Discernment

When I was 24 years old, I was a new medical transcriptionist typing for an HMO. I was still new in “the biz” and was happy when they hired an experienced transcriptionist to help me out. We became fast friends. She was very friendly and talked to me about her personal life.

It turns out she was seeing a gentleman and had been divorced twice. Her boyfriend wasn’t divorced yet, but Sally (not her real name) kept telling me how terrible her marriage was, and how mean his wife was and on and on. At 24 years old I didn’t really have an opinion of what she was telling me. I felt sorry that Sally was so unhappy, but that was about it. Then one day she said something about her boyfriend’s wife and it finally clicked with me that my new friend was “the other woman.” What she was telling me about every day was her adulterous relationship with a married man, and the “mean wife” was actually a woman trying to hold onto her marriage and her husband. For the first time in my life I was able to apply what I hard learned about Catholic moral teaching with a situation that I was witnessing in my actual life. What took me so long was that I was seeing the situation not as an
neutral observer, but as a co-worker of the adulteress, and she was someone that I had expected to look up to.

This was the clearest example in my young adulthood of my powers to “discern” not being sharply honed enough to see a situation for what it was in terms of my Catholic morality.

Discernment is:
The act or process of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment.
Keenness of insight and judgment.

In my opinion, discernment starts with proper training in childhood and youth, but then it continues to develop through life experience and growing in faith. I would expect a 40-something woman to have more discernment than a 20-something, (of course this doesn’t always happen) simply because she has had more opportunities to hone her ability to discern right from wrong.

Marla Swoffer is very concerned about discernment. She is particularly concerned that Christians will become confused or be led astray when they read blogs that aren’t “Christian” particularly if they don’t know that the blog they are reading isn’t Christian.

She writes:

I am all for interacting with blogs and people of different belief systems, but not in an ignorant manner, and not to the extent that we end up consuming more from them than we do from Godly sources.

There is a grain of truth to that. It is easier when you are younger to be led astray simply because you don’t have a firm foundation, or because the ability to discern true Christian values isn’t very experienced.

I would go a step further though and say that is one of the hazards for being a Christian in the culture. From magazines, books, music, movies and television, a Christian is faced with lots of opinions and situations that may seem like they are “good” on the surface, but the truth is they are really not “Christian” values. One has to be able to discern what is true and what is not.

Ms. Swoffer writes:

“is that we need to be aware of each others’ biases.”

I absolutely agree with that. When I am visiting a blog for the first time, one of my first practices is to determine the world view of the blogger. If I can’t tell from current posts, I will always go back to when the blog started and see if I can get some idea of what the blogger is about from that. I’ll check out blogs in the side bar too to get clues about what the blogger’s thoughts and interests are. Obviously if nothing on the blog interests me, I’ll probably move on. I might move on if I find the blog offensive as well. I don’t move on simply because the blog isn’t Catholic or Christian but I’ll probably make a mental note of it just so I remember that on some issues, we’re probably going to disagree.

Mrs. Swoffer wrote:

I think it’s a true statement and I’ve done a bit of all the above, but particularly the highlighted part. As I am strong in my Catholic faith, and I understand what the church teaches and why, I don’t have a problem visiting blogs that present something that I find interesting or helpful, particularly on marriage, motherhood, homemaking etc., simply because we do not share the same faith.

Philippians 4:8 says: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

So when the Modern Muslima blog talks about baby essentials, we don’t have to ignore her because she is not Christian. What she writes is true, noble, right, pure … and helpful!! Other mothers may have much they can learn from her.

Likewise when Daring Young Mom blogs about getting a great parking space, who can’t relate and rejoice about that!!

Even my friend Cecily, who disagrees with me on just about everything, has written some beautiful things about the loss of her sons through miscarriage, and about her fears in her current pregnancy. She writes some funny things too, even if I don’t agree with them! I go to her blog because we share our motherhood and I can enjoy Cecily even if I don’t agree with her.

Finally Marla writes:

Absolutely. So if you don’t feel comfortable in speaking the truth in love, maybe you shouldn’t be reading blogs outside your belief system. Cecily knows I will, and we’re okay to agree to disagree. Likewise I haven’t always agreed with Daring Young Mom, and I have expressed gently things on my heart and she has received them graciously.

I don’t see this fear of women and mothers of all faiths visiting each other’s blogs or acknowledging each other through blog award is helpful. However, I think if you are well grounded in your faith, and you enjoy and are edified by what you find in other blogs outside that belief system, go out and be a good witness, a gentle spirit, and act with honor.

Please browse my Amazon sales and eBay items!