What Do You Celebrate?

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, has one of most interesting stories of all the saints. His "Spiritual Exercises" is a brilliant and profound process that the Jesuits still practice today. As a young man he served as a courtier and soldier for a Duke in 16th century Spain. The definitive account of his lifestyle during this time remains under some debate, but scholars and historians widely agree that he wasn't exactly a man of God. Womanizing, boozing, fighting, and adventure-seeking with the military held the most of his interest. Often described as feral, he would even grow out his hair and fingernails to maintain a more fearsome presence on the battlefield. A self-proclaimed sinner, he obsessed with the notions of glory and military victories, and his leadership and diplomatic skills far exceeded those of the men around him. Despite his ferocity, he managed to avoid all manner of injury yet still participating in many battles. All in all, he was a badass. Until one battle, a French [mother-effers] cannonball rocketed through his legs, taking a calf from one and shattering the knee of the other.

True to his nature, as he lay bed-ridden and bored, he elected to undergo some very painful surgeries, but infection set in and the doctors deemed his death imminent. Somehow, miraculously if you like, he recovered within days. Now faced with months of rehabilitation and a goal to regain his ambulatory ability, he called for his books of romanticism and tales of chivalry, but none were found. Instead he'd been given religious texts on Jesus and the all the saints of the time. He began to see these men through the prism of his own competitive spirit and emulous nature, and he competed against the men in the pages from his own bed with thoughts of "I could fast longer than he..." or "I could live more frugally than this pilgrim in his desert." This motif, the idea of overcoming one's former self in service to something greater, resonates through his "Spiritual Exercises" and exists as his concept long before Nietschze and his notion of the "Superman" and the "Will to Power" ever came along.

The Examen process serves as the most renown and purposeful of the Jesuit exercises, and can be performed in minutes, even multiple times in a day. The abridged version holds these three steps: "What brings me closer to God? What drives me further away? Where am I now in relation to Him?" As you continue the process, in days, weeks, months and years, your answers grow more plentiful to the first question, and fewer to the second, all serving to bring you closer to God.

For the sake of the other like-minded atheists or moderate agnostics we proffer this secular version:

What do I celebrate?
What do I disdain?
What must I do to rid my world of the former and move toward the latter?

What do you celebrate?