On the way to something unknown
May 2022
I’ve been studying Spanish, lately, with mixed results. My goal is to increase my fluency in both reading and verbal understanding. As an introvert, I typically avoid the best way to learn a new language, which is to speak it as much as possible. This summer I plan to dedicate a significant amount of time to studying Spanish grammar, learning new vocab, reading, and listening to podcasts in Spanish.
There are a few different reasons why I want to improve my Spanish. First, there are a lot of Spanish speakers in Arizona, which also means there is a lot of Spanish media in Arizona. I want to improve my understanding of conversations, news and analysis. Second, as I learn more Spanish, I’m gaining an appreciation for the fact that languages aren’t direct translations of meaning — oftentimes meaning is derived from language. Learning a new language opens up a different cognitive perspective.
In a future newsletter I will describe my method of studying Spanish. It’s not the most efficient method, but it’s designed to nurture sustained motivation.
Another reason why I want to improve my Spanish is because of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The founder of the Society of Jesus — or the Jesuits — St. Ignatius was a mystic who managed to systematize his mystical encounter. He imbedded a structure of spiritual discernment into real-world institutions — both the Jesuit order itself and the schools and universities built by the order. Ignatius being from Spain, the Exercises and many of his letters are written in Spanish. Many texts relating to the Exercises and applications of Jesuit spirituality are written in Spanish.
Ignatius knew that to legitimize his mystical encounter, he would need to prove himself in the eyes of the religious authorities. This was no small feat in the days of the Spanish Inquisition. He took to academic study, returning to grammar school in his mid-thirties to learn Latin, followed by enrolling in the well-respected University of Paris. At the university, at the dawn of the Renaissance, Ignatius met the companions with whom he would build the foundations of the Jesuit order.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest from France who lived in the 20th century. He was also a paleontologist. He wrote the following, about trusting “the slow work of God”
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.
The attitude / ethos / disposition of this type of spirituality is one of openness and detachment. Open to be led in new directions. Detached from the need for control.
Not untethered from structure — that would be chaos. Not untethered from the community. Not detached from systems or science.
Detached from certainty. Detached from fundamentalism.
This is the paradox of freedom.