Rules for Discernment.

Yesterday we began thinking of ourselves as being on the road, but unsure of how to proceed on our journey. We are freed, yes, but... now what?

We began with one tool, the Ignatian Examen, a way of thinking through - on a daily or regular basis - where we have been and where we are. Today we add a second tool: the categories of consolation and desolation. We'll add both tools to our packs as part of a kind of Ten Essentials for the journey ahead.

In The Call to Discernment, our journeying companion Dean Brackley describes a variety of feelings we experience, some of them on a daily basis, some of them at various high or low points in our lives (44-45).

Everyday challenges can trigger the fear and discouragement that derail wise choices. Having to confront a difficult person can leave us dispirited. Gross evil - violence, greed, mendacity, intractable injustice - can make us feel overwhelmed. Failure can make us want to throw in the towel. Six months into married life a spouse can get a sinking feeling and start to wonder, What did I get myself into?

In cases like these, how much do our feelings accurately reflect our situation? Can we trust them as a reliable guide for making decisions, especially since ideas-for-action frequently arise from such emotional states?

On the other hand, life-reform also awakens joy, excitement, and a sense of freedom. A film like Gandhi or a religious service can stir up a deep desire to spend our lives in service. A conversation with a prayerful person can stimulate enthusiasm about learning to pray, or to pray better. If I've been down on myself, feeling guilty for some past action, somebody might affirm me and remind of God's forgiveness, leaving me feeling like I've just awakened from a bad dream.

[Ignatius encourages us to begin] understanding and responding to emotional states like those just described, which he calls "consolation" and "desolation." These are not just any emotions on the periphery of experience, such as pain from an illness or pleasure from a great piece of music. They are stirrings and moods, states and affective currents which affect us globally and endow ordinary emotions with a distinctive tone. That is because they have come from so deep within us that they seem, paradoxically, to have their origin beyond us.

There are other terms we might use for "consolation" and "desolation." We might think of "consolation" as including feelings like hope, faith, and love and desolation as including despair. In other language, we might think of consolation as feeling full of gratitude for and enthusiasm about our assets, while desolation is feeling full of discouragement about our needs and shortcomings.

To identify experiences of consolation, we might ask ourselves questions like the following:

When did I feel most alive today?

When today did I give and receive the most love?

When today did I have the greatest sense of belonging to myself, others, God, and the universe?

What was today's high point?

For what am I most grateful today?

To identify experiences of desolation, we might ask ourselves questions like

When today did I most feel life draining out of me?

When today did I give and receive the least love?

When today did I have the least sense of belonging?

What was today's low point?

For what am I least grateful today?

It is especially important to recognize that consolation is not simply about feeling "happy" or "optimistic." You might well feel, for example, a sense of belonging in the midst of personal loss or grief at the injustice of the world. In the same way, desolation is not simply about feeling "sad" or "pessimistic." You might well feel a momentary pleasure or a cheap thrill as you seek to patch over a deeper emptiness you might be feeling (read again the words of Barbara Brown Taylor that open our post from last Friday).

It also important to recognize that consolation and desolation are not simply individualistic feelings. Communities, neighborhoods, congregations, families, couples - any group of people in some form of common life together can go through times overflowing with joyful consolation or dominated by life-sapping desolation.

And, as Brackley is quick to point out, consolation is most commonly accompanied by an urge to serve others, to be facing outside of ourselves rather than turned in on ourselves - incurvatus in se, as Martin Luther put it. We also, he writes, feel consolation when we grieve for the sufferings of Christ, or for the crucified of today(49). While we may not feel "happy" about injustice, we may find ourselves drawing near toward others, and toward community with our brothers and sisters in Christ - especially toward our brothers and sisters who are suffering as Christ did - and this movement toward others is, after all, moving us toward the life God intends for us.

There are other descriptions of consolation and desolation that you can seek out if you would like to explore this tool for navigation further. And with that, we place our tools in our pack and turn to face the next stage in our journey, which we will begin on Friday.