Discernment

Sometimes, when there are no green lights and things don't seem to be falling into place, I'm tempted to take it as God giving me a sign I need to be doing something else. With our struggles finding a house and having a baby, I have started to wonder- is this really God's intention for us? Did he put this on my heart or did I put it on my own?

My sister wrote me this email today. She is incredibly eloquent and insightful. Her thoughts resonated with me (and echoed some of the things I've been hearing from my mom and Juan Carlos) I just wanted to share her email in case her words offer insight or encouragement to anyone else as well....

I talked to mom last night and we got into a discussion about discernment. I know you've been concerned lately with questions about "what does God want for me/my life?" and I certainly don't have any answers to THAT per se, but I thought I'd share with you my strategy for handling those kinds of thoughts and also a few things that I learned in my Ignatian Spirituality class, where we talked a lot about discerning God's will and paying attention to the way the Spirit moves in you when you make decisions, or even think about making certain decisions.

I, personally, tend to think that if God is giving me signs about what to do with my life, then they have been very cryptic and I am not paying attention well enough to ever know whether a "sign" is even from God, or the devil, or coincidence or my own doing. So i guess I gave up on knowing what God wanted from me a long time ago and just decided to figure out what I wanted and what would make me happy. (This seemed like the second-best option considering I would be in a constant state of bafflement if i attempted the best option, which would be knowing God's plan for me).

Then, in my Ignatian Spirituality class, an interesting idea was put forth: since God has already put His/Her spirit inside of us, since we all are made with pieces of divinity, we need only to look into ourselves to understand the divine will. When we are honest with our truest selves, what we want is what God wants. God would never have a will for us that would make us miserable; S/He could only will for us a life journey that would ultimately result in incredible joy and satisfaction. So, I guess what I'm saying is that, from this perspective, one needn't look for external cues or signs to know what divine will is, because it's already inside every person, and the way to access it is to be brutally honest, to tear back the layers of desires that come from societal pressures and others' expectations, etc. and look at who you are as your more divine self (like those monks you met in Tijuana who each seemed to know who they were so well...), and from there you can start reaching some honest answers about how to live your life. This is essentially what prayer and meditation are: a time and an opportunity to be quiet and just listen to what's going on inside of you. Some people think they're listening to God, other people think they're listening to their own internal workings. To me, it's all the same based on the idea that we carry divine awareness within us.

And to me, it's far less about the "what" of it (what career, what house, what boyfriend) than about the "how" of it... (am I living my life with a balanced, peaceful mind and with love towards those around me; am I allowing myself to be happy even when the things that are "supposed to" make me happy aren't happening? am I making my decisions in a state of peace and self-acceptance?)

Anyway, I guess that was a long-winded way of encouraging you to indulge in what I am going to call "your own divine selfishness".... that is, trusting that what YOU want is 100% compatible with what God wants for you. So you might be thinking "well, I want a house and a baby...." and that could very well be true. But I have a hunch that those, because they are external things, are really representations of an internal state that you want to have -- a state of security, purpose, selflessly loving a person who needs you, coziness, building your own strong family, etc. And those internal states are available to you now and always. You can have it now AND have it later, along with the house and the baby =) Being happy now will not get rid of your desires for a baby and a house -- it will just prepare you to handle those things more flexibly, without your happiness being so attached to them once you have them. (And you will!!)

I have to emphasize here that it's not as though I know what I'm doing.... I like to think I know what I'm talking about from a philosophical standpoint, but I guarantee you my boss would say I do not have a very solid grasp on the practical applications of mindfulness. All I can say is that these ideas have helped me so far... so maybe you'll find them helpful too.