Seek God Everywhere

For a long while now I have had an interest in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. St. Ignatius was the founder of the Jesuit order of Christian monks. It was founded on very practical ideas of sound, joyful living and the exercises were meant for the layperson as well in order that they would have a clear path to expereinceing God first hand - an astounding idea at the time and one that is still radical especially in Christianity (it seems that Hindu, Budhist and even the Sufi order of Islam have a long history of seeking to expereince the mysical as opposed to second hand accounts) Lately my interest has been sparked and expanded even farther and I have begun to (silently) invoke prayer during my runs and using it as means of communion with spirit on a deeper level. One of the main tenents of the Jesuits is "seek God everywhere" and this is an enjoyable effort to do while running. It's easy to find God in the grace of trees and birds and other wlldlife. It's even easy to find God through the face of other runners as they pass with a smile of recognition of shared effort and motion. Of course through the day finding God can be quite difficult in the rush of everyday life and hurried people cruising by. This is where the spirit of the run carries forward - if God indeed is found during the run then there is no place where God must leave off and something "other" begins. And so we search, and often we must search deep and expand much effort - yet the effort itself is always inward directed and not with what. God is present in all things and yet the inner blocks in place often veil Her presence. With practice and the spirit of the run (or wherever we have last found the presence of God) fresh in our hearts we begin to discard these veils (they were never really there anyway) and see God within all things and all people - or as Mother Theresa said - "recognize the face of Chris in all His frishtful disguses." That's the mission of Running with Spirit. Peace, Eric