Discernment

Through both my formal learning in psychology and my continued education, growth and development I have come to ascribe to a school of thought called "constructivism." Essentially what that translates to is that I believe that we are only capable of seeing or hearing and conceptualizing that which fits within and can be described by our current level of education, training, experience and social context. Specifically that means that all thought we have come from the same pool of thoughts we have always had and can be described using only the vocabulary we have available to us at the time. Though this may sound like harmless psychobabble its impact on issues of justice and discernment of "God's will" are monumental. It is for that reason that the power elite cannot effectively enact matters of justice because of the very fact that all matters are seen through their lens of the host culture that causes the oppression in the first place. But in accurately discerning God's will we may be even more suspect. There is a story of Francis of Assisi who it is said heard God telling him, "Francis, rebuild my church." So, gathering his monks around, they set out to find the most broken down church and rebuilt its roof. A second time Francis asked God what He wanted him to do and again heard "Francis, rebuild my church." So Francis and the monks repeated the process - and a third time as well. It was not until Francis heard the same instruction a fourth time that he understood his mission to reform the Catholic church of the time. My continual concern is that well-intentioned and prayerful people (and even church leaders) mistake what they think they are hearing as a message from God when all they ever get is a confirmation of their existing mental paradigm. Naturally that message would be supportive of the existing structure and understanding. What they hear may (or may not) be a message from God but it gets filtered, interpreted and expressed through the only limited perspective that person has. History is filled with examples of how one group after another has inflicted injustice on others in the name of what they thought they heard or understood. That notwithstanding, this is amplified when we realize that not every word of the bible is "God's word." Much of what we read in the bible is "man's word" and at that it may not even be God-inspired. Research indicated that great portions of the gospels and whole books of the Torah have been written by religious leaders of the time to suit their particular agenda. That does not mean it isn't sacred literature that has endured the test of time, (take Deuteronomy for example) it just means that it is not outside the realm of possibility that what you are reading might just be someone's personal point of view. Perhaps the Desert Monks had the best approach by living in retreat for long enough to eradicate the noise of their own mind's experience to be able to let in the still small voice of God. But preachers who hammer on a vendetta of hate and exclusion and claim discernment as their source will never convince me that they listened to or heard anything divine.