The problem with peace.
Often when we’re discerning a decision, we’ve learned to look for a sense of peace to accompany a good answer. You’ll hear someone say, “I have a peace about it,” or, “I’ve really been at peace since I’ve decided so-and-so.” Unfortunately, however, our experience of peace (depending on what we mean by it) isn’t always a reliable indicator of a well-discerned outcome—and this is for three main reasons.
1. We make our own peace.
First, we can think of peace as the absence unrest, anxiety or discord, and we can arrive at such a peace by various ways. One is certainly if our desires and our actions are aligned with what we believe to be God’s invitation to us. St Ignatius Loyola suggests that when we’re moving in the direction of God, it goes as gently with us as water falling on a sponge; this may be the peace we’re used to expecting when we find ourselves responding appropriately to God’s invitation. However, Ignatius shows us the other side of the coin as well: when we’re going in the opposite direction from God, our experience is the same.
How can this be? Because the only thing that harmony requires are notes that go together. When I’m disconnected from prayer and going in for increasingly selfish actions, it’s the good that disturb my peace. Scripture, prayer, the mirror held up by my faith community—all these things play notes that are dissonant with the present shape of my life. So the surest way to feel peace is to pull back from the people and things that call me to responsibility, play another episode, pour another drink, put out of mind calling a friend I’ve been neglecting. After all, the thought of doing something generous disturbs my peace. It’s amazing how much peace I can find when I align everything to the wrong direction.
2. The Spirit doesn’t always bring peace.
We already just touched on the second point, but it’s worth calling out on its own. Ignatius describes this other side of the coin by suggesting that, when we’re going from bad to worse, the Spirit seems more to us like water falling on a stone—a lot less soft and gentle than a sponge. The reason is that dissonance we described, and it functions to call us loudly back to the way we should go. In this way, depending on how our lives are facing, the right thing can strike us quite uncomfortably. It may enter in so as to completely disturb the peace of my self-constructed little world.
Even when we’re oriented Godward and feeling the Spirit touch us like water on a sponge, Ignatius allows that contrary influences will be to us like that clamoring disturbance of water falling on a stone. In this way, the thought itself of making a certain resolution might give me a sense of peace, but it may be utterly surrounded by noise and doubt and anxiety. Thus, I resolve to take a new position for less money but greater social impact, and it yields nothing but sweetness in prayer, but the second I go about my day and think of my budget and the conversations I need to have and other practical matters, I lose all of my peace in an instant. Does this negation of peace negate my discernment? Not necessarily.
3. We’re fallible.
As the previous two points should show, while it’d all be much easier to believe that a feeling of peace is an unequivocal “thumbs up” from God, our experience of peace tends to be based on whether there’s harmony between our thoughts/actions and the direction our life is facing. That’s not to say that God doesn’t communicate peace to us, but it requires us to interpret things correctly, like:
when we experienced peace
what is causing us peace
where we’re losing it
and why we’re experiencing what we are.
This is all the more so when, in the case Ignatius proposes, thoughts appear to us as “an angel of light.” In other words, some apparently good and very spiritual thoughts seem right to us but lead us down a path that little-by-little bears bad fruit. For example, I might feel really good about the idea quitting my career to pastor a struggling in the city—after all, why wouldn’t Jesus want me to do this? I can break my attachment to worldy success, venture far outside of my comfort zone and embrace poverty. But is this God’s invitation? If I follow my peace, I might find that taking this position actually puts a strain on my family and my psychological well-being; my financial support not being what it should, I become fixated on increasing attendance and tithing; I begin to focus more on becoming a more attractional preacher and neglect inefficient pastoral visits; the church becomes unhealthy with me, and I burn out and leave ministry.
How could this happen? Because I misunderstood the terms of the discernment that gave rise to peace. That is, I thought I was discerning between doing something for Jesus and not doing something for Jesus, so doing something for Jesus gave me peace; I missed what the invitation may have been in serving Christ in another, less obvious capacity. This happens. It happens often enough that it should probably prompt us to look carefully and critically at what and how we’re discerning.
If not peace, then what?
Whether we like it or not, discernment is highly nuanced, which is why in place of “peace,” Ignatius uses two primary terms of discernment: “consolation” and “desolation.” The problem with peace is that it describes relative content without describing what it’s relative to; under the right circumstances, we can have peace about the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. In contrast, “consolation” and “desolation” are directional terms (they relate to “interior movements”) that describe how we’re relating to God. The various ways these interior movements can interplay with our life and circumstances create the basis for two whole sets of principles for discernment Ignatius offers.
In consolation, we’re being moved into God’s love—but that doesn’t mean that’s necessarily peaceful, pleasant or joyful. How not? Because, as above, moving in this direction can also stir up doubt, fear and anxieties that still remain in us to be dealt with; it can provoke spiritual, psychological or family systems opposition; it can lead us into a time of loneliness, difficulty and even suffering.
Even still, isn’t peace to be found in this? A peace that passes understanding from following the Spirit? To be sure, somewhere. But Ignatius tends not to focus on this language. Instead, he describes consolation most concisely as “every increase of faith, hope and love.” And given the trouble “peace” gives us above, these are the markers that I recommend discerners to look for: Is the decision you incline to increasing your faith? Is it building more hope in God? Do you find it making you a more loving person who loves God and others more freely?
It turns out, peace comes cheap. Look instead for what puts God’s love in you, whatever peace it costs.