Take the leap, little bird!
A couple weeks ago, our church’s T4 group (Thursday Theology Talk on Tap… I love alliteration, can you tell?) gathered at the Lost Dog Cafe around the the question, how do you decide? When confronted with a decision or a puzzle, what resources do you deploy to determine the right course of action? If you are a person of faith, how do you listen for the leading of the Spirit, or the inner guidance, or whatever you want to call that sense of knowing that helps us find our way? (The churchy word for that is discernment.)
As I thought about what to bring to that gathering, an article came across my social media stream: How To Know When You’re Trusting God… Or Just Being Stupid by Corey Nieuwhof. It’s well worth your time, even if you are not a theist. Nieuwhof offers two thoughtful questions to help you evaluate whether that leap into the unknown is a faithful decision that will allow you sprout wings, or whether you’re likely to plummet to the ground because you didn’t do your due diligence. It’s not foolproof—nothing in discernment is—but it’s good guidance.
I also shared with the group some of my own favorite discernment tools, and I asked some of you for additional ones. Here is a compilation:
The Daily Examen is that Ignatian (Jesuit) practice of looking lovingly at your life for grateful and “least grateful” moments. These places of consolation and desolation can be powerful guides. A great resource is the book Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life by the Linns.
Lectio Divina is a way of reading scripture prayerfully to allow the voice of the Spirit to speak to you. There are many guides to this practice on the Internet; here’s a good one.
I’m not a Quaker (though I like to joke that my spiritual “inner child” is Quaker), but I’ve long been intrigued by the Quaker Clearness Committee. This is a trusted group of wise listeners whose job is to hear the person struggling with the decision or difficulty, and ask non-directive questions. Parker Palmer has a great story about working with a clearness committee when discerning a call to be president of a college. When they asked what he would enjoy about the work, he made a list of things he wouldn’t like about it. When they reminded him the question was what he would enjoy, he was silent for a long time and said, “I’d enjoy having my name in the paper.” One of the people leaned in with a twinkle and said, “Do you think there might be other ways to get your name in the paper?” He didn’t take the job.
I have had a Spiritual Director for many years—this is a person (usually specially trained) to help me “listen to my life” and see the patterns, growth opportunities, gratitudes, and places that need healing. Pastors can function as spiritual directors for their congregants—I have played this role with people before—but I like being able to meet with someone every couple of months, and that’s a hard rhythm for a pastor to sustain.
A friend suggested Morning Pages as a tool for discernment—that’s three pages of stream of consciousness writing every day, written without stopping or censoring. Morning pages can bring to the surface buried thoughts and emotions that can guide us as we face decisions or difficulties. Read Julia Cameron’s books for more info, especially The Artist’s Way.
Another friend suggested developing a moral code or personal mission statement that decisions can be lifted alongside: is this opportunity consistent with what makes me come alive? (And remember, I like that question better than Frederich Beuchner’s words about vocation. No idea what I’m talking about? Here’s a post about that.)
Along the lines of the previous, this may be my favorite discovery. A friend directed me to the poem Where I’m From, which includes an exercise you can do to write your own “where I’m from” poem. I can see how such an exercise would help you find your true north when faced with a quandary. Check it out here.
What do you think? How do you decide? And what resources would you add?
~
photo credit: photonut-mi via photopin cc
My “Morning” is Paper (singular). As it turns out, I write in three places, one sheet of paper each - so it turns out to be three pages anyway. Part of this is the exercise of paring (down) - for me. Then I put what I can into just Nine syllables #tristich
Grateful for this blog today. Discernment is, in many ways, a daily thing; choosing to embrace the day from a particular heart-place and having all that the day holds unfold from that stance. As a spiritual director, almost all time with directees is discerning time - we “notice”, we “wonder”. “Where is God in this narrative for you?” “What is your prayer (around this situation)?” These are good discernment ways. For me, one of the most powerful ways to live in prayerful discernment is Centering Prayer. After a reading (either Scripture or a poem or directed reading), I spend 20 minutes in silence, in a kind of loving communion with God. As thoughts pop up, and they always do, I gently release them and return to silence with a word or phrase (Come Holy One, or Be Here Now or Beloved). After 20 minutes, I sit and reflect. Sometimes I journal. Sometimes I watch the play of birds through the window, its own kind of prayer. Sometimes I am led to intercessory prayer. When I am “done”, I am ready for the rest of the day, rooted and grounded in beloved communion with my Beloved.
Here is an interesting list of prompts:
Clues coming from inside ourselves:
• Moods and feelings, especially the powerful ones that say, “Pay attention!”
• Dreams — both the night time versions and daytime fantasies.
• Memories that surface. Ask why am I reminded of this long past event right now? What does it say to me today?
• Prayer experiences and experiences of God’s presence – ones we prepare for and ones that are pure gift.
• Physical changes and noticing how our bodies react.
• Unexpected behavior on our part: we find ourselves saying or doing things that leave us feeling “That’s not like me at all. Where did that come from?”
• Journal entries: we set out to record something and find more information surfacing than we expected; also by re-reading our journal, we will see overall patterns not discerned at the time of writing.
Clues coming from outside ourselves:
• The people who attract or repel us; we meet parts of ourselves in projected form.
• Everyday events – sometimes involving other people and sometimes not, sometimes pleasant and sometimes not – about which we can ask, “Why is this happening to me now?”
• Changes in our tastes or needs or way of living: clothing, friends, hobbies, how we spend our time, things we collect, our choice of entertainment, our enthusiasms, a felt need for therapy or spiritual direction. All are barometers of the climate of our soul.
• Words and images and stories that reach out and touch us especially; from television, from scripture readings, hymns, from the movies, from books, magazines, from other people.
• Synchronistic events: those unexpected “coincidences” that cannot be understood in terms of cause and effect.
From Coming Home: A Handbook for Exploring the Sanctuary Within by Betsy Caprio and Thomas Hedberg, pages 111-113
One more from author Wendy Wright:
Wendy Wright’s plumb line question:
Where does love lie?
From Wendy Wright:
Discernment is not identical to problem solving. It not simply a question of lining up the pros and cons concerning a decision and determining which gains the most support or which will benefit us or others in the long run.
Discernment is more like the turning of a sunflower to the sun, an intuitive hunch a restless seeking of the heart longing to find its way home. It’s when an artist searches for the right line and when found she says, “Yes.”
Discernment is about feeling texture, assessing weight, watching the plumb line, listening for overtones, feeling the quickening, surrendering to love. It is being grasped in the Spirit’s arms and led in the rhythms of an unknown dance.
Mike, would you share the article or book from which you quoted Wendy Wright on discernment, please? Thanks!
Susan - The quote comes from the 1995 November/December issue of Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, page 12. Wright has a wonderful article entitled, “Passing Angels: The Arts of Spiritual Discernment.”
I am kind of shocked for how long I have held on to this quote.
Thanks, Mike. It’s a treasure!
It really is!
many years ago, I went through The Artist’s Way with two friends (one a spiritual director, the other a fellow Christian Educator) and it was such a rich experience! reading your post makes me want to pick it up again!
Our congregation has been learning about communal discernment.
This past year we used a communal discernment process and arrived at a consensus to begin doing same gender weddings. The process honored the stories of all and kept our process from becoming polarized. The discernment process taught us how to listen together and how to move together as a congregation.
We have also used communal discernment practices to nominate spiritual leaders for our church council. for the past four years we have averaged 70 nominees for council who then enter an individual discernment to decide if they will allow their name to go on our council ballot. We have found that our councils are populated by an increase in introverts since changing to a discernment process. Our average worship attendance is 300.
A couple of helpful “how to do communal discernment” pieces are:
http://vimeo.com/70508569
http://upstatenysynod.org/download/portico/portico-discernment-leaders-guide.pdf
Love all these resources!
A couple of communal discernment sites from national church bodies that we have used:
ELCA Communal Discernment Task Force Report
http://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/06h_Communal_Discernment_Task%20Force_20130715e.pdf
Guidelines for Communal Discernment from the Presbyterian Peace Making Program
http://www.hudrivpres.org/upload/docs/curtiss_discernment.pdf