What can I believe about the pandemic? Who can I trust? Should I wear a mask or not? Is it safe to get a haircut? Is this more about politics than public health? With so much at stake, who and what can I believe?
Millions of people in the USA and around the world are wrestling with these questions. They are engaging in what Spiritual Directors call discernment. People are trying to sort out the flow of events, ideas, and feelings to find some truth. We have an undimmed belief that we can know the truth in all of this and that the truth will be a refuge from this chaos. Mimicking our childhood Sunday School lessons, we believe that the "truth will set us free." Unfortunately, we fail to remember another scrap of scripture from our childhood, "What is truth?" This little question was never answered. It was left to linger over the events of Jesus' crucifixion and death like a fog of doubt and fear. Discernment is not about finding the truth. It is about experiencing reality and finding our way through confusing and chaotic times.
These days, competing ideas are tossed about like grenades over the front lines of our culture wars. I am more interested in reality than truth. The truth will not set us free from these battles for the American Mind. Truth is a product of the mind as it sorts through our assumptions and selected evidence. Truth depends more on the process than reality.
We can always find a truth, any truth, if we step back far enough from reality. If we are selective enough in our evidence and carefully word our conclusions, we can find a truth that fits our wants and needs. This slippery truth is the heart of Pilates's question, "What is truth?" It is the realm of second-rate politicians, lawyers, doctors, philosophers, and salespeople. Most of these folks are not lying. They believe that their truth is the truth. Unfortunately, they are also unaware that it is built on untested assumptions, carefully selected evidence, and deeply cherished desires for self-gain. Truth, for most people, is highly personal and worth defending at almost any cost.
The tricky part is finding the truth that is consistent with reality. Intentional discernment will lead to a reality-based truth. Discernment looks beyond the truths that surround us and leads us to rely on the real world that includes our questions, inner biases, and whatever real evidence is around us. Discernment is not so much about a particular process as it is about a journey that embraces honesty, humility, patience, and perseverance. Discernment is about finding our way through and into reality.
What does discernment require? It means opening the senses to experience the real world and not the world filtered through our assumptions and beliefs. Discernment demands a mental discipline that can set aside what we want to find and discover what exists. It means teaching the soul to desire and experience reality rather than justifying and confirming what we already believe.
This discerning journey takes place under suboptimal conditions. It does not wait until the skies clear before it seeks to understand and respond to storms. It begins its journey amid the fears, uncertainties, burdens, and trials of the real world. It seeks to see in the fog, not through it. It wants to hear in the noise, not through it. Discernment looks to understand the currents in the river's rapids. It allows those swirling currents to teach us how to negotiate them. In discerning, we find ways to live in the real world and set aside our yearning for the results to be different. Discernment begins in the real world, now!
We are caught up in a rampaging flood of historic events. The flooding river of the pandemic has joined with the on-going rampaging currents of our culture wars. Economic and political forces are stirring the already troubled waters, and people are drowning in the torrent. It is time to look beyond the truths that are being pushed upon us. It is time to seek out the reality of the world around us. We need to begin to see and hear reality in our living, not apart from it.
Self-care for ourselves and those around us is calling us to seek reality and let it show us the way through these turbulent, troubled days.
Millions of people in the USA and around the world are wrestling with these questions. They are engaging in what Spiritual Directors call discernment. People are trying to sort out the flow of events, ideas, and feelings to find some truth. We have an undimmed belief that we can know the truth in all of this and that the truth will be a refuge from this chaos. Mimicking our childhood Sunday School lessons, we believe that the "truth will set us free." Unfortunately, we fail to remember another scrap of scripture from our childhood, "What is truth?" This little question was never answered. It was left to linger over the events of Jesus' crucifixion and death like a fog of doubt and fear. Discernment is not about finding the truth. It is about experiencing reality and finding our way through confusing and chaotic times.
These days, competing ideas are tossed about like grenades over the front lines of our culture wars. I am more interested in reality than truth. The truth will not set us free from these battles for the American Mind. Truth is a product of the mind as it sorts through our assumptions and selected evidence. Truth depends more on the process than reality.
We can always find a truth, any truth, if we step back far enough from reality. If we are selective enough in our evidence and carefully word our conclusions, we can find a truth that fits our wants and needs. This slippery truth is the heart of Pilates's question, "What is truth?" It is the realm of second-rate politicians, lawyers, doctors, philosophers, and salespeople. Most of these folks are not lying. They believe that their truth is the truth. Unfortunately, they are also unaware that it is built on untested assumptions, carefully selected evidence, and deeply cherished desires for self-gain. Truth, for most people, is highly personal and worth defending at almost any cost.
The tricky part is finding the truth that is consistent with reality. Intentional discernment will lead to a reality-based truth. Discernment looks beyond the truths that surround us and leads us to rely on the real world that includes our questions, inner biases, and whatever real evidence is around us. Discernment is not so much about a particular process as it is about a journey that embraces honesty, humility, patience, and perseverance. Discernment is about finding our way through and into reality.
What does discernment require? It means opening the senses to experience the real world and not the world filtered through our assumptions and beliefs. Discernment demands a mental discipline that can set aside what we want to find and discover what exists. It means teaching the soul to desire and experience reality rather than justifying and confirming what we already believe.
This discerning journey takes place under suboptimal conditions. It does not wait until the skies clear before it seeks to understand and respond to storms. It begins its journey amid the fears, uncertainties, burdens, and trials of the real world. It seeks to see in the fog, not through it. It wants to hear in the noise, not through it. Discernment looks to understand the currents in the river's rapids. It allows those swirling currents to teach us how to negotiate them. In discerning, we find ways to live in the real world and set aside our yearning for the results to be different. Discernment begins in the real world, now!
We are caught up in a rampaging flood of historic events. The flooding river of the pandemic has joined with the on-going rampaging currents of our culture wars. Economic and political forces are stirring the already troubled waters, and people are drowning in the torrent. It is time to look beyond the truths that are being pushed upon us. It is time to seek out the reality of the world around us. We need to begin to see and hear reality in our living, not apart from it.
Self-care for ourselves and those around us is calling us to seek reality and let it show us the way through these turbulent, troubled days.
Tips - Disciplined Discernment
Tips – Disciplined Discernment
Here are a few things to consider as you begin discerning your way into the next few days and weeks.
Blessings, my friends, travel well!
Bob
Here are a few things to consider as you begin discerning your way into the next few days and weeks.
- Allow your observations, experiences, and ideas to be "tried in the crucible of doubt," especially when you think you have found the answer.
- Patience - Give it time. Sometimes there are an awful lot of trees to walk around before you can see the sunrise. Let reality confirm or challenge your discernment in its own time.
- Attentiveness - Give the evidence of your senses a louder voice than your mind's expectations. Let the noise and fog become part of the evidence. It will remind you of what is at stake and show you ways of responding in real-time in the real world. Give your experience a prominent place at the table
- Seek out Trusted Companions
- Sound out your thoughts and feelings
- Listen carefully to those who disagree with you - Listen and test your ideas with people who disagree with you. Whether they are right or wrong is not the issue. Ask yourself why they see things differently. Compare them to the real world and then adjust your ideas and responses accordingly.
- Allow both positive and negative evidence a fair hearing. Both have something to teach you.
- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Look beyond the comfortable and seek out the inconvenient ideas and experiences around you that conform with the real world.
- Lastly, when your body-mind-soul has come to rest on a "best" insight or belief, ask yourself one simple question, "Is it real?" If so, act accordingly but continue to let the world teach you.
Blessings, my friends, travel well!
Bob
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." ~Philip K. Dick
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