Back in July, my parish book club read my book, Helping Families Recover from Addiction. After they finished, they invited me to speak to their small group (5-7 people). When I walked into the room there were almost 10 people present. By the time we started, that number climbed to 20.
I believe that my topic was the reason for the turnout. Life can be hard. Even if it’s not an addiction there are real-life problems that leave us baffled as to how to move forward in a way that heals. Many people are looking for direction and support. Often, we don’t know where to find that help.
After I talked about how I see the 12-steps and Ignatian spirituality working together, there was a lot of interest. Many from the group wanted to know how they could use these two tools to tackle any problem. As I left the event a trail of women followed, wanting to find a way to form this kind of group.
Both the steps and Ignatian spirituality are not exclusive to addiction. Their applications are endless. I think this is because at the heart of every issue, the need to come back to our center (God) and work towards letting this higher power heal the things within me that need healing so that I can then be a healing force for others.
Out of that small meeting, a new group is forming at my parish. We are calling ourselves Ignatian Community: support for each other in recovering our relationships to God, self & others. This new initiative is exciting to me because I hope that it will offer to a broader group what my 12-step program offers me: support and a system for moving forward.
I was privileged to talk with Joe Paprocki of the Catechist Toolbox during a recent webinar (See above) about the work that I do and how anyone can use the tools of Ignatian spirituality to help others. If you are interested in learning more about this work please watch it and offer it to those that might need it.
In the last few years, I’ve learned something new from my recovery community about penguins. Penguins form a circle and push their weak and sick friends into the center to hold them up so that they don’t fall onto the freezing ice and die. When they get better, they move to the outer circle and help support another penguin.
I think this is what my 12-step group does for me. I think it’s what those new friends from the book club desire. People need community. We are made for each other. God shows us this concept in the way that birds and animals have their own system of caring for each other in the packs, herds or flocks.
God really can be found in all things. Both of these programs help me practice awareness. I just need to pay attention or I might miss a lesson on how to care for my friends from a waddle (means flock) of penguins. And I might miss an opportunity that I never saw coming.