The Third Session

Today I read the first six chapters in David Fleming's What is Ignatian Spirituality? 

Fleming is making a great deal of warm and helpful sense on a heart level.

I also read the first four chapters in A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer by Jim Manney, hoping to find a basic and practical jump into the daily Examen. Manney's book will no doubt be helpful to many, but it hasn't turned out to be quite what I was looking for.

Instead, I turned to Gemini AI for another coaching session. Here is the link to the complete thread:

https://share.google/aimode/qhi6VznHQmTRnYxcf

And here are my questions:

Q1. What are the five steps of the traditional Ignatian Examen and does the order matter?  

Q2. Should the Examen ideally be prayed at the same place and time every day with the eyes closed?

Q3. Say more about first step of the Examen.

Q4. I'd like to stick with the original Ignatian system of gratitude first. What is the argument for starting that way?

Q5. Yes, I would like you to draft a short opening prayer that focuses specifically on this Ignatian style of gratitude, and I'd also like to know whether contemporary Ignatian experts recommend keeping a dedicated journal of this and subsequent steps, or can that become an obstacle to the process?

Q6. I'd like to stay focused on the gratitude step for a bit longer. Is the idea to let the Holy Spirit bring specific cases of gratitude into our consciousness, or should we actively try to recollect our day from beginning to end and rank our blessings? That could be formalistic.

Q7. If I do the Examen twice a day, at noon and before bed, should I aim in the evening to review my day just since my noon check-in, or should I allow whatever comes up from the day as a whole to enter my consciousness?

Q8. I am not sure I am ready for the resolution step. Is it acceptable to practice just the first step of gratitude at lunch and in the evening before bed for a few days, then add the second step, and so on?

Q9. I'd like to try the gratitude review for three days and move to the next step on Saturday. Can you recommend a simple prayer or Bible verse that I can use as a bridge to gather my thoughts before my five-minute, twice-a-day gratitude reviews?

Q10.  I want to dig deeper into the technical details of the gratitude step we have discussed so far. Do any contemporary Ignatian experts recommend doing the noon or evening Examen while at the computer or smartphone looking at the day's calendar to jog the memory or is the use of a screen considered too distracting and maybe even "cheating"?

Q11. Instead of turning off the computer or closing the app, what about closing the eyes for the entire five-minute prayer starting after the 1-minute calendar glance - could that be an effective contemporary strategy?

Q12. Let's revisit the bullet journal debate at this point. Writing down a gratitude keyword two times a day seems like it wouldn't be too onerous and might be perfect to put on an index card or in a small bullet journal. Does this sound like good training wheels, or could it turn a check-in with the heart into an exercise of the head?

Q13. I've just set up a digital home for my keywords and added noon and evening gratitude appointments to my calendar. To wrap up our session today, my gratitude keyword is "Seton" because I was blessed to see a statue of the Catholic American Saint Seton during a medical appointment this morning. It brought me peace and seemed like a sign that I am on the right path.