and often more painful, more lethal ways. If I cannot slip through the cracks into religious life, if stealth no longer holds critical value, then I am freed up to take an active role in trans issues—to seek healing for these others and for the church.

Although this is not the hill I want to climb, nor the cross I want to carry, I have felt tremendous peace about the prospect. My last few weeks have been graced with abundant love, gratitude, and peace in prayer. No, the signs are not subtle! So although I have a few stones left unturned with regards to religious life, for the time being I will stay put. I will thrive where I have been planted. I am not afraid to make plans, I am just not making them now. St. Ignatius of Loyola taught us to “savor” words of Scripture. To linger over them until we feel we have received everything God is saying through them. I sense that there is much here to be savored, and I pray that I will be docile to the Spirit to speak or to be silent, to act or to wait, to stay or to go, for the good of the Kingdom.

Pray for me, and I for you!

Pax Christi,

Your Other Brother

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