Always Be Discerning

     First of all, if I get any parishioners from my current parish reading this, let me say up front - I am not leaving you any time soon!  I hope that is good news!  I just want everyone to read this in a relaxed manner and not get frightened that my time at my current church is completed; far from it.

    Having said that, a question I get a lot of the time goes something like this; "how do I know what God wants me to do?"  For me it is time to bring out the letter "D" for "Discernment."  Discerning in God and with God is something that I trust all priests have done at least once (for our initial call to the priesthood), but hopefully continue to practice in all aspects of our lives.

      In the great David Mamet film version of Glengary Glenn Ross, Alec Baldwin. playing the corporate sales person, looks at the sales crew in front of him and demands that they "Always be closing."  Always be closing a sale.  This is how I think of of discernment.  Always be discerning.

     Since I was ordained in 2007 I will tell anyone who asks, that I am always discerning.  Sometimes that discernment is to determine if I am where God wants me to be; at a particular parish at a particular time in its history, but it is also about discerning my role in some activity, or discerning how to approach a particular challenge, or more.  Discernment is not a bad word, certainly, and if you give into the fact that discerning invites one to listen to and see signs from God, it is certainly a holy practice.

     How does discernment look?  Here is a recent example.

     I need to stress right away how I feel that I am perfectly placed where God needs and wants me now.  I am a parish priest in a church where my gifts are needed, appreciated and I am very happy here, so there is no immediate thought of moving onto the next area of my call from God.  Yet God knows that Marie and I have a couple of wants we hope will be included in the next call to ministry; if and whenever it comes.  We would like to consider moving back closer to our parents who all live in the same state.  We would also love it if the job came with a house close to the parish.  Then there are the additional extras that are optional but add attraction; that the church is close to a beach or a body of water, healthy in the ways that parishes are measured, and more.  Well wouldn't you know it.  I became of aware of a place looking for a priest that had a lot of these qualities.  We are not ready to leave where we are yet, not even close! But how could we ignore this possibility?  What to do?  The answer:  Discern!

    Marie and I prayed.  We prayed together, and we prayed separately over the few days after we looked into this almost too good to be true place.  In addition to that, we spoke to people and got more information on the job, the area, the people, but it was all surrounded with prayer. "God, give us a sign!"

    I received a sign.  No, I received three signs on Sunday morning!  The first was a dream;  a very biblical way of how God speaks to some.  My dream had no imagery at all, just blackness, and out of it a voice said "You are where I need you now.  Do not go for that job."  After I awoke I carried this dream around with me while I prepared for services that morning, and I eventually sent up a second prayer; "God, did I hear you correctly in that dream?"  Well, not long after I received a note from a preaching colleague asking if I could print her sermon and bring it to church for her, and I agreed.  When the pages came out and I paper clipped them together I could not help but notice her opening line which read something like this:  "When I was young I kept a Dream Journal by my bed so I could write down my dreams."

      "Okay," I thought, "is this another response from God?"  In mere moments after asking for clarification about a dream I received, in my hands, a sermon where the opening line suggested that I remember that many people pay attention to dreams!  Okay, so I am a bit thick headed at times, so I just wanted to be really sure.  That is why, less than an hour later, I was at the church and preparing for the first service.  One of my habits is to go to the side chapel and pray quietly.  Sometimes I open the bible that sits there, and it was open to the last place I had left it from the last time 1 Corinthians.  As I knelt I prayed again "God, please, I need a sign, about that dream."

       As soon as the prayer was out of my lips I looked down at the bible and a different phrase than the one that I meditated on a few weeks before jumped out and grabbed me.  In my request for a sign the next thing I saw, right in front of me, was "This is the third time I am coming to you..." (1 Corinthians 13:1a).  Okay, Lord, got it!

    I am always discerning, which means I am always looking, I am always praying, and I am always listening. I am glad especially when discernment reminds me that I am where God wants me to be, because I like it here, and I like being in God's presence.