1. What do you think of when you hear the phrase "listening for God"?
2. Do you believe that God has some intentions for our lives and our communities?
3. What is the difference between preference and practicing discernment?
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1. What do you think of when you hear the phrase "listening for God"?
I think of 'centering', being still, being quiet, pondering a thought or question, waiting. Then at some time, maybe not immediately, an assurance will come.
2. Do you believe that God has some intentions for our lives and our communities?
I believe that there is always the possibility that God has some intention for our lives. We are to be open, listening, and planning with each other and with God for the fulfillment of his love in our lives. For me, most of the time it is in our attitudes that we can best determine God's will for our own lives. But I also feel that when we have 'practiced' long enough, we just know that God and I are on the same wave length!
3. What is the difference between preference and practicing discernment?
When I state my preference, I tell you what I want.
When I practice discernment, I cooperate with others in a prayerful attitude of finding God in a decision. Or I carry out my private way of finding God in a situation/decision.
1. What do you think of when you hear the phrase "listening for God"?
I think of trying to hear what God is saying rather than believing that my own desires/thoughts are those of God's.
2. Do you believe that God has some intentions for our lives and our communities?
I believe that God wants each of us and our churches to show His love. The problem is discerning how His love is to be practiced.
3. What is the difference between preference and practicing discernment?
Ditto to Zorro's response.
In the adult Sunday School class I taught today, I asked class members for examples of "spiritual practices" that use to help them on the path toward becoming disciples of Jesus Christ. The very first response was "listening to promptings from the Holy Spirit." I then explained that this can be called "discernment" - which is not a term I've heard used this way prior to reading it in Bass's book.
1. I think of silence, prayer/contemplation, and openness to following intuition - mine or others. I think our intuition is God-talk.
2. Yes, I think we must pay attention to our instinct and intuition and follow them wherever they lead. Mindfulness is discernment. I think God has intentions for the world community, God's creation, which we, as the most intelligently-developed of creation, are to carry out.
3. Preference is what I think I should do or be, while practicing discernment is using mindfulness in such a way that I willingly go where God leads/calls me to go without asking myself if it is what I desire. It is trusting that God knows and desires the common good.
1. What do you think of when you hear the phrase "listening for God"?
I think the people of the United States have lost their reasons for trusting in anything. God has sent us many signs of his torment of us (humans) here on earth. One example is clement change. We are not listening to warning signs just continue on a path of destruction.
2. Do you believe that God has some intentions for our lives and our communities?
Yep I sure do believe things have changed in my lifetime and not for the good.
3. What is the difference between preference and practicing discernment?
Preference means what one person believes accepts as truth. When I hear the work discernment I think of conclusion.
I like the phrase from one of those that Bass interviewed: "We are asking more of people than just coming to church on Sunday." I think that by practicing discernment, we can become the kind of people God wants us to become. Learning to ask what Frederick Schmidt calls "God-questions" allows us to turn our lives over to God.
1. What do you think of when you hear the phrase "listening for God"?
I think of mindfulness, paying attention, listening to my heart, based on having learned what God is like (loving and compassionate) so I can recognize when something that comes to mind wouldn't be loving, in which case, I must listen longer and more carefully until I can hear clearly.
2. Do you believe that God has some intentions for our lives and our communities?
Yes, compassionate communities, where we live in harmony as we care for each other, while always wanting the best for each person. I think we should try to implement loving behaviors that make the world a better place for all of us. My latest word for this is Ubuntu, which in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are." This story explains it better:
An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: "Ubuntu! How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?"
3. What is the difference between preference and practicing discernment?
Preference is more personal, thinking of what I favor or like best. Discernment has more to do with wisdom, it seems to me, using good judgment based on carefully weighing the options and asking what Bass calls "God-questions" (p. 97). I like this quote from page 91:
Christians believe that human beings have the capacity to hear, see, touch, and feel God — a genuine sensing of truth and beauty through which we know God and know God's will. Christians call this discernment. ... Discernment serves as a kind of spiritual compass, helping us negotiate the unfamiliar territory of our truest selves as we seek to find meaning in God's call. ... in the study congregations, discernment was also a corporate practice. The churches learned to ask questions of God, then listen carefully for God's inner wisdom for the community.
1. What do you think of when you hear the phrase "listening for God"?
Something inside me, which I consider my soul, makes me feel uncomfortable or comfortable depending on the particular circumstances. For instance, when something comes out of my mouth I wish I could retract, but it is too late I have already made myself or someone else uncomfortable. With me, I may be slow in reading but my brain sometimes speaks, before the brain works. My times for listening to God was when I was young with three children at home to mother, was driving home from work, going to bed saying a prayer, waiting for the kids to come in for dinner. Now I get up early to have quiet time to myself, watching the sun rise, listening to the birds sing, smelling the fresh air when the windows are open, this is my time to Thank God for what we have food, shelter, bills paid and a few pennies in my purse. Often I hear myself thanking God for what I have knowing how lucky I am to be me.
2. Do you believe that God has some intentions for our lives and our communities?
Oh yes I sure do, sense I am a bilateral amputee below the knees during the summer months I wear short pants seeing some folks look twice is good having someone approach me was interesting, when I first moved to the village now people tell me they forget I am an amputee. They just look at me as being old.
3. What is the difference between preference and practicing discernment?
Preference is making choices how you choose to live your life. Practicing discernment means judgment I try very hard not to judge the people that surround me neighbors, friends and family. Discrimination that is another matter all together. Judging someone for his or her pick of lifestyle is like someone discriminating towards me, because I am without feet, or someone who is black, Mexican, or Indian. My mother only had an eight grade education, she was a very smart woman in her day wrote letters to senators for my father, and raised me in the church.
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