Let's Examen Your Day! A Guided Meditation

Together we will look back over the last 24 hours with the prayer of examen. You can do this guided meditation any time of the day, then perhaps you can journal or jot down notes to reflect upon later. This is also a great practice to do with your kids—you are teaching them to be contemplatives! What a gift to carry into adulthood! This practice also helps us discern (decide) how God is calling us—in big and small ways in our daily life into more awareness of patterns or behaviors--I believe this is the place where transformation begins

Opening Prayer:

It doesn’t have to be the blue iris,
It could be weeds in a vacant lot,
or a few small stones;
Just enough to pay attention,
then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

Into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

~Mary Oliver, Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver

THE EXAMEN

This practice helps us to see our thoughts, feelings, and actions and cultivates awareness of our ordinary moments. I believe this new awareness offers us the grace to live our lives more fully. Over the centuries, the examen has been adapted in many ways. It involves an examination of our consciousness to see where God has been present during our day and to discover those areas of our life that need further growth. If you are listening along today adjust the timing so you can practice along. 

We can find God in all things, at every moment and especially in the most ordinary things we do. This prayer helps us to pause and reflect on our experiences. 

Today, we will look back over the last 24 hours. You can do this practice at the end of the day while lying in bed, you can journal or jot down notes to reflect upon later. And this is a great practice to do with your kids—you are teaching them to be contemplatives! What a gift to carry into adulthood!

This practice also helps us discern (decide) how God is calling us—in big and small ways.

 Let’s try being attentive to our lives—before we run off to do the next thing and the next thing….remember during the examen to pay special attention to the people around us, in the work we are doing, to our secret desires and what we read or see all around us in our world.

 *Inspired by Protestant Spiritual Exercises by Joseph D. Driskill, Moorehouse Publishing,1999.

RECIPE: LINDSAYS CHICKEN ENCHILADAS 

  • One whole rotisserie chicken – shred the meat

  • ½ pint of sour cream

  • 1 can of diced tomatoes (preferably with green chilies or fire roasted), drained

  • 1 half can of tomato sauce

  • 1 green (or any color) bell pepper

  • ½ onion diced

  • 1 clove of garlic

  • 2 cups of shredded cheese (whatever you prefer for Mexican food), divided

  • ½ teaspoon oregano

  • ½ teaspoon black pepper

  • Salt to taste

Optional for toppings/garnish:

  • Cilantro

  • Avocado slices

  • 1 jar taco sauce (drizzled on top)

  • 1 jar of salsa verde (drizzled on top)

Add 1 tbsp of oil to a sauté pan, add onion, green pepper and cook until soft. Add sour cream, tomato sauce and 1 cup of cheese. Simmer until cheese melts. Add shredded chicken to pan, garlic, diced tomatoes, oregano, pepper and salt.

Roll mixture into flour tortillas and put into casserole dish. Drizzle taco sauce and salsa verde across the top and sprinkle with remaining cup of cheese.  

Bake uncovered at 350 for 20 minutes or until heated through. Serve with garnish of avocado slices and a stem of cilantro in center of casserole.  

**Note for tomato sauce and can of diced tomatoes – adding both can make the mixture watery so I liked to drain the tomatoes before adding. Add plain sauce little by little or you can omit altogether. You want the mixture nice and thick.

Pam Rotelle Robertson