Light in the Garden: The Ignatian Path to Forgiveness, Inclusion, and Love

Ten years ago, in the cardiac recovery room at Banner Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, I began a journey - a journey toward a deeper faith. I was recovering from triple bypass surgery, following my third heart attack in three months. Still in the fog of anesthesia, intubated and unable to speak, only vaguely aware of my whereabouts, I awakened with a powerful sense of urgency. For the first time in my life, I felt a desperate need to know who I was and why I was alive. My heart had indeed broken. That day, God's Holy Words fell into my brokenness. Two communities of encounter (to borrow a phrase from Pope Francis) assist in my journey: the Living School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Sister Parish Ministry in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The Living School is an experiential faith learning project that feeds my head. The Sister Parish Ministry is an experiential faith service project that feeds my heart. This book is a record of my second journey through the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola, a collection of his insights, prayers, and suggestions for spiritual growth.

Bob Hart co-founded and chairs the Sister Parish Ministry of Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, a community development program serving Haitian migrant workers in the Dominican Republic. He is on the board of Ability Housing and the Jacksonville World Affairs Council. He retired in 2007 from a thirty-year energy career, which began in the coalfields of West Virginia and extended to the electric power industries of more than thirty countries throughout Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Mr. Hart holds an AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard University.