Examen and Examination

July 15, 2007

1.Anyone make any calls this week to members and friends of the church to see how they’re doing – calls of the community this week?

2. Anyone eating more fruits and vegetables and foods your great grandmother would identify as food? The non-fasting fast….or visit an organic market? I’ve seen two of you at the market down by the Guthrie.

3. Anyway wake up this week and go through the things that give you joy and thanksgiving? Send that energy out on behalf of others? Or planning on doing that this Tuesday for the earth?

July 15th is the halfway point of the summer if you call summer 3 months, June, July and August. Series this summer on Spiritual Practices…why?

Spiritual practices way we practice our spirituality – (as Marcus Borg says in The Heart of Christianity) spiritual practices are the ways we seek to “become conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God”.

A relationship that helps us birth and nourish the new life – as we are dying to an old identity and living into a new way of being.

An identity that is in community with others – the call of community
That cares for our selves – the non fasting fast
That’s living joy and thanksgiving for self and on behalf of others.

This morning’s spiritual practice is The Examen. The traditional Examen of Conscious is a daily practice that came from Ignatius. There are 5 steps to the practice, gratitude for graces given, prayer for the light of insight, particular and general self examination of one day, acts of sorrow and contrition and the resolution to do better.

Psalm 139 captures this sense of awareness and intention. God is the searcher of every human heart, the One from whom no secrets are hidden. God examines and knows every aspect of our being in more intimate detail than we ourselves can see. This may scare the hell out of us, or give us great comfort.

When we read “Even before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, you hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me, where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?”, we may have felt panic or assurance.

Most likely we felt both…we want God when we need God…and want God far away when we’re up to something, or messing up.

What the examen of conscious teaches is that the loving gaze of God falls on very human, unloving, unholy people and when we feel “searched and known” by a grace filled God, we are both moved and enable to search our own hearts honestly. Self-examination does not call us to self-hatred or self-condemnation; it opens the door of our heart to cleansing, renewal, and peace.

So there are two basic truths we start with:

1. The first is the most basic affirmation of our faith: God loves us. Oh, to know this as an experience, not as words! This is not a general rule to which you, personally, may be an exception. It is not a rule that applies only when you are good, pure and lovable. It is about who God is, not who you are. God loves us with an overwhelming love that none of our sins can erase. God loves you. It’s not something you can change, or control either by effort to gain this love or even lose it.

2. The second basic truth is: we are wounded, broken humans and we mess up, in theological terms we sin, fall short of the mark….we head off influenced by false gods, in Borg’s book he mentions, appearance, achievement and affluence. We deny our essential dependence on God and do not see how compulsively we try to manufacture our own security.

Marjorie Thompson in Soul Feast says, “An important turning point in our spiritual life comes when we acknowledge both truths and admit that we can neither earn God’s love nor achieve our own security and perfection. We cannot “fix” ourselves or anyone the way we want to. When we realize that GRACE lies at the center of life, we start to see in a new way.

So let me talk briefly about the examen of conscious and the examen of consciousness.

The examen of conscious is a time we review the day, week, month, year, life…. With detachment – not making excuses, explaining, judging, being defensive.

It’s like the 4th step in 12 step groups, a time to “make a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves”.

We look for “attitudes and behaviors” that interfere with our truest good and the good of others” or our highest and greatest good – or what I’ve also called God’s dream for us. It’s a time when we look at our weaknesses and our strengths.

There’s too much information to give in this sermon. Talk to me for more. I’ve also put 10 copies of one way of doing it with Iganatian Examen, on the back table. Plenty of info on the internet - by doing a search on “examen of conscious”.

We can examen our life (takes a lot of time)…or just our day. It’s incorporated into liturgy with the prayer of confession, the liturgical way we review the day or week and confess where we’ve fallen short.

Along with the Examen of Conscious – there is also an Examen of Consciousness. Becoming aware of the contents of our consciousness—so that we can learn to respond in a more healthy, whole, Christ like way.

It’s about becoming aware of the external and internal data doing on around and in us. Tension in your shoulders…that’s data…maybe from holding fear, anger…it’s about awareness of self.

What are you thinking right now? What is your inner voice or voices saying? Right now?

Examen of consciousness is about practicing the observer part of us…observe our self, our thinking ego self…instead of just living in that self. I suggest reading the book by Eckhard Tolle, The Power of Now to learn more about this.

Examen of consciousness is about learning our mind patterns. Let me give you an example.

I’ve recognized that for some reason which I don’t need to figure out, one of my patterns is the “fear the worst” pattern. Usually around my health, but other times too.

If I feel a pain in my back, my mind goes to fear the cancer I had six years ago has returned. I used to ride that horse for awhile, that “fear the worst” horse.

Now I’m more able to recognize when that horse arrives, “O there’s that horse I usually get on and ride.” I recognize my pattern – and instead I now try to walk a different path without the benefit of that horse, actually a more trusting walk with God- though I’m fully aware that horse is still clomping along beside me beckoning me to get on…cuz it’s easier, more familiar, all saddled up.

The examen of consciousness is observing our self- instead of just living out of that self. It’s harder to do than it sounds, especially in crisis. That’s why we’re encouraged to what? PRACTICE!

Practice this in silence, prayer, when rising in the morning, going to bed, through journaling.

I want to close with one quick addition….little pun in the sermon title, examen and examination.

Remind us of the call of every citizen, we the people of the united States, in order to form a more perfect union….need to do an examen of our nation, too.
Looking at our weaknesses and strengths.

Like most individuals, this doesn’t come easily or naturally. We are like Egyptians, we like to live near "de nile."


Look at what happened to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul when he tried to raise at a Republican debate the question of our role as a nation in the 911 tragedy. He was booed and attacked by other candidates that we didn’t deserve what happened to us. There was no prior cause. They hate us for our freedom may be only part of the story. Certainly the mainstream corporate press doesn’t want to tell the entire story. So we have to inform ourselves, break through our national denial.

Read John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man or his new book, The Secret History of the American Empire.

So that when the call from the administration comes to “be afraid, be very afraid”, we can recognize the patterns in this nation…and not live in fear, but rather, in a new way of walking in trust with God.

Examen of conscious and consciousness as individuals and nations, allows us to become people who are at peace with ourselves and who can make peace with others, day by day by day.