Discernment: Hearing, Seeing, Touching
Looking back at my blog posts over the past two years, I notice that surprisingly there is nothing explicit about discernment. Of course, it’s implicitly there, because it’s in nearly all that we consider in spiritual direction conversations. It’s the process of looking for God’s fingerprints on our lives, God’s footprints on our path, and listening for God’s thoughts in our minds. And it does take some attention to discern that voice and touch of God, versus the strong human voices that may have formed and shaped our lives over the years.
So, with intention, I offer a series of post in the coming weeks about discernment, reflections from my own life, and in the wisdom gleaned from the graciousness of others by word and example. Let’s start with these thoughts from my “mentor” Henri Nouwen in his book Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life.
The great movement of the spiritual life is from a deaf, non-hearing life to a life of listening…Discernment is a life of listening to a deeper sound and marching to a different beat, a life in which we become “all ears” … Discernment allows us to “see through” the appearance of things to their deeper meaning and come to know the interworkings of God’s love and our unique place in the world. Discernment helps us come to know our true identity in creation, vocation in the world, and unique place in history as an expression of divine love.
Do you notice how he speaks of hearing and seeing? And I add the sense of touch as well as I consider the fingerprint of the Divine in my daily life. But even beneath the questions of discerning identity, or vocation, or places of belonging, there is an even more basic question: Do I really want to be heard or seen or touched by God? It’s a question Jesus often asked individuals before speaking healing words into their life. “Do you want to be healed?” Or “What do you want me to do?”
It’s one thing to say, I want to know God. But it’s another thing all together to agree to be known by God or by any other. And in praying to know God, this often begins by the Divine invitation to know myself which can take some time to unveil and remove the layers that surround the inner being— the self-protecting distrust, the self-preserving reputation, or the self-resistant power struggles. And really, it’s a never-ending work of listening and being heard, of seeing and being seen, of touching and being touched by the faithful, ever-present love of God.
In searching for the image to accompany this post, I came across the image of a labyrinth of sorts and was taken by the obvious connection to the fingerprint. I had never thought of a labyrinth as a fingerprint symbol, but it does have a distinct similarity. I like that because a labyrinth is a place where we walk and meditate on the invitations of God. It’s where we live out through a walking prayer the spiritual path of discerning God present and at work in the formation of the soul.
I’m so grateful that the forming of the soul and discernment in coming to know self and God and others is the work of the Spirit within us. While we are invited to show up and observe and listen to that work, we don’t actually do the heavy lifting, other than lifting our willing souls to the Divine hand and responding to the question, “What do you want me to do for you?”
For Spiritual Direction Conversation:
Where have you sensed (hearing, seeing, touching), God present in your life lately?
What are the areas of your life that you are working to discern the Divine invitations?
What questions arise within you about knowing and being known by God?
Read more about discernment related to calling: Three Words about Finding Purpose — Marsha Crockett
