The Road is Long and Full of Trials

Chapter 6: The Ignatian Myth & Narrative Project

Before we get going, let me ask you a question: Have you preordered your copy of “My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars?” Wait, WHAT?! You haven’t? (That was meant to be rhetorical…) That’s okay. That’s alright. Don’t panic—there’ still time. (Not a lot of time.) But still—time. Take it easy. Here’s what you’ve got to do. Click here. And that’s basically it. (Oh—buy the thing, too.) Oh hey, what—you DO already have a copy on the way? Fantastic. Do me a favor—put some stars on that Amazon page once you’ve had a chance to read it? And I’d love to hear what you think :-)

Now to the main event…

This is the sixth part of a limited series I’m calling The Ignatian Myth & Narrative Project. If you want to get caught up, read:

• Introducing the Ignatian Myth & Narrative Project

• Chapter 1: Why We Begin in Chaos and Shadow

• Chapter 2: Call to Adventure, Call to Sorrow

• Chapter 3: Not All Who Hesitate Are Lost

• Chapter 4: Lies of the Threshold Guardians

• Chapter 4.5: Don’t Fear the Upside-Down World

• Chapter 5: Who We Find On The Other Side

When we set out upon the road of trials, we find exactly what we’d expect: Trials. But let’s not forget the road. I’m not talking about the one less traveled; I mean the one we’re actually on.

Joseph Campbell calls this stage of the story the “Road of Trials.” Sure, the image is there, easy to grasp. We’ve crossed a threshold into a whole new world, and we mean to be challenged. We need to grow.

As we progress through a story, we expect our protagonists to encounter trials. How else will the story be interesting? Without those trials, the story falls flat.

But in our lives, I think, it’s tempting to look at the road as one of many choices. We come to perpetual forks in our proverbial roads, and we hope—hope!—that the choice we make will bypass those trials. That’s just making a good decision, we tell ourselves. Heroes can have their trials; I want to walk along a nicely paved sidewalk.

But here’s the thing: We come to forks in our roads, sure. But our paths are paved with trials just as inevitably as those of our would-be storybook heroes. The trials are not optional; the trials cannot be circumnavigated.

The forks in the roads are not decisions between trials and no trials. The forks in the road are vocational—we don’t take the road that will bring us fewer trials; we take the road that will bring us deeper into ourselves.

Ignatius of Loyola, in the Second Week of the Spiritual Exercises, introduces my favorite of his meditations: the Two Standards. In short, we are asked to imagine two warring camps—one of Christ and one of the Enemy. They each are represented by a standard (think flag or banner).

The Standard of the Enemy is represented by cascading vices: an obsession with the pursuit of riches, of honors and, ultimately, a swollen ego. The Standard of Christ takes us in the opposite direction, represented by a willingness to embrace poverty, rejection and, ultimately, humility.

I have often thought of these Standards as signs on the road. After all, there are very few of us alive who can make one final choice that forever and always aligns us with Christ’s Standard. Rather, each decision we come to—which job should I take or which city should I live in or how should I spend my free time—can be informed by the Standards. They point the way to where we hope to go.

Am I making a decision so as to grow wealthier for the sake of wealth, because I want to be praised and honored, because I want people to look at me? Or, do I make a decision free of these things, able to relinquish the possibility of wealth and praise and instead embrace a call of humility? Ultimately, we ask ourselves if we have allowed an inordinate attachment to grow; am I governed by my wealth or the desire to be praised? Or, am I indifferent to such temptations?

I still think the image of road signs is helpful. The Standards can literally point us deeper into the heart of Christ and Christ’s mission, or deeper into the thralls of a world that insists we look out for only ourselves and our stuff and our good name.

But what Ignatius insists—and what modern-day practitioners of Ignatian spirituality will be quick to point out—is that money is not inherently bad. It’s not a sin to be praised for good work, or to give praise to another. There is good bound up in these things even if, when unexamined and unchecked, they might lead us astray.

In both of the Standards, we see something of ourselves, something of our own path. Are they really different roads? Or, are they the very trial we wrestle with as we muddle down a single path?

Of the road of trials, Campbell writes: “The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a myth or the dreamer of a dream, discovers and assimilates his opposite either by swallowing it or by being swallowed.” He goes on to say that our proverbial hero “must put aside pride, virtue, beauty and life, and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable. Then he finds that he and his opposite are not of different species but one flesh.” (89)

The ego, Campbell wonders: Can it put itself to death?

I wonder about an encounter with the Two Standards here, now, on this road of trials. We’d do well to avoid the Enemy’s Standard, of course. And yet, we know we can’t; we know that woven into this road we walk is a temptation to swollen pride, an attachment to wealth and power and privilege.

I don’t think we can simply opt for the other road. I think we necessarily walk this one road, and on it, we encounter some nasty things about ourselves.

Turns out we’re not so generous with our money or our time. Turns out we go out of our way to drop names and accolades with little care for others. Turns out we really do think we’re better than the other guy.

Sounds bad, right? But maybe it’s the truth. And maybe seeing the truth for what it is—the Standard of the Enemy—we will rise to the challenge of today’s trial. Maybe we will be able to put aside some of these darker tendencies and reach now, in this moment, for those that demarcate Christ’s Standard.

That’s the trial. Again and again and again. The road is long.