Peter Costello
Nikolaas Sintobin. Trust Your Feelings: Learning how to Make Choices with Ignatius of Loyola, by Nikolaas Sintobin SJ (Messenger Publications, €12.95/£11.95)
This is the second of author Nikolaas Sintobin’s books to come to us for review. The first was warmly commended to readers, and this new title is quite as good as the first, and can also be warmly recommended.
Sintobin brings to his vocation his experiences from his earlier vocation as a lawyer, as a seeker of solutions. He writes in an immediate and direct way that makes his observations very accessible. Nothing in the pages is fudged by “theology-speak”.
Take for instance what writes discernment when you are angry, or the section just before that on discernment when ‘you are in seventh heaven’”
“Discernment” was what the saint encouraged, and Sintobin adapts Ignatius’s way of doing this in a series of chapters that take for their focus very real life situations, which many of us will have encountered (and may now wish we had these pages before us at the time).
Take for instance what he writes about discernment when you are angry, or the section just before that on discernment when “you are in seventh heaven”.
I was struck, as a life-long researcher, in what he writes about career choices facing individuals, in the instance of a scientist whose whole being is devoted to his research, to the process of discovery. Offered a promotion which will take up the “career ladder” but away from actual research, does he choose the promotion to more money and to power, or does he follow his heart in staying with the research he loves and which he finds completely fulfilling.
Ambitious
For a creative person, an artist, writer, musician, the choice is obvious. Yet the choice of their true metier often brings them contempt from the more ambitious. But ask yourself: would you, in your heart of hearts, want to be Elon Musk?
The Spirit of God does not allow himself to be enclosed in a single faith or church”
“Discernment requires,” the author says in nearly the last words of the book, “you to listen to the voice that speaks in your heart. Christians believe that this voice is the voice of God. It points out to each of us, to everyone, the path of life.”
Earlier I was struck by this observation: “Discernment is not only for Christians. The Spirit of God does not allow himself to be enclosed in a single faith or church. Christians believe that the spirit of God wants to be present in every person of good will. This applied to people who adhere to a different religion or philosophy of life …
“For non-Christians, the same condition applies, so that their discernment is sufficiently refined and reliable. They must also ensure that their hearts are formed and nurtured within the particular framework of their own tradition.”
Truly there is something for everyone in this little book.