When you live or work in a college town, you can actually feel the pulse of the university. It’s faster in the fall when the population in a small area explodes with excited and anxious students. Then, everything seems to slow down around the holidays as the campus empties again. In January, the pulse rises with the start of another semester, but it does so with less abandon, more conservation. As spring arrives, the beat intensifies with one last burst of energy before the summertime deceleration.
This week the slow throb of summer is quickening again all over Blacksburg. Classes begin next week and there is already a detectable buzz in the air. I get caught up in it. I feel my own pulse quickening. As my calendar fills up with this and that program, meeting or retreat, I get excited. I like having these opportunities to be engaged in ministry; more time with people, less time in the office! But I also start to feel rushed and hurried. The sheer number of commitments seems to propel me into overdrive. It makes me want to complete things in order to mark them off my list and move on to the next. And I don’t even like lists!
I know that when I get caught up in this rhythm, in the racing pulse of a new school year, I am more likely to overlook the movement of the Holy Spirit. In this time when ministry is supposed to be at its peak, I’m at risk for missing the real opportunities to see God at work.
The spiritual discipline of personal reflection is a great antidote for the blindness caused by busyness. Just as I can feel the pulse the university around me, I must also notice the beat of my own heart.
A recent Cooper House graduate reminded me of this when she began a blog to document her upcoming year as a PC(USA) Young Adult Volunteer. Rachel wrote about our Cooper House tradition of sharing “Yays, Nays, and Yahwehs” as a way to encourage spiritual reflection. ‘Yays’ are the highlights of a day or experiences that are energizing. ‘Nays’ are low points or encounters that are draining. ‘Yahwehs’ describe where you saw God moving or speaking. Rachel has decided to structure her blog entries as “Yays, Nays, and Yahwehs” over the coming year with the hope that this discipline will help her to be more aware of how God is working in her and the community where she serves.
Many groups use this or a similar process on mission trips or retreats. It’s nothing new. In fact, it’s really an adaptation of an ancient practice that was meant to be done daily, not just at special times. In his Spiritual Exercises, Saint Ignatius of Loyola outlines the ‘Daily Examen,’ which is the practice of prayerful reflection of a day’s events. It involves becoming aware of God’s presence, reviewing the day, and paying attention to personal emotions. Saint Ignatius believed that the Daily Examen is essential to detecting God’s presence in and will for our lives. He thought of this spiritual practice as a gift from God.
I like to think of it as an invitation to check your own pulse. If we can slow down long enough to notice how we feel about the events and interactions of our days, we just might be surprised by how and where God shows up.
GINNY TAYLOR-TROUTMAN is the Presbyterian Campus Minister at Virginia Tech where she finds great joy journeying with college students. She lives in the beautiful mountains of Southwest Virginia in a tiny town called Dublin with her husband, Andrew (who is also a Presbyterian pastor), infant son, Samuel, and dog, Nikki Giovanni Bob Dylan. Ginny loves hiking, music, a good cup of coffee, festivals, and just about anything she can do outside with her family and friends.
