Free Yearly Examen Printable

As this rather eventful year draws to a close, I find myself a little overwhelmed trying to make sense of it all. I turn to an ancient Ignatian practice. The Examen. There are many online resources that explain this prayer practice, especially as it is practiced daily. I couldn’t find a free printable resource for a yearly examen, so I gave it my best shot, and am offering it to you as one way to bring 2020 to a close.

How?

Print out the journal pages. Find a quiet place. Welcome the presence of the Holy One to accompany you as you reflect.

There is an initial page to remember the intentions you set at the beginning of the year. The following three pages are for a timeline of your year as it unfolded. As you bring the events of this year to your awareness, pay attention to the emotion evoked. What were you grateful for? What did you grieve? Write these in the sidebars. How did you respond to life as it unfolded? These are your consolations and desolations. What responses brought you closer to God? What responses moved you further from a sense of Immanuel’s presence with you? Remember, the griefs and gratitudes are how you felt, the consolations and desolations are how you responded to the movement of the Spirit in your life.

As you engage in this exercise, pay attention to any patterns that emerge or nudgings you sense from the spirit. The final two journal pages are for final reflections and setting intentions for the coming year.

May the Lord Bless and Keep you!

-kim

yearly-examen-1Download

My Camino

I’m training for the Camino, an approximately 65 mile trek across Spain following pilgrim roads and staying in hostels. The stopping point is Santiago, and the Cathedral of St James. I hope to do this as a graduation celebration, in the Spring of ’24. I have a cousin that may join me for the trek, and at least one of my teens serious about preparing for this type of trip. In the meantime, I slowly up my number of steps a day, building endurance for the trek

My life is like a Camino right now. I’ve just started meeting with counseling clients. A wise mentor said it will be 5 years post graduation before I have any idea of what I’m doing in the counseling room- and I believe him. I am full of kindly intention and naivete, but not sure what is next on the path ahead. Parenting has also been an arduous journey. I had a hard time finding a rhythm this semester, getting kids where they need to be, scheduling appointments, and still showing up for all the things I have to show up for. There have been many days where I felt like I was walking uphill, a few tears, and some utter, utter, exhaustion.

And still I train. I learn to use muscles I have not used before, and build up ones that have fallen into disuse. This pace of life is new to me, but it is not impossible. Sometimes, this does not seem sustainable. I remember another time of physical training, when I was half the age that I am now, to climb Pikes peak in Colorado. I was training with about 100 other ministry interns, people I wanted to slap every time they lapped me on the track, shouting encouragements to “beat my body and make it a slave!”. Regardless of my less- than-perky attitude towards training, I made it to the top of that snowy Colorado mountain, just days before the twin towers fell. On the way back from the mountain I wrote in my journal, “this was pointless, I’m tired and my body hurts. Reflecting back on it 20 years later, that trip up the mountain became a marker for me, a place where I could look back to in my life and say “I can do hard things”.

The Camino in ’24 is not a proof that I can do hard things, these several years of schooling/pandemic/childrearing are proof enough of that. This Camino trip is a memorial, marking the end of one journey and the beginning of another. It is a chance to lose myself in Galician forests, and a reason to still tend to my physical body in the midst of life right now. It is so easy to become unbalanced. All I need to do is blink, and I’m spending hours of my days at a desk, surrounded by coffee and carb laden foods, and I’ve gained 15 pounds. It takes intention to moderate my caffeine intake and eating, and make myself move. Emotions are the same way, all it takes is a few days of running on autopilot, and I’ve amassed the emotional equivalent of a pool of toxic sludge, and I wonder, why am I so tired and spent?

So, I move. I breathe and move my body, and choose foods that resemble the living things that they once were. I slow down my pace, allowing the sludge to move through me instead of carrying it around. I soak in sunset clouds, dancing leaves and the antics of baby goats. I forego finishing that last paper for a moment of wonder at the unfolding of my children

This is my Camino

Limbo

The longest night of the year came and went. I took a nap that day, spent the evening watching Disney + with the family, and went to bed at a reasonable time for another nine hours of sleep. This is not depression, but wintering well after a fall season of working weekend overnights and not getting enough sleep. It was decadent, luxurious, and a necessary reset in preparation for working overnights the next couple of weekends. These are the last.

Spring semester is busy for me, besides school. We brought back our child from residential. Not that they were doing better, but they were spiraling, and I thought we could do better for her here. She isn’t allowed back in public school yet, but the school did provide a Chromebook for virtual instruction at home.

Life is just incredibly, incredibly full. Supervision for a needy child. Preparing for not one, but two careers. Trying to raise the rest of our motley clan, make sure there is supper on the table each night, and that everyone gets to their scheduled things. I would not trade it. I love school. I love my family. My body is going to break if I don’t get more consistent sleep.

I start a counseling practicum in the coming semester, and I am so excited for that, excited for the chance to put theory into practice actually sitting and meeting with clients. The challenge will be scheduling practicum times around appointments and classes. The kiddo back from residential has a lot of weekly appointments. I’ve misplaced an important folder of documents, again, and I am going to have to replace them.

And so this liminal space of reset. There is a beautiful shelf of Church Dogmatics waiting for me, but they will continue to wait, with some questions being lived a little while longer before being answered. I have my books for the coming semester, carefully shelved and unopened. First I sleep. I replace the missing documents. I tie up a few of the loose ends left dangling. Who knows? Maybe I even drop in to visit with a friend I haven’t seen for a while. The hustle is coming, but for now, I winter.

In the space between ending and starting again

Last week, I turned in the final exam of the semester. I still carry about a lingering cough from our family’s foray into the “tripledemic”. (For the sake of posterity, the tripledemic was the thing that happened once everyone stopped wearing masks. The fall and winter of 2022 have had high rates of flu and RSV and continuing coronavirus swells. In practice, it means that there hasn’t been a week since September when at least one family member was down with a fever or a cough). As we approach Christmas, I wonder if it isn’t time to take my cue from nature and rest.

It is time, like the sheep, to dress warmly and stay dry, but still get some fresh air every day. I know that exercise really helps fight those winter blahs.

It is time, like the critters, to eat foods with high nutritional content. For little ole human me, it means more protein and fiber, and care around processed foods (Bring on the oatmeal, the bean soups, the fruit and nuts)

It is time to read poetry, to write, and journal again. To watch and wonder and be present in my life.

It is time to reflect and be thankful. I am learning the wisdom of both gratitude and anger. A daily gratitude practice has been shown to increase feelings of well-being, and Lord knows, I have plenty to be thankful for.

It is time to clear the air. Lament is also healthy. I rant and fuss and pour out all my mess anytime I drive in the car, alone. I imagine that God is with me, that God hears. After a few minutes, it usually turns back to gratitude, but man, holding all the negative stuff in, pushing it down, is exhausting. It feels a lot lighter to get it out and leave it with God, or at least, in the car.

It is time to do that very mundane thing of making sure physicals and dentist appointments are scheduled for the year.

It is time to hang up the accumulation of sweaters stacked on the chair. To put away the books I am done with from last semester. To find a spot for the new textbooks that are arriving. To straighten up my office and recycle the papers I am finished with.

It is time to put the car in the shop for an oil change.

It is time to enjoy my children, to visit with them, to laugh with them. To really listen.

It is time to sleep more, to cuddle with my honey on cold nights, and to only get out of bed for the promise of hot coffee and a blazing fire.

TO everything a season. All things in their proper time. To me, this Advent space always feels liminal, as if we are folding up the odds and ends of one world, and making way for another. It is the space of pregnant Mary, with God already but not yet. It is the time of reflection and of hidden mysteries.

”

Wintering Well

Brown and ragged around the edges

a blanket of leaves

decorated with frost

in conversation with my soul

It is time

Time for tea, many cups

for more time in bed

for the warm socks, and cozy blanket

time for oatmeal, fruit, and less caffeine

It is time for poetry and podcasts

for the lilting incantations of Irish thinkers

and

Mary Oliver or Rilke

their noticings incense that fills the cathedral

and my own prayers too, songs in the night

angry lamenting ones

and the overflowing grateful ones

both kinds

life with God in little Mount Solon

the brown, crunching leaves

the delicate, impermanent frost

image credit By Tord Dellsén – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85471023

A Disorganized Mom’s Meal plan for a Month

As the manager of a large family, and a student, meal planning has been necessary to my survival. It’s just that I hate sticking with a plan. Instead I pick a different a theme for each night of the week and stock my pantry with ingredients for 4 variations on that theme. I grocery shop for dinner foods once a month, mostly just to restock missing ingredients. In case this is helpful…

Sundays- crockpot meals or leftovers. I have roasts or chicken or keilbasa, and root vegetables. Also keep ingredients for scones or other baked treats on hand. Sometimes I’ll premake a casserole on Saturday. In the winter, the kids were really into grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup on Sunday afternoond

Monday: Vegetarian, I buy some packs of veggie burgers, fries, fixings, as well as ingredients for black bean soup, bag of potatoes, and vegetarian chili

Tuesdays: Italian: varieties of pastas and sauces, a couple packs of beef and chicken, salad, and garlic knots. Wine 🙂

Wednesday: breakfast (we like Waffle Wednesday) pancake mix, eggs, fruit, “heat and serve” sausages. Other options are sausage gravy and eggs (or biscuits), cheesy grits with gravy, breakfast casserole, hootenanies, bagel sandwiches and hash browns. Fruit and yogurt parfaits are a good desert.

Thurs: “taco Thursday” tortilla chips, ground beef, salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, shredded lettuce optional side of rice and refried beans. I buy several jars of Sofrito to mix with my rice.

Friday: Chinese or chicken: chicken, rice, stir fry vegetables, and a variety of sauces (thai, kung poa, curries)

Saturday: EASY PEASY: hot dogs OR chicken nuggets OR subs, with dill pickles, chips, carrot sticks and cookies

Summer Fun, and A Free Natural Deodorant Recipe!

This summer has gone so quickly! The fourth seems like just yesterday, yet the bins of school supplies appearing in stores announce that the end of the summer season will soon be upon us. I puttered a bit in the garden this afternoon, fussing over fruit trees and tomato plants. A Mary Oliver poem “I Worried” with the line “Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it?” tugged at my consciousness, but then I only had the calls of goat kids and kid kids to pull me from my musings.

We’ve grown our little heard this summer. Underhill Manor now boasts 1 sheep, 2 dwarf milking goats (soon to be four), 4 geese, a handful of ducks (one with lovely blue wing tips), a large white bunny, a guinea pig, 2 cats, one dog, and assorted chickens. There is plenty to pet and see and enjoy, besides the normal array of chickadees, cardinals and squirrels. I once read a letter from Clare to St Francis, where she went on a bit about how incredibly she felt Gods presence in all things, the budding flowers and the bird calls. She gloried in the richness of their apparent poverty. I feel that, in the cool morning when I walk out the door and in sunny lazy afternoons on the hammock. How I wish I had the discipline to stay in that place of sweet emptiness and rest!

But perhaps I am a more active sort of saint, if a saint at all. I hear Theresa of Avilla kept folks on their toes. Anyway, there has been much to keep busy with this summer! Lots of swimming and kid’s activities. My mom is recovering from surgery, and we had been focusing more on creation care as a family. Besides making some lifestyle changes, we’ve tried our hands at making natural soaps, shampoo bars and deodorant! The deodorant recipe has proven highly effective in the hot summer weather and activity, even for the teens, so I am passing it along. The measurements are not exact (1 part could equal a tablespoon or a cup, depending on how large a batch you want to make)

1 part shea butter to 3 parts coconut oil

1/2 part beeswax

3 parts arrowroot powder (this absorbs sweat)

1/4 part baking soda (optional, the small amount does not cause us any skin irritation and helps fight odor, but if sensitive to it leave out)

1 tsp citric acid, lemon juice, or lime juice (this is also odor fighting)

*1 dropperful clary sage essential oil (this has antibacterial properties, killing the sweat smell)

*1 droperfull lavendar essential oil (good for skin and antifungal)

*If you are making a big batch, use more essential oils. This is the measure I use when making a 2 cup batch.

**optional: additional powdered spices. I like pumpkin pie spice with this.

Put oils and beeswax in saucepan on low heat until everything is melted. Turn off heat and added rest of ingredients while stirring. Pour into molds or small containers when mixed well. Citric acid will make the baking soda bubble a bit. This is fine. Cool in refrigerator until solid.

This deodorant work well anywhere that smells, I’ve seen it kill athletes foot when used on feet.

Muddy Middles

It is the middle of the story that gets all muddled and muddied, at least, that is the case in the best and truest stories, the ones that resonate deeply in the core of us. Merry and Pippin lose each other. Edmund betrays his siblings. The princess must flee the kingdom. Miss Bennet spurns Darcy’s proposal. Love cools for a time, the rightful ruler is usurped, the dream seems to die, the hero is wounded.

Once upon a time, the world was good. God says it was so, but also, it is a truth I feel in my bones. It is a truth as apparent as the chickadee, or a newborn babe, or spring, or the hopes I have for my children, or the motivation I find each year to try to coax some living thing from recalcitrant soil. Philosophy went awry when it supposed that this goodness was only a reflection of some even better, more perfect good. The little chicadee is only a shadow of “the perfect form of bird.’ All that we see is only imaginal, an imperfect reflection of a better, more perfect form. We can blame Plato for this thinking, but in some cases, Christianity ran with it. We held on the that idea, for after all, aren’t we created in the image of God, marred by the fall?

Yes. and No. Humankind is created “in the image of God”. Perhaps in the way that ancient rulers set up their image in the lands of their holdings, a visible reminder of their rulership, but that is besides the point. That is not the full story. The is an origin story, but not the end of the story. Our end is and never was to attain to an original state of being God, to think so is just silly. The little chickadee need not attain to the perfection of the perfect, imaginal bird, it is good because it is a little chickadee, as is the next little chickadee and the next. In the present moment of the God who is always present, the little bird is all that a little bird need be. It is even, in its flits and flights and singing and squawking, dare I say, complete, fulfilling a telos of glorifying God and enjoying Him.

A poem I am savoring this week, “In the Name,” by Paidrig O’Tuama, places things like erectile dysfunction next to table communion. Boob jobs and confession. Bisexuals and prayer. It feels almost sarcireligious to mention these all to human states next to what we consider holy. We have too long done a disservice to the Holy. The Holy came to our reality, or so the story goes, and in doing so, bathed even low things, the things we despise, in love light.

The middle is muddy, and glorious, and not the end of the story, and good because Goodness came and crapped on the dirt, spit in our eyes, and stank up the room with his sweat. In our aspirations of greatness, we have forgotten simple goodness. No, we have not reached the end, the telos. We have not completed the metamorphosis into “more like Christ”, but God and Goodness are present with us now. Even in the muddy middle.

Adventures in Crisis Parenting

It started when one of my teens swallowed a half dollar, or was it a quarter? She wasn’t sure, but gosh, her throat hurt. How she got it down her gullet? No clue. Why? Also no clue. The size of the coin meant a trip to the ER for an x-ray. The coin was well on its way to coming out in the end. A few days after that ER trip, the other kids and I began to run fevers. Another round of calls made to the pediatrician. “Find Covid testing”, we were told. If only it were that easy to find Covid testing days before people were wanting to travel for Christmas. We found a pharmacy with an open slot in a neighboring town. I loaded one of my feverish children into the van and off we went. When we got there, there were no tests. I drove my feverish child home. The rest of the week was a sick, sweaty, daze.

I fell back into the wise advice a friend had given me. “Stick to three priorities a day”. OK, so priority 1: feed people, care for the sick 2: attend to the messiest part of the house 3) Christmas. Christmas came, bright, but subdued, this year. That is, until the kids set the kitchen on fire. Luckily, no one was hurt and there was no damage. Also, I got to use a fire extinguisher, so, like, cross that off the bucket list. Wow! What an eventful winter break!

Ok, so back to trying to organize my life. I made up a list of daily habits that I hoped to add to my three priorities. Things like drinking water, getting outside, taking time to meditate. Best laid plans, right?

The following day another one of my older children started displaying some concerning neurological symptoms. The onset was sudden. Another call to the doctors office, another, longer trip to the ER. This time the ER was flooded, as we are at the height of a pandemic. They gave my child medicine that helps with her symptoms and set up a neurological consult.

Ok, so forget good habits, back to three priorities 1) schedule that appointment for the consult 2) feed people 3) take a walk to clear my head. We got through a day. The adrenaline let down hit like a truck the next day. I did not do much besides feed my family and make sure people got meds in the morning, but in the afternoon I was feeling up to a quick trip into town to top off with gas and drop a package at UPS.

I sat in the UPS parking lot. I’d gotten myself some hot herbal tea instead of coffee because water>caffeine. I breathed. I thought about how sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or shake my fist at the sky and scream FML! I laughed. I though about maybe going for a quick walk at my favorite park. Supper was in the crockpot, and the kids were well and happy for the time being. Why not?

Then the phone rang, an invitation to yet another adventure…( our out of the way country lane became the end point for a police chase. I came home to a cadre of emergency vehicles)

Parenting is hard. Parenting kids with special needs can be even harder. This I know. I am learning to practice radical acceptance, that everything that enters our lives has something to teach us, even the painful. Even the hard. To trust, like Julian, that “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” All is being brought into the goodness and justice and wide mercy of Christ. I am also learning to hold my priorities and habits lightly. The priorities are generally things that must be done. The habits are things that are good for me to do if I am not in the middle of a crises. The trick is not to try to check all of the things off the list in a day, the trick is when the crisis ends, to do one of the “things” rather than escaping into less helpful activities. To spend 10 minutes in gratitude or mindfulness before numbing myself with social media. TO drink water before another cup of coffee, that it really doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do, as long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Even in chaos, there is stillness and rest.

A dream

Last night my sleep was haunted by the strangest specters

First, on a great ocean, a battle commenced, and perhaps the world was about to end. Some people were cheering it on, and some were trying to stop it. Everybody had an agenda. Some wanted power, some sowed into chaos, some just wanted to see what the next thing would be. Finally, finally, the temptest ceased and there was safety.

And I drove home along a beach. I stopped when I saw a really cool church service. People worshiping on the beach, and man, I really wanted to be there. I posted about it on Facebook, and continued on my drive.

But then, then I was home and itinerant brown laborer showed up at my door. I thought he might be Jesus. He asked for some grain to make some bread. Hadn’t we been praying for our daily bread? I dug through my fridge and cabinets to find some wheat. He was with me. He was like, “whoa, you guys have a lot of food! You have meat? You eat a lot of meat. Are you rich?”

We found some potatoes and grains that he could use to make bread. He pulled out ancient tools that I did not know the names for. I wondered, in my dream mind, if this Christ was limiting his omniscience to the tools and practices of the ancient world in which he lived.

He had an adze and some chisels, tools of a carpenter, and with these and the other tools I could not name, he fashioned small, nutrient dense loaves. We then talked about church a little. “Yeah, I tried to join a church once,” he said, “They didn’t like the people a brought with me. The people I am friends with are weird and don’t fit in. They interrupted the flow. I’m looking for another church maybe, but only if they don’t mind my friends.”

Earlier that day I’d driven past a really cool church on the beach, many miles away. I told him about it, about the families, and the scriptural orthadoxy, and the great music. He wrinkled his nose at the words scriptural orthdoxy, as if to quote the Princess Bride in saying “those words do not mean what you think they mean”.

Or, I pondered, looking at the less picturesque beach outside my own door, “we could do something here?”

“Yeah,” he said, “maybe if we build it from the ground up, they will like my friends.”

I wondered if this were really Jesus, or I was being duped into pouring my time and strength and energy into starting a ministry with some homeless rando.

Then he died. The coroner said his name was Joe, and his last name was long and Polish and I couldn’t pronounce it. His wife had been looking for him. He wandered away from home one day, with only some carpenters tools and some strange ideas about the gospel. In the end, I was really glad I believed him.