Why Discerning Together?

Discerning

Discernment is an apt word for what happens during spiritual direction because it suggests both listening and seeing. In Spiritual Direction, we spend our time listening for the voice of God as well as looking for what he is forming or has formed in the life of the directee.

Discernment also has a long historical use in writings of the mothers & fathers of the Christian faith. In a spiritual sense, “discernment is prayerfully seeking to understand how God wants us to live, act, and grow in our lives. We are aware that God has a will and also gives us appropriate and boundaried freedom to choose as his children.” (Karen Cartmell, Ignatian Spiritual Director)

  • “My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding— indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will Understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”

  • “Who is wise? Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.”

  • “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

  • “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”

  • “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

  • “But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil.”

Together

The Bible speaks again and again about how important community is for the Christian life. Though we might  have times where we practice solitude with God, we are primarily created for relationship. For many, this is both the most natural and most challenging aspect of our lives.

Yet, as we grow in our ability to both speak and listen to another, we begin to grow in our ability to do so with God. Spiritual Direction provides a particular kind of space where we can sit with another and “practice the presence of God.”

  • “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

  • “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”

  • “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another… that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

  • “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

  • “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

  • “So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness.”

“I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
    he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
    I will call on him as long as I live.”

Psalm 116:1-2

A little about me…

Roles (Past): residential supervisor for young women's recovery home, small group leader, youth pastor, global missions non-profit board, pastoral intern, biblical studies & spiritual formation student, Capernwray student, inner-city UK intern ministry, Camino de Santiago pilgrim, Ignatian retreatant

Roles (Present): directee, spiritual director, group direction facilitator, friend, wife, full-time caretaker (brother w/ Down Syndrome), SoCal native, Fallbrook Resident, avid reader of mystery novels, lover of sacred art, high fantasy nerd & drinker of Chai Lattes

Training (Completed): Master's in Spiritual Direction & Soul Care at Talbot Seminary Institute for Spiritual Formation

*Member of the Christian Spiritual Director’s Association (CSDA) & insured by the American Professional Agency