How do we discern a decision? 2: Find your foundation.
In part one, we looked at how being able to discern a decision requires us first to clearly identify what good things we’re free to discern between. Without that, we can spiral into dozens of possibilities or kid ourselves into thinking something’s a real option that God would never invite us to. Ultimately, the hard work of discernment isn’t choosing between a good option and a bad one—it’s choosing between two good things.
Once we know what we’re discerning, we also need to know why. That is:
Why am I discerning this decision?
Why does it matter?
Why would one outcome be better or more desirable than another?
We could answer in various ways: “Because I want to get it right,” “Because I want to do whatever will serve God the best,” “Because I want to be happy from what I chose.” But frankly, all of these are slippery. How do we recognize what would be right or serve God best or make us happy?
In essence, we’re looking for a touchstone—something that allows us to test or measure our decision against. Scripture certainly gives us a framework and allows us to rule out options that simply aren’t good—but again, it doesn’t necessarily point us between two good options. What we need is something deeper, more personal, more fundamental.
St Ignatius of Loyola suggests that we bear in mind what we’re created for, which he calls our principle and foundation.
Why a principle and foundation?
1. It gives us a principle of what we’re discerning for.
What we’re discerning for (why our discernment even matters) is bound up in what we’re for. A principle and foundation provides a touchstone for our discernment because it points to what we’re for.
As an example, let’s pretend we want to identify the principle and foundation of a sunflower. What’s a sunflower for? You could say, to sit in the sun, to grow, to produce pollen and seeds for more sunflowers. If a sunflower does this, it’s made a pretty good existence for itself. But what happens if a sunflower were to “decide” to plant itself in the shade? That’s not such a good life for a sunflower. Why? What rule is it violating? Is it making God unhappy? Will it be existentially unfulfilled? No—it’s simply not what it’s for, not a life it’s made to flourish in.
What we’re for is what we flourish in. Going “with the grain” of our created nature goes well with us because we’re made to flourish; going against that grain tends not to. Humans are made to drink water, to eat, to sleep—and we don’t discern whether to do these things, because we know we’re made in part for them. We’re certainly created for far more, but the principle with these doesn’t change: we ought to look at who we are and what we’re for to understand what’s good for us.
The idea of a principle and foundation assumes there’s a design to us—to us as created humans but also as a momently created, unique and individual person. It imagines that if we can continually align ourselves to what that is, whatever “goes with that grain” will be good for us.
2. It gives us a foundation to come back to.
The discernment process can take less than an hour, or it can be a slow and arduous unfolding over many years—and the more complex it becomes, it’s possible for us to become confused, lose our initial focus or get lost in a fog of the “data” we’ve gathered. When this happens, it’s helpful to be able to come back to an earlier point of clarity. This is also how a principle and foundation serves.
When I was first learning yoga, I took a class on building shoulder strength for hand stands. The instructor was conscious this would exhaust our upper bodies and had us rest and reset momentarily throughout the routine, but we were to do this in a very specific way—never by leaving the mat but always by returning to child’s pose: a relatively neutral position, folded forward flat on our knees, stretching out our back while our head rested in front of us. This allowed our muscles to reset without disengaging them and to catch our breath without stopping our practice.
So it is for our discernment. Our foundation isn’t merely something we build on; it remains for us a solid and concrete place to return to when things feel wobbly. Child’s pose is one of the easiest and most basic asanas, yet expert yogis have a place for it in their practice as a place to rest, reset, recenter. When we’re lost in the weeds of particulars that begin to flesh out from our discernment, we can always return to this: what am I being created for?
What is our principle and foundation?
1. What humans are created for.
In his manual on the Spiritual Exercises retreat, St Ignatius proposes a general principle and foundation that would be true of all of us. This may be a wonderful starting point, a challenge and reminder for us, even as we go on to articulate this for ourselves.
“Humans are created to love, reverence and serve God our Lord and by this means to save their souls. The other things on the face of the earth are created for humans to help them toward the end for which they’re created.”
St Ignatius’ words here can be read as cold and doctrinal—not the impassioned lover of Jesus most knew him as—and others have attempted to paraphrase his words more warmly and in the true character of his pastoral theology, but here’s the gist of his point for us: Our ultimate purpose is in God. Yet not only that. The point of everything else, in fact, is to help us love God well.
Why does it matter if we choose to enter ministry or advance in our career, to marry or to stay single, to move or not? Here’s the shocker: it doesn’t—unless one of these things helps us to love God more, better, greater.
Yet this isn’t even as one-directional as it may sound, because if loving God is truly what we’re created for, then to do so is like drinking water, like eating good food, like getting good sleep—only it touches us more completely. It’s to go with the grain of our deepest nature; it’s to flourish, to be a sunflower in sunlight rather than in shade.
2. What you’re momently created for.
But if our principle and foundation is meant to point us to what’s at the heart of our discerning and to guide us back to clarity, we may find it helpful to become more specific. We might be helped by crafting and, periodically, refining a personal principle and foundation. After all, what humans are made for in general contains more possibilities than what I’m made for.
For example, say someone asked me to consider leading a middle school group at church. To share Jesus’ love with kids is the kind of thing we’re generally created for. But is it what I’m created for? Not so much!—at least, probably not. I simply know myself, as does God, and this isn’t where I flourish. This isn’t to say God would never ask me to step into this, but it’s to bear in mind that it’s not who God’s shown me to be to this point. I can surely discern it, bearing in mind that God’s personal invitations to me will be personal. This allows that I might discern that this opportunity, while good, may not be as good for me as another one that I’m more made for, like leading a prayer group.
When we develop our personal principle and foundation, it doesn’t have to look like St Ignatius’, although it ought just as much to have the ultimate for us in view. Again, this is where the questions of our discernment come to their finest point: what’s the point of anything/everything, in the end? For those of us with a belief in God, we want it to point back to who we believe God made us uniquely to be within God’s world-restoring project. Yet for someone who may be atheistic or agnostic, it should still speak to what is absolutely ultimate for you—global peace, human kindness—whatever that language might be.
Creating our principle and foundation.
Before working on your personal principle and foundation, first revisit St Ignatius’. What are all humans created for? What does a good, fulfilled life for a human look like, generally? David L. Fleming, S.J. paraphrases it like this:
“God who loves us creates us and wants to share life with us forever. Our love response takes shape in our praise and honor and service of the God of our life. All the things in this world are also created because of God’s love . . . As a result, we show reverence for all the gifts of creation and collaborate in using them so that by being good stewards we develop as loving persons in our care of God’s world and its development.”
1. How would you put humanity’s principle and foundation in your own words? They don’t have to be polished or poetic. What are you for—not as you yet—but simply as a creature gifted with life, intelligence, emotion, desire and agency in the world? What is human life for?
2. Then, turning to your personal principle and foundation, take time prayerfully with the following questions, even inviting others to ponder them with you:
What does Jesus love about me?
When do I feel God’s pleasure in me?
When do I feel most myself?
What does the life that makes me most alive look like?
What do I want my life to be for?
How might the story of my coming alive in life intersect with the story of God’s world-redeeming project?
Take a shot at a rough first pass, just to get something on paper. You might begin with “I am being created to . . .” (This “being created” is an important aspect of how we think about what we’re created for—not as a once-for-all purpose we’re on the clock to figure out but a continual creation into each present moment, with all of its new and momently invitations that draw upon who we’re being created as. Your purpose is always near to you, however far off-track you might ever feel.) From there, expand on that first statement: Who are you being created to do it with? Why? How does this connect with what you’re created to enjoy?
“I am being created to _____________________ with ____________ in order that ____________________ and to enjoy _________________ . . . ”
Taking forward our foundation.
Our principle and foundation can be tremendously helpful as we get closer to discovering and walking out our true self before God—yet we still want it to be chiefly helpful in what we’re setting out to discern. Once you have a version that seems satisfying to start, bring this primary question of discernment and the two or three concrete options back to mind. By no means does it have to speak into the decision directly, but notice:
How might this help you focus on what’s of central importance in your discernment?
In what ways can you see it bring ultimate considerations to the forefront and move smaller matters to the periphery?
As it moves less ultimate things to the side, what resistance or hooks or attachments can you notice getting ruffled within yourself? (Where can you find yourself not wanting to let go of something?)
Once you have a principle and foundation documented in front of you that can help you keep the main thing the main thing, you may be ready to take the next step in discernment.