Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice…saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”[1]

Book of Isaiah

November 1960. I stand on top of a desert mountain gazing at the remains of the old silver mining town Calico, five-hundred feet below. Next to me stands Don, the advisor to our Explorer-Boy Scout troop. Our group camp is behind us, sheltered within a cluster of granite boulders. Smoke from a sagebrush and mesquite campfire drifts towards us. The black night sky, devoid of big city lights, reveals thousands of stars. It is difficult to identify the constellations because there are so many stars. A strange sight appears on the northern horizon: undulating waves of pale green, pink, vivid red, purple, and blue lights. What is happening?

“The Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis,” reveals Don. “This is a rare treat. Don’t see them this far south. What’s happening is that charged particles from the Sun are colliding with gases in the upper atmosphere of Earth. The agitated atoms are glowing. Notice how they pulsate and streak across the sky. “Where is the North Star? (Don is always testing us).

Hard to see through all those other stars. (I point. ) There it is.

OK. Now get out your pocket compass and see if you were correct.

I hold the weathered official Boy Scout compass in my hand, open the cover. The directional arrow vacillates andquivers. I was correct.

Why does the arrow go back and forth?

It is pointing to magnetic North which is not True North. There’s a magnetized needle inside the facing. Probably made of steel, iron, or cobalt. It aligns with the earth’s magnetic field. It is mounted on a pivot so that it can rotate freely. It’s effected by unseen forces and geography. It’s not wrong, but it is not constant.

What is True North?

I would say it is fixed and celestial, anchored in the geographic axis of the earth. It can be complicated to find, so you need a map or calculator.

Our dialogue stops abruptly as the wonders of this dark night illuminated by pulsating northern lights captivate our total attention.

This desert camping memory popped into consciousness as I read about the northern lights returning again as far south as Utah and northern Arizona this year, 2024. I found my old official Boy Scout compass hidden in my sock drawer this afternoon. Magnetic north. True North.

I am a spiritual seeker holding this pocket compass, watching the quivering needle until it settles. In this world of many voices who speak shifting truths and the magnetic pull of social movements this way and that way, I seek something fixed, something deeper than my natural instincts and the influences of culture. I yearn for true North.

As the Earth’s magnetic field bends and sways, so can my faith and convictions. I want to walk faithfully toward the loving presence I have come to know, Jesus, the North Star.

Every winter and spring for several years I camped in the Mojave Desert with the Boy Scouts-Explorers. Only one hour and a half drive from our home in Pasadena, the desert became a welcoming and enchanting place. Secret caves, old gold mines, and desert creatures like jumping spiders, scorpions, kangaroo rats, and bats, indigenous pictographs and ruins, and old pioneer rock cabins reminded me this was not an empty wilderness.

Decades later, as I progressed through a period of depression and struggled for faith during the health crises of our son Erik, the desert became a healing refuge.

1990. After several years of psychotherapy with Dr. Bob Phillips, he sent me across the street from his office in Orange, California, to the Center for Spiritual Direction of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Orange. My psychiatrist gave me a medical prescription for spiritual direction, leading me to Sister Jeanne Fallon CSJ.

I began spiritual direction with Sister Jeanne at a small cottage next to the Mother House of the convent. The house was surrounded by a garden of roses and fruit trees. The sisters had a gift for creating welcoming environments, both to guests and to the Holy Spirit. Our first session began in a small room, where we sat on straight-backed chairs facing each other. She was enthusiastic about beginning her new ministry of spiritual direction after ten long years as a missionary in Papua New Guinea. I remember feelings of resistance as I encountered a five-hundred-year-old Ignatian curriculum. However, in my resistance I sensed the presence of my psychiatrist Dr. Bob, imagining him sitting in the corner saying to me, “Brad, as soon as you stop trying to run the Universe and you let God do God’s work in you, the better your life will be.”

 Sister Jeanne led me through a year-long experience with the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola. I meditated for forty-five minutes each day on different Bible passages which focused on the prophesies of the coming of a Messiah and the life, ministry, Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Sister Jean encouraged me to use my imagination and enter into the Biblical scenes, asking God to open my heart to what these words were saying to me personally.

At this point, I had already been a priest for twenty years. Preaching and teaching the Christian faith with my parishioners was similar to my college teaching of philosophy. Exegesis of the scripture readings for a Sunday, the context and meaning of the passage at the time of Jesus and application to our own world today. I was missing engagement with the deepest part of myself. I had no spiritual compass.

It was a terrible time for our family in those days. Erik’s life hung by a thread as we lived our lives at hospitals and emergency rooms. Sister Jeanne had compassionate patience with me as she encouraged me to trust in the process of what the Spiritual Exercises could offer me.

As I meditated on the scriptures and met with Sister Jeanne for reflection each week, I noticed a shift from head to heart. As I asked Jesus to open the meaning of these scriptures and to reveal himself to me more deeply, the readings no longer invited analysis. The words appeared as if revealed for the first time to speak to me about my life with God. Jesus was not a historical memory but a living presence inviting me into a deeper relationship. Sister Jean replaced my old, weathered Boy Scout compass with a spiritual compass, recalibrating my life’s orientation toward the North Star, Jesus Christ.

A resource revealed by Ignatius Loyola and guided by Sister Jeanne is the Examen of Consciousness. It provides a daily review of my life, stabilizing that quivering compass indicator more clearly on Jesus, the North Star.

Remember the World War Two naval movies and documentaries? We see officers using plotting boards to track the ship’s movement and plan maneuvers, helping them to visualize their position and the ship’s course over time. The Examen is a memory map of marker points that look back on your life and the past day, the grace-filled crossroads, when God’s amazing grace was there for you at critical moments. Mapping those marker points reminds you that you have not been travelling alone, without a spiritual compass, without the companionship of the Lord. Jesus has been with you.

Therefore, you and I can look ahead with confident hope that God will continue to be there with us. Gratitude for the amazing grace we have already received is foundational to our hope for the future. Otherwise, without gratitude, we have only wishful thinking.

I pray this Examen Prayer each night, reviewing the day that has passed, paying attention when I sensed that God was with me and the other times when I felt separated from God. I am reminded of God’s forgiveness.

Here is a description of this five-part meditation, thanks to Father James Martin SJ.[2]

Prepare: I invited God to be with me now as I pray. In gratitude, I recall two or three good things that happened today. I look back on good news, precious moments, perhaps an encounter in nature. I focus on thanking God. A caution: do not rush through this. Savor and relish this revisiting of events for which you are grateful.

1. Ask for the grace to know your sins. As I look back on this day, where did I turn away from my true self, the deepest part of myself? Where did some curt remark or rudeness happen? Listen to your conscience and that deep voice leading you to be more loving. Do not beat up on yourself but own your need for God’s grace.
2. Anthony de Mello said, “Be grateful for your sins. They are carriers of grace.”[3]
3. Review your day. This is at the heart of the prayer. I imagine a video camera playing back my day, from when I first got up. I want to pay attention to where there was joy, confusion, conflict and moments of peace and love. Again, do not rush through this.
4. Forgiveness. Ask God for forgiveness for anything sinful done during the day. Look for the opportunity to make amends.
5. Ask for God’s help tomorrow. Close with a prayer.

Here in the desert, after several years of teenage camping trips, the vast empty spaces open my awareness that there is an eternal, loving Presence drawing me into love, peace, joy, and hope.

A trained spiritual director like Sister Jeanne Fallon, CSJ, can help you with your spiritual compass. Coming from an ancient Christian practice of deep listening, the spiritual director provides a non-judgmental space for you to reflect on the movements of God within your life.

Thomas Merton was a long-time spiritual director at his Trappist monastery in Kentucky. He described a spiritual director as an ambassador to the Spirit of Christ instead of a person prescribing specific actions.

A spiritual director can remind you how Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha found their spiritual compass and how God can continue to guide you and me today. For forty years, I have found that regular monthly sessions with my spiritual director created accountability and spiritual friendship, encouraging me to continue my spiritual practices and desert retreats, keeping my focus on Jesus, the North Star.

I wrote this book as an invitation to you to make desert retreats and to explore the inner desert of your life. May the creatures and forces of nature I have encountered and the desert fathers and mothers I share with you become your own companions as we navigate our way deeper into the heart of Jesus.

[1] Isaiah 30;21 NEB.

[2] Martin, Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, 95-100.ds

[3] De  Mello, Wellsprings, 227.