There’s an old idea that people can be divided into two camps: those who believe the glass is half full and those who think the glass is half empty. With no small degree of self-honesty, I am someone who would probably look at the proverbial glass and ask, “But what if it’s poison?” Which is to say, I struggle with a mindset that can be the opposite of the one that I am supposed to have as a spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition.
St. Ignatius had many wonderful ideas about spirituality, but one that has spoken to me throughout my journey is that of the Ignatian “plus sign.” Ignatius said that when anyone says anything, we are to take the best interpretation of that statement. What if there is no best interpretation, I hear you ask? Well, Ignatius suggests that the listener dig a bit deeper and keep looking.
This week, I have found myself confronted multiple times with my own tendency to move quickly to the least generous interpretation of events. One morning, while walking my dog, I saw that bulldozers were in the woods, cutting down trees and displacing the wildlife already struggling for a place in our growing town. More houses, I thought. What about nature, I thought. What awful humans are doing this, I thought.
What if you’re wrong, I thought.
I dug deep into my spiritual toolkit and I reminded myself that I was working myself up over absolutely nothing but a mean-spirited set of assumptions. And when I approached the man piloting a nearby bulldozer, he told me that he was working on clearing a series of trails in that area. Not only had I been wrong, I had been completely wrong. Worse, I was ready to let being wrong set the mood for my whole walk, or even morning.
As I continued home, I could see where God was inviting me to notice a flawed way of thinking. Expecting the worst is like wearing dirty glasses and wishing the world looked brighter. The world is plenty bright, but we have to look for the light, and to do so we often have to account for our own flawed perspectives.
I thought about how this might apply to on-line interactions, where the wildest things are said and the quick assumptions are frequently made. What if, every time I caught myself judging a statement, I tried to imagine what kind of day the person on the other side of the screen was having? What don’t I know about that person? And regardless of their point of view, what do I gain by hating them or wishing them ill?
I decided today to hold on to the image of the nice man piloting the bulldozer, the one with greater information. Today, I was able to find him and get more of the story—but we don’t always get that missing piece. The Ignatian plus sign invites us to know that there is a bigger picture, the part of the story that makes the character with whom we are struggling just a little more sympathetic. To use the “plus sign” is an invitation to give up control of the narrative. And if we can’t find that kindness at the moment, perhaps we can at least see that God is inviting us into a great mystery—one in which we don’t have all the answers.
How might God be inviting you to see differently, today? Towards whom are you being invited to practice this different way of seeing? How does this change you, the only person you can really change?
Alison Umminger Mattison