Why Discernment? Ancient Wisdom to Tend Organizational Soul
“There are moments in facilitation when you can feel the way of the future unblock, when you can feel the room burst forward on behalf of the species. In those moments, I can feel the tingling prickling aliveness of interconnection, of history, of futures becoming possible. Even in those moments, looking around at each other all brightly shining with the present moment, there are no words vast and timeless enough for the spirit amongst us.”
–Adrienne Maree Brown, Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy and Facilitation, p.12
In communities and organizations of all varieties, there seems to be a collective stuck-ness, a sense that something new is emerging, along with a frustrating lack of imagination or vision to be able to take the next steps into an unclear future. The road maps of old have become unreliable. The very foundations upon which we are standing have been shifting and shaking. The social sciences have been borrowing a military term to describe this environment; VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous). What was is no longer working, but it’s hard to get traction for new ideas amid the rapid and unpredictable change that characterizes this moment in human history.
In addition, our grasping for new vision often comes out of stale paradigms, assumptions of “success,” models, and methods that got us this far but can carry us no further. While a five-year plan used to sound like wisdom, it now sounds like futility. In nearly every sector, people are asking, who shall we become now? What shape will that take? How do we operate effectively within that new shape? How do we make decisions and step into the future amid the fluidity of this moment?
I approach these questions and this significant task as a minister, leader, and educator, but also a human, mother, and creature on this planet. Though I am trained theologically in Christian formation and discernment, my passion and experience have led me to draw from many sources of insight as I work with communities in dynamic transformational processes.
I am noticing that there are patterns emerging across various fields about how to move collectively amid the instability of this moment. I am interested in how they can inform each other and strengthen our processes of discernment, decision, and action. While I am most grounded in the ancient wisdom of the Christian discernment tradition, specifically from an Ignatian and Quaker lens, I don’t believe one must be Christian to access the insights that are in rich dialogue with many of the ways of making meaning and movement in this time. John Philip Newell, in his profound book The Rebirthing of God, articulates an approach to religious wisdom in the world today that resonates deeply,
“It is time for us to grow into the maturity of our Christhood and make our offerings freely to the world. Not on the basis of whether people become Christian and choose to enter our household, but on the basis of the gifts we have to offer for the well-being of the world… What is it that a grown-up Christianity has to freely offer the world?“
It is in precisely this spirit that I offer the wisdom of the Christian discernment tradition and hold it as a conversation partner among many signifcant sources of wisdom, research and practice that can provide meaningful ways to engage processes of dynamic change in the complexity and beauty of diverse human community. The sources I draw from include emergent strategy, adaptive action, dialogic organization development, systems in the natural world, methods of deconoliality, intersectionality, and educational approaches such as multiple intelligence theory. While written primarily for those with leanings in faith-based communities and organizations, this work is for anyone who wants to engage processes that center and take seriously the soul of our work, communities, and organizations.
