Midweek Faith Lift
August 27, 2025
Wisdom and the Moment of Discernment
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
August 11, 2025
During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired, a woman in her fifties, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
And for some humor:
Helen Keller said, "Life is a grand adventure, or nothing at all." Living with my wife, Gloria, is indeed an adventure. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a baseball game on TV. Gloria was sitting next to me, doing some knitting, keeping one eye on the game. In the game, the batter was hit by a pitch, and we both reacted with, "Oh, wow! Did you see that? That's gonna leave a mark!" Then, a minute later, the broadcast showed the replay of the incident. Gloria had been looking down and glanced back at the TV just in time for the replay and she yelled, "Oh, my God! They hit him again!" Awareness is everything.
Affirmative Prayer for today: Loving Presence of God that is in us and all around us, wake us up to those moments of both human and spiritual discernment that bring us into more true alignment with the energy of Love and Compassion that is you. Amen
I love this process of discernment that is part of our power of Wisdom because it comes in small bits and pieces, in moments where we let go, and some greater awareness finally breaks through into our conscious reality. It is such a human experience and that makes it accessible to us on a regular, every day, moment-by-moment basis. It is a moment of learning, of recognition where we “get it” and now life becomes easier and more enjoyable. Learning happens when we let go of our attachments to “how things are” and how we think “things should be.” That is truly how we grow in consciousness!
I had a moment like that last week when I had to check my bag at the airport. I had never checked this bag before, so I did not know how the locks worked and I had never set up the number code to lock and unlock it. The gate agent just popped the zipper ends right into the locks and I gasped in horror that I wouldn’t be able to open my suitcase ever again! She was very patient with me and I set all the numbers on zero and she showed me how to do it! Learning happened….discernment happened, which allowed me to let the gate agent teach me about my suitcase….which is smarter that I am! I didn’t learn her name, but I thanked her for teaching me about my suitcase!
We want to make discernment this complex process that requires lots of meditation, perhaps journaling and spiritual direction that connects us to our divine nature whereby we will know for sure what is ours to do and we will know it right now! We want to know how it all ends so that we can know for certain that we are on the right path, doing the right thing! We want to make the right decision! Hmmmmm…..I don’t think it works quite like that! Discernment happens moment-by-moment, at the airport, or watching an instant replay and not realizing what it is, having the “aha” moment that the gate agent knows more about your suitcase than you do! True discernment requires humility and a sense of humor for sure.
We describe Unity as “practical Christianity” and my experience of discernment is that it is practical; it is a practice, a process, not a destination. We strengthen our discernment muscle one “human/divine” experience at a time. We realize that we make hundreds of small decisions every day, all day long and each one is an opportunity to practice discernment and strengthen that spiritual muscle. Last Sunday, you asked Todd and me lots of great questions and when I thought about it this week, as I was writing this talk, I had the “aha” that so many of them were really about moments of discernment. I recall saying that we could number our arguments and just press a button to play “Number 9!” It was funny, but painfully true.
How did we get past that stuck place? Well as I look back on it, the process was one of discernment. It was a whole lot of little “aha” moments in which we both began to truly “see” each other in a new way. When that happened the level of defensiveness dropped, we began to see conflict more as a way to problem solve rather than to try to “discern” who was right about the issue. We cultivated curiosity and began to use the word “navigate” rather than “negotiate” as a path forward. I won’t say it happened quickly, because it didn’t. And I won’t say that we never lapse into old patterns, because we do, but we recognize it much sooner and step out of it more quickly and willingly, which makes life together much more enjoyable.
What is true is that you can’t have a one-sided coin. This is a both a human and spiritual truth because we are ALWAYS both human and divine at the same time. The only way you can truly “see” the side of the coin that you don’t want to see is to hold it up to a mirror. And metaphysically, the people who irritate you the most are usually holding up the side of your coin that you would rather not see. As they say in 12-step recovery,” if you spot it, you got it!” And that is ok, because you can’t heal it until you see it and feel it. Discernment happens in those moments of self-awareness when you truly see yourself AND the other person. It is then that healing happens, the heart opens, grudges drop away and love has its way with us.
True spiritual discernment asks us to suspend judgment until we have given the issue or question enough time to percolate through our psyche our hearts and our consciousness, i.e, mind, body and spirit. We don’t always know right away what our next right step needs to be. That is why we also cultivate the spiritual power of Faith that holds us in Love until we discern what is ours to do or say. It is ok to say, “I don’t know” and “I need time to just sit with this.” We need not be pressured either internally or externally to give an answer that does not sit well just because “I had to say (do) something” in response. The spiritual “Truth” is that you don’t have to answer until you are ready. This is an essential component of discernment.
Rev. Linda writes about this specifically in Divine Audacity on p. 140 where she says that spiritual discernment takes time. She writes:
Another practice of discernment is to allow a question space and time to percolate underneath conscious thinking, allowing impressions, images, and meaning to arise naturally over time.
We learn to “live the question” until we began to gradually see all that is part of the situation we are experiencing. When we live the question, whatever it is, it is amazing how many answers begin to show up that we are now able to recognize. We can see how it is that we respond out of habit to what we perceive to be the most important thing, rather than pausing to see the whole picture. Our nursing student in the opening story thought she had aced the quiz because she had answered all the most important medical questions. The wise teacher directed her attention to the human aspect of her future medical practice. The awareness that answers and insights can come from anywhere and anyone is a useful and powerful discernment tool that allows us to see how we can get out of our own way.
When we get out of our own way, then we are in that place of humility where Spirit speaks to us most clearly. We spoke several weeks ago of “getting wisdom” which really entails “unlearning” so that something new can come into our awareness. When that “something new” does enter our consciousness, let it be filled with spiritual truth that opens us to a new way of thinking. It requires us to also mentally accept what we have learned, to really absorb it into mind and heart so we let go of arguing with it and we begin to truly trust.
As Jesus instructed his disciples as recorded in Luke 5:37-38:
37 Similarly, no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins and will spill out, and the skins will be ruined. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.
And so it is with discernment. We have the “aha” moment of discernment and we put this new wine into a new wineskin of consciousness that can now hold what we have learned, what we have realized. And thus we grow in wisdom and discernment, with love and practice! We recognize the “instant replay” for what it is and drink instead of the new wine of discernment because we are now empowered to choose!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb