|
The Examen Q&A
1. Is it better to do the examen alone or with others?
Either way is helpful, but sharing the examen with others gives us a
chance to enter into one another's hearts. Not only do the moments we
choose to speak about become more real and important to us, but so do
the people with whom we share. Families with children find the examen
process helps kids put into words the deep feelings within them.
2. Will this examen process keep me from making mistakes and wrong decisions?
The examen does have some safeguards built into it that can help us
avoid mistakes and wrong decisions. For example, it gives us a process
for reflecting upon our choices over time rather than acting hastily.
Before making an important decision, we can watch for a pattern of
consolation and desolation over many weeks, months or perhaps years.
However, as long as we are human nothing can guarantee that we will
never make a mistake or a wrong decision. What the examen does do is
allow mistakes and wrong decisions to become opportunities for learning
and growth.
3. Why acknowledge and listen to our desolation? Shouldn't we just forget it and focus on the good?
We are naturally meant to be in touch with the story of our experience.
However, many of us have learned to repress or deny what our desolation
wants to say to us, through family background and through our culture
that teaches us to avoid and deny pain. The examen is a way of
relearning this skill, and if we do it each day we probably will get
better at hearing what God is trying to say to us in our desolation.
Excerpted from SLEEPING WITH BREAD: Holding What Gives You Life by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, Matthew Linn, copyright © 1995. Used with permission of Paulist Press. www.paulistpress.com
Back... Introduction »
|
