![]() ![]() Same-sex marriage became a legitimate policy goal. Coming out in my early twenties meant I came of age when being gay was transforming from a subculture that only existed in major cities to a progressive cause célèbre. ![]() ![]() These last two decades have been eventful times. The first twenty years of my adulthood have largely been taken up with figuring out how to be a gay man and a Christian. I came to the Jesuits with what must seem like a strange dilemma, at least to be sharing with an arm of the Catholic Church. This program of visualization, prayer, and insight into human psychology, forms the backbone of Ignatian spirituality. His theological masterpiece is the Spiritual Exercises, essential reading for spiritual direction. The Jesuits were founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a sixteenth century Basque nobleman and soldier. This is the practice of “testing the spirits” to see where God is leading you. I went on the retreat because I had heard about the Jesuit discipline of discernment. So it was when as a Presbyterian I found myself on a silent retreat at a Jesuit spirituality center in Louisiana. You spend a lot of time playing the Venn-diagram game of What’s the same/What’s different. You can understand what they’re saying, but you’re in a land of different cultural cues. For a Protestant, doing things in a Catholic setting is like going to a foreign country where they speak English. ![]()
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