Discernment in the Daily Invitations

3/16/21

Dear friend,

We've just finished a mini-series on discernment and are entering a new one now on noticing invitations and living into the ones that receive our yes.

(You can read the intro piece for this new mini-series on invitations here if you missed it. That link includes links to the pieces on discernment too.)

As I mentioned last week, I view invitations as falling into two categories:

  1. Those that cross our path every day, asking for our yes or no

  2. Those that receive our yes, which we then start living into

Today we're going to talk about those in the first category.

How do we notice the invitations that cross our path every day, asking for our yes or no? What do those kinds of invitations look like? And what role can our discernment play in helping us respond to them?

To enter into these questions, I thought I'd get practical with you.

Here is a short list of invitations that have presented themselves to me in the last 24 hours:

  • A realtor we met on Sunday texted to ask where we're landing on the house he showed us

  • A friend shared she was having a tender day

  • Kirk and I noticed we're feeling exhausted by the house search we've been conducting this past month

  • My sister asked if we could do a special gathering for our mom's 70th birthday in June

  • A friend asked if I'm available to help their friend with a book they're writing

Some invitations we receive in the dailiness of life are short-term: Will I respond to my friend today in her tender place? What might that look like, given who she is to me and what I'm able to do today?

Some invitations are medium-term: Do we have an answer for that realtor right now? Is he asking us to move faster than we're willing to go? Is he someone we feel comfortable working with for the next few months?

Some connect to the bigger scope of our life: I did a long discernment for more than a year about stepping away from the publishing world. This informs how I respond to book-related invitations I receive now. Additionally, Kirk and I are contemplatives committed to living at the speed of soul. How does that inform the way we conduct our house search? How is our current approach working in opposition to our contemplative way?

Some connect to other invitations we're already tending: Kirk and I are living into an invitation to move house right now, and we're working with a June 30 move-out deadline on our current house. How does the reality of this invitation impact our ability to celebrate a milestone birthday with my family in another state within that same time frame?

Invitations cross our path all day, every day, and they hold different weights and impacts and connections. When we've learned what our way of discernment looks like, we're that much better equipped to process and respond to the invitations when they come.

Does this make sense to you? Does it give rise to any insights or questions? I'd be happy to hear from you about this.

Yours in noticing invitations,
Christianne