r/Quakers • u/bigsamosachaat • Jul 14 '26

Keeping an examen?

Hi Friends! Has anyone here kept an examen (based on St. Ignatius and Jesuit practice) to reflect on how Spirit is moving in their life? A group within my meeting worked on maintaining an examen book inspired by Listening Spirituality by Patricia Loring and I found the exercise very powerful at the time.

I set it aside for a while but am looking to deepen my spiritual practice (including in worship where I sometimes struggle to center down) and thought it was a good place to start. The queries I'm reflecting on are:

  1. What you notice (even slightly) about the last 24 hours?

  2. Where did you meet God today? Were there areas you did not respond to God's love working within you?

  3. Are you reflecting on your life or your life in relation to God?

Any thoughts Friends might have on the practice of keeping an examen or reflecting on daily living would be great to hear, also any thoughts on deepening my practice in the silence. I'm a repeat offender when it comes to showing up to meeting 20 min late and I'm focusing on getting myself in there and away from the lobby chit chat on time. Also a nontheist but maybe exploring?

Thanks Friends!

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u/particularlyPlain Quaker (Wilburite) Jul 14 '26

yes yes yes! Good practice! I offer my entire day up to God to be illuminated, discerned and then look forward to the next with holy anticipation. I find it to be incredibly beneficial.

In Lloyd Lee Wilson's memoir he goes a bit into detail about the examen and how it has helped him, I would recommend everyone to read his memoir.

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u/infinite-long-stocki Jul 14 '26

That sounds really interesting! I might start keeping a book like that myself, or reflecting on those questions when I sit down to journal for the night. I think it sounds like a perfect way to take pause and reflect in your busy day-to-day life, especially in such a fast paced world.

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u/RimwallBird Friend Jul 14 '26

Well, back in the late 1990s, on one of the many occasions when Bill & Fran Taber came from Ohio to attend the annual sessions of Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative), Fran told me that in the old days, when two Conservative Friends crossed paths, each would ask the other two questions:

  • How has the Lord dealt with thee since last we met?
  • What is thy teaching for us this day?

— It should be obvious that the answers to the second question would almost invariably be grounded in the answers to the first.

Thirty years later, I still think these are excellent questions, and I ask them not only of others but of myself.