Articles By: Ruth Haley Barton

In this excellent article, Barton talks about discernment as the practice of recognizing the presence and activity of God. Discernment is a habit, a way of seeing, that moves us from spiritual blindness to spiritual sight. This allows us to develop an “intuitive sense of God’s heart and purpose at any given moment.” When we sense God’s movement, we give ourselves to it.

If the truth be told, it was desperation that first drew me into solitude and silence. I wish I could say it was for loftier reasons—pure desire for God or some such thing. But in the beginning it was desperation, plain and simple. There were things that needed fixing in my life, longings that were painfully unmet; I had tried everything I knew to fix what was broken and to fill what was lacking, but to no avail.

Life is full of the need to choose. Sometimes the choices are momentous—choosing a marriage partner, entering a vocation, having children. Other choices are not quite as momentous, but they are important, nonetheless, because they give shape to our lives. The pursuit of further education, what church to attend, moving to a new geographical location, how to care for aging parents, appropriate sexual expression in a dating relationship, how long to stay in a marriage that’s not working, whether to pursue a particular friendship or not, what spiritual practices are appropriate for my life at this time… all these decisions shape who we are and who we are becoming.

The first time real pain comes into our lives in such a way that it challenges our strong, well-articulated faith structures, it’s quite traumatic for the responsible Christian—in large part because it is so unexpected. Up to this point in the spiritual life, we have felt somewhat in control and certain of so many things—our doctrines and theological positions, our understanding of God and where God may be found, our sense of ourselves and our place in the world, our feelings of being in control of our own destiny and, to some extent, the world around us. 

Surprisingly enough, it was in the process of staying faithful to my spiritual journey that I first began to face my profound ambivalence about life in a body. At the ripe old age of thirty, I could no longer ignore the fact that I was tired, lethargic, and somewhat depressed. Thinking that my lethargy and lack of enthusiasm for life were psychological or spiritual in nature, I went to a psychologist who was also a spiritual director. To my surprise, some of our initial conversations had to do with my physical condition: eating patterns, water intake, how much sleep I was getting, whether I was getting any exercise, and general attention to health issues. Even though I had been paying attention to the condition of my spiritual life for years, no one had ever called any serious attention to the connection between my physical well-being and my life in Christ. This was something of a revelation!

“Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the things that disturb me most about the way we talk about spirituality and related themes in religious circles today is the way we often create false dichotomies between being and doing, prayer and action, contemplation and missional engagement with the world.

“Oh, she’s a contemplative,” we might say, while on the inside we might also be thinking, “so all she does is sit around and pray all day.”

Or, “He’s an activist… so that means he doesn’t pray very much.”

Or, “She’s a mystic… so that means she’s dangerous and theologically unsound.”

Or, “If we focus too much on spiritual formation, we will neglect evangelism and involvement with the needs of the world.”

“Soul stuff is soft stuff,” this line of thinking goes. “Let the contemplatives (or desert fathers) sit around and gaze at their navels while the activists fly over their heads and get the job done.”

I actually heard a statement like that made from the platform at a leadership conference, and for many reasons I have never forgotten it. First of all, it made me feel embarrassed about who I was—someone who was discovering the presence of God very powerfully in solitude, silence, and contemplation—and someone who was an activist and desperately did not want to believe that that meant “flying over the heads” of the desert mothers and fathers whom I had come to respect so deeply. I was frustrated that a respected leader would use his platform to further cement a false dichotomy that is rooted in so much fear and misunderstanding.

But the fear is real. The activists fear that if contemplatives emphasize prayer and the inner life too much, people will become self-focused and narcissistic and never get anything done. The contemplatives fear that activists don’t pray enough, that they are shallow, and that too much action causes people to become disconnected from the reality of God within. And then because we are afraid of falling into the excesses of one side of this polarity or the other, we subtly or not so subtly dismiss and diminish aspects of the spiritual life that must be held together in tension if our spirituality is to be healthy. 

It is time we get beyond this.

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I remember the first time I noticed that some people arrange their lives to see sunsets. It was summertime in the Gulf of Florida when the days were hot and the nights were balmy. During the day, crowds of people were out lying in the sun and playing noisily on the beach, but in the early evening the real sun lovers came out. These were the ones who planned their whole day around seeing the sunset; in the early evening they would emerge from their condos with beach chairs and maybe a glass of wine. They would position their chairs at the edge of the water and settle in as though they were awaiting the beginning of a much-anticipated movie or play. At first there was chatting, but as the sun sank lower in the sky, people would become quiet; couples would lean in closer to each other; children would stop their playing, and beachcombers would pause just to watch. As the sun hung low on the horizon, pregnant with color, and the cloud formations glowed from the inside out, a reverent hush would descend upon all who were gathered. In that fullness of time no words were necessary. It was enough just to be in the presence of such beauty.