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'... when you find yourself in the place just right': Discerning God's will

By Kay Collier McLaughlin

(Second in a series of two articles on call and discernment)

In the May/June issue of The Advocate, a number of men and women shared their experiences of “call.” This month’s follow-up article looks at the process of discernment, or how, having heard a call, a person discerns what it might mean to their life.

’T is a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be free ’tis a gift to come down where you ought to be and when you find yourself in the place just right ’twill be in the valley of love and delight.

“Whoever would have thought that my ‘valley of love and delight’ would be Cleveland?” the woman said. Yet after several vocational moves, she had, indeed, found her “place just right” — the place she felt God was calling her to be.

The process, however, had not been simple. And life experience had shown her that love and delight have ups and downs — even within the “place just right.”

When a person has felt a “holy nudge” or call which is perceived to be from God, one of two natural inclinations seem to permeate: run as far and as fast as possible into the comfort of the familiar life, or get on with responding to the call, as quickly as possible. So, it can come as a shock to those who feel God’s call is to ordained ministry to find that there is a formal process which is a call to slow down. To wait. While there is no formal process for those whose call is to other than ordained ministry, spiritual directors, counselors and lay persons who have walked the path of discernment offer similar guidelines. Slow down. Wait.

What does it mean to discern?

Discern: to recognize as different and distinct and distinguish it from confusing impressions (Macmillan Contemporary Dictionary). Whether the experience of call has been as dramatic as a burning bush, or as subtle as a nudge, the experience of call disrupts the life that has been with possibilities of what might be.

Jane Lee Courtney’s sense of call followed a traumatic upheaval, which led her to a deeper spiritual path and a belief that there was a point to her life. “I have felt that there was something that I was not doing that I was supposed to be doing. That God had a specific place for me in his ministry here on earth. Discernment is the process I am now involved in whereby, with the help of others, I make every effort to decide what that ministry is.”

For Jan Courtney, discernment is “a process that helps you talk/work through the feelings that you have about whether you have a calling.”

For Johnnie Ross, discernment, when “done properly” is likened to the old story of Michelangelo pushing a huge chunk of marble down the street. Someone asked him, “Why do you labor so over an old piece of stone?” The artist replied: “Because there is an angel in this rock that wants so desperately to come out!”

Discernment, says Ross, is “a labor to release from the rock of human flesh that which God has placed deep within us before we were born. Discernment then is the task of releasing angels, and it can be a laborious one.”

Spiritual Director Elizabeth Conrad sees discernment as an “ongoing daily process. If one is not doing it in everyday life, there is not much success in doing it for a big decision. Of course, a big decision can be the impetus to move into a deeper spiritual walk.”

The Rev. Birch Rambo sees call as a “signal from God”; discernment is “receiving the signal and attempting to understand it.”

The Rev. Dr. Bill Brown, who has led many discernment seminars, believes that discernment should be a way of life for anyone who is seriously concerned about God’s will for their lives. “Discernment is not just for someone who feels called to ministry,” he says. “It is really the authentic way of life for anyone who wants to grow closer to God.”
“Discernment,” Brown says, is the process through which we come to know the voice of the Spirit working within us. It is the process through which we are able to differentiate between the Spirit of Truth and the Father of Lies. There are marks which reveal the authentic voice of God from our own inner deceptions and prejudices as well as the false spirit.”

In her book When the Heart Waits: spiritual direction for life’s sacred questions, author Sue Monk Kidd is impressed on her own journey with how often the Bible shows God’s people to be waiting – Noah waiting for the flood waters to recede; Daniel waiting through the night in a den of lions; Sarah waiting in her barrenness for a child; the Israelites waiting in Egypt, and then 40 more years in the desert; Mary waiting; Simeon waiting to see the Messiah; the apostles waiting for Pentecost; Paul waiting in prison. The Bible, she says, is rich with language “urging us to wait.”
“For thee I wait all the day long.” (Ps. 25:5)
“My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning.” (Ps. 130:6)
“Wait continually for your God.” (Hos. 12:6)
“If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (Rom. 8:25)

“Most stunning to me,” says Kidd, “was the picture I began to get of God waiting. The parable of the prodigal son would be more aptly named the parable of the waiting father. It tells us much more about God than anything else — a God who watches and waits with a full heart for us to make our homecoming. In rereading the stories of the Bible, I glimpsed a portrait of a God who enters into the experience of those who wait.”

A time of discernment, then, might be said to be a time of entering into waiting with God, in order that we might be aware of what is happening inside ourselves, so that we become internally informed of what we might be called to do externally. Such a process is counter-cultural for people who are accustomed to keeping moving, with no transition time between experiences and events.

It is important to know that the time of waiting is not empty or passive; rather, full and active in mental, emotional and spiritual senses. For those for whom life is a process, to be constantly reviewed, and plumbed for meaning and integration with previous experiences and learnings, the time of discernment may hold appeal. For those for whom life is more about destination or product, the necessity of reviewing, plumbing for meaning and integration may feel like a frustrating side-step.

Steps of discernment:

For Jan Courtney, participation in DOCC (Disciples of Christ in Community) and EFM (Education for Ministry) led to ministry in the local jail, the Diocesan Pastoral Care class and the exploration of diaconal ministry. The formal discernment process began with the appointment of a parish discernment committee.

Increasingly serious commitments in a particular fi eld over a period of time: Possible steps to a discernment process.

Bonnie Quantrell Jones went through a process of formal discernment on her journey to the priesthood. She recalls her mentor in the process stating that God had formed her as a priest; the Church would recognize and ordain that formation. That’s how she sees the waiting time that is discernment — “time for God to shape and form. God is doing things in that waiting period.” Jones has been “lightly” discerning in recent months, knowing that her time as associate rector at St. Peter’s, Paris, will be concluding with the retirement of the rector. Now she is moving into a time of discerning “more deeply.” She is not sure what the steps of discernment will be, but knows there will be some anguish. “It’s human nature to want it to be over with; to want to see the end. And we can’t. So we wait.”

Waiting. A major step in the process.

Tom was a mid-lifer when he heard God’s call to become a priest. He left a prosperous career in business and a family off the mainland to attend seminary. As the end of seminary and ordination drew closer, he learned that there was not going to be an opening in his home diocese for him. When asked what he was going to do now, he responded, “I am trying to pay attention to the ‘no’s’ in my life so that they can help me make sense of the ‘yeses’, which seem fewer.” His personal step for discerning “what next?” after this unexpected turn of events has become a recommended step of discernment for many who have followed him. Said one woman, “I keep two running lists in the back of my journal. One says ‘yes’; the other ‘no.’ Whenever I have a yes or no answer in my life, I list them here. Over a period of time, I begin to see a pattern emerging, that can offer a clue to God’s direction for me.”

“Everything counts as far as spiritual direction is concerned,” says Conrad. “The daily examination is a very important practice. Sometimes we can be surprised that God has met us in some very unlikely places. What have been the sources of grace, sorrow, joy… this day? What have been the challenges.”

“Listening to what is happening in our lives,” says Bill Brown. “Taking stock of all of the factors in our lives: our likes, dislikes, our talents, our social situation, our relationships, our faults and sins.”

Awareness of patterns and clues. Another step in the process.

“In my mind the issue of call is deeply personal and occurred when I began to discover the angels that dwelt within me, while the process of discernment was an intentional look at the particular angels, their purpose, and God’s pleasure. The call is more private and the discernment more public. Like the story of Michelangelo’s art, discernment is the process of actually chipping away at the stone to reveal the angel,” says Johnnie Ross.

Author Parker Palmer in his book The Active Life refers to this process as “seeking our birthright gifts.” When seeking those gifts, he says, it is important not to equate them with the techniques our society names as skills. “Our gifts may be as simple as a real interest in other people, a quiet and caring manner, an eye for beauty, a love of rhythm and sound. But in those simple personal gifts the seeds of vocation are often found, if we are willing to do the inner and outer work necessary to cultivate our mastery.”

Palmer underscores an approach to vocation seeking that draws on the insights of depth psychology. “In this approach, people are encouraged to begin not with their credentials, but with the question, what are my leading gifts and abilities? There are various ways to answer this question, but many career counselors urge people to start by writing a childhood autobiography. Some job-seekers find it odd to be asked to explore their earliest childhood memories of how they spent time, what brought them pleasure, what they could not abide. How could this information possibly help one identify marketable adult skills?”

“What the exercise does, of course,” Palmer continues, “is to circumvent the ego, to take us back to those days when we acted more from natural inclination than from the ego’s images and demands. Some of the most powerful clues to our true gifts are buried deep in childhood, when we said and did and felt things without censoring them through external values and expectations.” The author believes that as people grow older, various societal pressures may divert them from native gifts, which can result in personal and vocational frustration. “By recalling the activities that evoked our energies during childhood’s innocence, we can get in touch with our own version of the woodcarver’s mastery.”

An intentional look at what is within. Another step in the process.

In her book Calling: a song for the baptized, Caroline Westerhoff speaks of “practicing the art of critical reflection.” “Telling about the events of our lives and those of others is not enough. We are to look at these stories, to hold them up for testing and scrutiny, to examine them for meaning, to measure them against the constant plumb lines of Scripture, tradition and reason so we can resist the popular seductions of our culture — the consumer and shopping mall mentalities that entice and co-opt us.”

Carolyn Witt Jones refers to her life as a “continuous quest.” Today, her quest continues — based on a set of commitments of service to others, in a life focused on educating children and adults to their maximum. Jones says that she has always felt a need to “question and discern between what is a fleeting image and what is genuine.” Her questions of critical reflection, while educationally based, contain key words (italics added) for any field: “What do I do to make sure that all students have the necessary time and resources to learn at the highest levels? How do I offer a vision and a commitment to educational excellence that makes a difference? How do I ‘push the envelope’ beyond what is superficial and may represent the educational ‘flavor of the day?’ How do I listen with perception and insight to the many suggestions that are offered for how to improve the educational system?”

Elizabeth Conrad states: “We must learn to be honest with ourselves. What are the thoughts behind the surface thoughts? It is good to reflect on spiritual experiences throughout life. What did they feel like? What were the details surrounding any “a-ha” times? Is the person willing to go in an opposite direction (than they had in mind) should that be the best way? What might be obstacles standing in the way?”

Conrad adds that there are many good tools to assist people in their listening. “Various personalities are drawn to different ways: lecto devina’ journaling, centering prayer, art, walking. And, whether extroverted or introverted, a person needs time alone in order to listen. We have to have time set apart to sift through the many layers of our selves in order to get to the center — God – we come to know.”

Honesty with self through critical refl ection. A major step in the process.

“Prayer is a very powerful thing,” says Elizabeth Conrad. “When one prays for direction (for their life), they must know that answers do come – in any and all places. No part of life is excluded in the spiritual life – including our dreams, our bodies, any and all encounters, closed and opened doors.”

Carolyn Witt Jones says, “I grew up in a home where constant prayer and commitment to God formed a core for determining how to think and what to do. From my perspective, my daily quest cannot continue without prayers of pleading:

“Dear God. Please teach me to have a searching mind. Help me to see what may not always be evident at first glance. Grace me with vision and the power to select what is true and excellent in order for all your children to learn and be successful. Thank you for the will to struggle for understanding and knowledge. Amen.”

Prayer. An important step in the discernment process.

Finally, says Bill Brown, insofar as we are able, “to have an attitude that lets God decide. To strive to be like the balanced beam, which can tip to the right or can tip to the left — the decision is God’s. It is difficult to have that type of detachment, because we usually would prefer it to tip one way or the other, and it is difficult to let go and listen to which way God wants it to tip.”

Discernment in community

Those who have gone through a process of discernment, either formal or informal, and those who have guided such processes agree that discernment must take place in community. For the more extroverted personalities, discussing decisions with others is what one man called a “no brainer – it’s how I live.” For those whose natural process is more internal, or introverted, with conversations with self taking place inside the head, the inclusion of others may feel contrived and unnatural.

The Diocese of Lexington’s discernment process requires that a rector appoint a parish discernment committee for one who believes themselves to be called to ordained ministry. In addition, says Jane Lee Courtney, “I had to think of all the people in my family and personal life who would be affected with any decision I made for change. Family is a very important consideration in the process of discernment. I was surprised, and sometimes dismayed, by their reactions. After talking with my family, I began to tell close friends what I was considering, and I received unfailing support from those people, and no surprises in their reactions. It was important to gauge reactions from different segments of people important in my life.”

“Then, I was required by my rector to submit a list of names I felt would be viable members of my discernment committee. From that list, he would pick those he felt would be helpful to me in my process. On my rector’s advice, I intentionally chose people that I did not know well in order to get a reaction that was open and honest, with no personal overtones.”

Jan Courtney says, “ I gave a list of people to our rector that I felt would be honest and ask the tough questions. I feel that you need people who don’t know you very well that will ask you those hard questions and challenge you to search your innermost self to make sure that you are prepared for ‘the call.’”

For Johnnie Ross, “intentional community discernment has released many angels. Premarital counseling was a time of discernment that released a wonderful wife. Marriage itself has been a time of discernment, and we have four wonderful children as a result. And discernment continues to release angels for me: a church denomination that was not one inherited from my family, two wonderful vocations as both scientist and priest — and more.”

Ross continues, “Some people claim to be so good at the task of discernment that they need no outside help. Perhaps this is just me being ‘my little extroverted self,’ but I find the task of discerning alone impossible, and quite frankly, dangerous, reminding me of the Proverb, ‘where there is no guidance, the people fall; but in the abundance of counselors there is victory.’” (Prov. 11:14)

For Birch Rambo, inclusion of others in discernment began with his wife, to whom he had made a promise six years before that he would not become a priest. Their conversations covered nearly a year, and then began to include his rector and “more and more people became a part of the process. God does not call a person to become a priest, God calls the Church to ordain a person as a priest. The discernment of spirits being a charismatic gift of the Holy Spirit, it is only by the Holy Spirit that we can discern God’s will. The spirit is most fully revealed in the Church to which it was given.”

Elizabeth Conrad emphasizes the importance of both the inner listening on the part of the individual – and the community. While “no other person can tell a person what God wants for them. It is like dreams. Others can see things in our dreams that we cannot see; maybe shed some light on the dream. Only we will get that gut knowing, though, as to what the dream really means. In the end a person must know the answer themselves. (But) others may see things that (the discernee) cannot see — and no one believes something until they are ready! This part is tough! For one thing, if the community sees the same thing that I (discernee) do, that is wonderful affirmation and very important. If I am not willing to hear words from the community that go counter to what I want, if I refuse to listen to what others say, that gets in the way of discernment — is a huge red flag. The community is critical to our discernment.”

Bill Brown says “we believe in what is called the incarnational principle, by which we mean that God uses persons, things, places, experiences, etc. in order to communicate with us. God does not just use communication directly from mind to mind. The incarnational principle is how God communicated with us through Jesus, through the Church. So then, we need to listen and seek advice from other people. We are each sources of grace for the other. I did my doctoral thesis on Martin Buber’s I-Thou relationship and Buber has a wonderful saying: ‘If God wants to communicate with a child, God has to put on the face of a clown.’ Incarnational principle!”

An important step in discernment to Brown is “having someone with whom we can be honest, and whose opinion we value and trust.”

In his book A Hidden Wholeness: the journey toward an undivided life, Parker Palmer describes the “clearness committee”: a setting in which a small, trusted community assists an individual with a particular problem or decision – embodying the Quaker conviction that guidance comes not from external authority, but from an “inner teacher.” “We need community to help clarify and amplify the inner teacher’s voice,” he writes.

In a clearness committee, the “focus person,” or the one who is discerning, writes or tape records a two- or three-page explication of the question, and gives it to the 4 -6 persons on the committee prior to meeting with them. The meeting follows a prescribed two-hour format of silence and open, brief and honest questions which are “devoid of fixing, saving or advising.” The focus person also can choose to have members “mirror back” to them what they heard and observed during the meeting.

The work of a clearness committee, says Palmer, is “soul work”—“quiet, subtle and nearly impossible to put into words. I have served on many clearness committees,” he continues, “and I have watched many human beings gain important and often unexpected insights from his or her inner teacher. In our kind of world, where the soul is so often shouted down, a chance to welcome it, honor it and watch it do its work is clearly cause for celebration.”

How long does it take to discern?

Jane Lee Courtney’s “initial recognition of call” came in September 2003. She entered into the formal discernment process in the spring of 2005. “However,” she says, “I feel that my entire life has been leading up to a decision like this, so 52 years would be a truthful answer. Even if I find I have a specific vocation within the ordained ministry, I think my life will be a series of discernment exercises from this point forward. Our changing relationship with God never ceases.”

For Johnnie Ross, the length of discernment has much to do with the individual person, and the nature of the call. “How quickly does one come to grips with God’s claim on his or her life? How willing are they to enter into a process — to place themselves in someone else’s hands? Are they doing both preparation and discernment, or simply discernment?”

Elizabeth Conrad says: “There is no answer to ‘how long?’ discernment takes. Some answers come quickly and some seem to take forever, but are probably unfolding all of the time. Every situation and every person is different.”

Outcome through discernment

One of the pluses of discernment is finding answers one might not have predicted.

Life circumstances intervened in Jan Courtney’s going forward as he had expected, resulting in a hold on his discernment process. Looking back, he feels that one outcome of that process has been the realization that he might not be able to enter the diaconal classes and continue to do many of the things he enjoys as a lay person. Time and continuing informal discernment will bring more answers.

Jane Lee Courtney was “shocked” with the ways her feelings changed and influenced her in the formal discernment process. She was convinced that she would move through the work with her committee and enter the diaconal training program in the fall. She could not wait to get started! “I began to doubt myself halfway through the committee process,” she says. “I put my committee on hold and ceased to meet with them. My reaction to the process was upsetting and totally unpredictable. I don’t usually waive once I make a decision for something that I feel I should do. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton says, ‘That we doubt means very little: every biblical prophet doubted his call, had trouble identifying the voice of God. But they kept asking until they were sure, kept puzzling it out until they got it right.’

“Although I am comforted by the trials of those prophets,” she continues, “the unexpected for me is that I am still puzzling it out and trying to get it right.”

Applications to life

Whether the process of discernment has been formal or informal, has felt natural or forced, those who have gone through the experience often find themselves using the process again and again. Jane Lee Courtney recalls that patience has never come to her easily. “However, I know that every time things didn’t go as expected, and I had to stop, take stock and wait, things have turned out for the best. Haste is never the best reaction for me to take in decisions about important things. I know this will prove to be true in this decision, also. I also know that God is working through all of this, and that I have never stopped seeing his hand in the process.”

Johnnie Ross, now Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Lexington, is constantly reminded of his grandmother’s story about a family of two sons. One of the sons was a preacher, and the other an extremely “good man.” It was the “other son” who always shined as an example of what it was like to be a good Christian. The preacher son always seemed to have difficulties in his life, struggling in leadership, preaching, academics and social settings, while the other found ease in all of these areas. “To this situation, my grandmother was fond of saying, ‘God called that house alright, but the wrong person answered the phone.’” Even for this lifelong member of the Old Regular Baptist Church, says Ross, the proper response to God’s call required intentional thought and deliberate contemplation.

“It was this story that I took to my first visit with the bishop in seeking the proper discernment of my own call. A few things I knew. I was convinced of God’s call, God’s claim on my life and the gentle nudge toward the priesthood; I just didn’t want to rush to the phone if in fact it was ringing for someone else, nor did I desire to ignore it if in fact it was ringing for me. So for me, discernment is always the willingness to enter a process where the community of the faithful assist in releasing the angel within.”
“If you feel that God is calling you, it is because God is calling you, but discernment is a matter that requires community involvement before either running away, or running toward it. So let the phone ring, answer it and share with others what you have learned in your conversations with God, letting God’s word and the community of the faithful be the lamp unto your feet and a light onto your path. Again, borrowing from Proverbs, “Plans are established by taking advice (for)…the upright give thought to their ways.” (Prov. 20:18a, 21:29b)

Birch Rambo concludes, “The part of the process that has been most important to me was learning that I can save a lot of trouble, frustration and lost time by placing my life in God’s hands. Instead of gaining my own life, it is far easier to seek the life that God intends for me. Since going through the (discernment) process, I have tried not to plan too far ahead, since I never know where God will lead me tomorrow.”

In the teachings of Chuang Tzu, a Chinese master who lived twenty-five hundred years ago, there is a Taoist Tale called The Woodcarver, which offers a metaphor for the inner work of discernment — the claiming of the true self. From Khing, the woodcarver, comes a reminder that even for a master woodcarver, the heart is fearful when there is a “new assignment.” A major part of the process of discernment is walking into the fear that accompanies call, and moving through that fear, whenever it rises up.

“The inner journey,” says Parker Palmer, “pursued faithfully and well, always takes us back to the world of action. But when we return to that world, we find ourselves in a different place than before we took the inner journey.”

Advocate Online Staff:

© 2005 The Episcopal Diocese of Lexington

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