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I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
My aim in this article is to present discernment as a method or paradigm for decision making. What is discernment and why does it matter?
Discernment is here defined as a process of first recognizing difference and then consciously engaging in dialogue across the boundaries that difference creates. Religious communities hope to know and do the will of God. The individual in therapy hopes to move from living death, a circumscribed existence, to abundant life. Discernment matters because it serves to lead us away from a limited viewpoint in the direction of greater freedom and responsibility for our choices. The process of discernment, an art of attention, can be used to promote a dialogue between human development as a foundational paradigm for psychotherapy and Quaker faith as a particular expression of the life of the soul.
What do I mean by soul? Quakers speak of “that of God in everyone” or “the Inner Light of Christ.” In Christian theology, we find the idea of the imago dei, or likeness of God in humankind. On the journey of faith, by moving closer to this central core of the divine, we draw nearer both to our own truest selves and to others, since each soul is both unique and united with others in God. One finds similar notions in Jewish mystical traditions in which each person is understood to carry a spark of the divine.† While the idea of soul cannot be equated with psychoanalytic