Fr. James Martin, SJ, has a new book out this week with a dizzying and delightful title: 鈥淲ork in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool and Priest.鈥� It鈥檚 a memoir framed around the many and colorful summer jobs he had growing up. Fr. Jim is my guest this week on 鈥�AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast鈥� 鈥� it鈥檚 a great conversation, and I recommend giving it a listen.
As you鈥檒l hear, in order to research the stories you鈥檒l find in his book, Fr. Jim had to travel to a few of his old stomping grounds in and around Philadelphia. This personal pilgrimage necessarily brought him face-to-face with key moments from his past 鈥� and how God was at work therein.
There鈥檚 a poignant line where Jim recounts one of his earliest memories of sensing the Spirit鈥檚 presence. He was riding his bike through a meadow as a boy and was overcome by a strange sensation, what he would later know to be a longing for God. He had to stop and take it all in. It was a moment of 鈥減rofound happiness coupled with a desire to stay in that meadow forever, to understand the source of this beauty, to know what was happening 鈥� to possess it all somehow.鈥� (78) This was a mundane moment, nothing extraordinary to see for the average passerby. But for Jim, this sudden experience of an intimate God became a foundational memory.
Fr. Jim returned to that meadow while writing the book. It鈥檚 less a meadow now and more a patch of grass, by his telling. But the simple act of returning awoke in him that old memory and 鈥� more importantly 鈥� that sense of the Spirit鈥檚 nearness. 鈥淓ach of us knows places that are part of our core memories and can move us deeply when we encounter them again 鈥� especially if we鈥檝e not seen them for a long time,鈥� he writes. (79)
We discussed this experience and how the ordinary act of returning to important places in our lives can become something of a geographic examen. Such a pilgrimage has all the hallmarks of the typical examen: a disposition of gratitude; an embrace of the Spirit at work; a slow, careful consideration of all the ways God works in and through us; and, a desire to turn anew towards God and God鈥檚 ways. But this examen reminds us how God works in our personal history, how the Spirit is manifested in a very physical, timely way. We journey through a series of specific places in the same way Jesus walked the streets of Nazareth.
What might a geographic examen look like for each of us in our own lives? Consider: We walk the bases of our Little League field; we sit upon a favorite swing from our elementary school playground. We stand in front of the old shopping mall where we went on that quasi-first date, and we wander down the alley abutting our childhood home. Perhaps, as in Fr. Jim鈥檚 case, we peer in the factory windows of old, shuttered employers.
Whatever and wherever this pilgrimage takes us, we pause in each place to wonder aloud how God was at work. What memories resurface 鈥� and how do they reflect a God who is ever near, ever concerned with the details of our days? More strikingly, we pause in these places to consider the other people who have passed through these halls and walked down these streets and lived in these old homes. How was God at work in their stories? How do their stories intersect our own? How are we the products of community 鈥� and how do we contribute to community even now?
Put simply, a prayerful pilgrimage such as this brings us into dialogue with our God who was at work and continues to labor in our daily lives. The God we knew while running the bases of that Little League field is the same God we know today while typing away in our offices, a faithful God who never tires of drawing us close, revealing new and wondrous things about who we are and who we are yet becoming.
Listen to my conversation with Fr. James Martin, SJ 鈥� and then consider doing a mini geographic examen. Go to a site of significance from your past and see what God might desire to say to you in and through that particular place.
