What Discernment Is Not
The Way of the River, as you might guess, is all about Flow. It is about getting into alignment with the Spirit of love and moving in accordance with that alignment. Ultimately, it is about discernment. It is about discerning where the Flow of Spirit is. It is about discerning what some of us would […]
My Claims for Spiritual Direction
If you receive Reflections, you know that I offer spiritual direction. I’ve also written about it here a few times. As I return to the flow of the The Way of the River, I find I want to be clear about some things. Having a spiritual director does not mean that you are “directed” by that person. […]
Practical Spirit and Spirit in Practice
NB: This post was from December 2014. The course it mentions is no longer being offered, but the content of the post still seems useful. Let me know what you think. *** I realize that for many people, the idea of spirituality doesn’t immediately bring “practical help” to mind. For many people, the idea of […]
Today, Today, Today!
Hello, friends. Just a tiny note; Today is the free, full-length discernment class. At 5:00 Pacific Time today (4 December), we will share a discussion about what discernment is, what issues in our lives need discerning, and various methods of discernment. We will then go into depth with one mode, one method of discernment, talk about […]
The Many Layers of Discernment
Sometimes – often! – hard choices aren’t between two options. They are among a set of options, or between or among options that are multi-layered and complicated. Sometimes the choice is about how to be, not just how to do something or how to pick something. I had a conversation with a mentor this week […]
Take a Moment to Take Stock (v. 2016)
NB: Originally written in November 2014 *** We will never come to the end of the to-do list. There will never be else at all left to us. Even when we die, most of us will leave many things unfinished. My father, in the last days of his life, said he still had a mystery […]
The Siren Song of Momentum
It’s so funny, how when you start to work on something, opportunities to work on it more come into focus. So I’m doing all this writing, teaching, and planning around discernment. Wise decision making. And in the last month and a half, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to use discernment techniques. Even just today, I […]
Excitement on December 4!
Yay! Yippee! Yay! Exciting new things coming for The Way of the River and for YOU! For the last fifteen years, structured discernment—the art and skill of choosing wisely—has fascinated me. Whether it’s the Quaker practice of finding clearness, the Jesuit processes of formal discernment, secular methods, or systems of divination, I am drawn to […]
The Wisdom of Good Choices
I can’t stand it when Hallowe’en gets preempted by Thanksgiving, or worse, as is more often the case, by Christmas. Hate it. It just makes me crazy. I love Hallowe’en/Samhain and the whole season of the dead, and it deserves its own time. If you’ve been reading my blog for the last couple of weeks, […]