The A’s of Appraisal, Post 1 – which means there will be more :)

Do I wear the black t-shirt or the blue one? Eggs for breakfast or cereal? Should I skip breakfast instead? So many choices. So many decisions.

What we eat for breakfast or what shirt we wear is a pretty easy decision, although Steve Jobs might care to differ with me. His closet was filled with black t-shirts and jeans, so he wouldn’t have to spend time deciding what to wear. He wanted to spend that energy on important decisions.

Maybe Steve had a point. Some decisions are more important than others. What I wear or eat for breakfast is not usually a very big deal. However, there are other, important decisions like: What should I focus on today? What direction should my life take? How shall I show up today?

By sharing the donkey parable, St. Bernardine of Siena reminded us that there are plenty who will give us their opinions on what we should do or not do. His counsel to us is to do the right thing.

But how do we know what the right thing is?

God calls and invites us to align with him. His directives are invitations to wholeness and life. I don’t know about you, but I find a mixture of conflicting desires, agendas, and wants. I also hear voices, both internal and external, telling me what I should be doing, and judging what I do.

Maybe I should just do what I want. Pursue what I want and desire, ignoring everything else. But when I finally get what I wanted, I find a new want, or a different desire. Getting what I want doesn’t heal my desire to get something new.

Apparently, I have no idea what I really want, or what will truly satisfy, even though I believe with all my heart I do. I don’t think it’s just me. I see this same tendency in others. We believe that if our desires are met, we will find fullness, peace, and contentment. Over and over again, we are disappointed by what we thought we wanted, but we continue to the next want nonetheless.

Dr. Adrian van Kaam, the founder of Formation Science (for more background on Dr. van Kaam, take a look at some of my previous posts), saw a need for a process to determine which directives were unfolding each day and which were from God.

Directives come from what he called our formation field, which includes family, friends, culture, and beliefs we acquired because of when and where we grew up. Within this formation field, at the center of who we are, God also gives directives. The question is, what directives will we give our life to? Will we quiet ourselves enough to listen to God’s directives and follow?

God loves us and desires to direct and guide us. Will we follow God’s directives, go our own way, or follow the crowd? How do we appraise the value of all these directives? By appraising the directives in our lives, we can figure out what the “right thing to do” is.

Van Kaam’s Appraisal Process can help us discover God’s directives and, hopefully, choose to give God our “yes.” The A’s of the Appraisal process are a series of movements or stages. All of them start with the letter A:

• Abiding in Awe-filled Attention
• Apprehension
• Acknowledging the Dissonance
• Argumentation and Assessment
• Appreciative Abandonment
• Affirmation of Formative Option
• Application of our Yes

The process helps us appraise God’s directives and quiet other directives, such as voices telling us whether to ride or not ride the donkey (see my previous post about this).

We’ll take them one at a time, and we start with the one most of us skip.

1) Abiding in Awe-filled Attention

I drive to work, listening to the ads on the radio, reading the billboards as I pass by. I walk through the grocery store, thinking about what I need to buy, but leave without the one item I needed. Distractions come. Attention leaves.

One of the most important things about us is what we choose to give our attention to. We often use the phrase “paying attention” to remind us that giving our attention comes at a cost. Our attention is limited. We can’t pay attention to every directive. Do we give our attention to the voices surrounding us, or to God?

Every day there’s a cacophony of voices vying for our attention. Not only does our culture constantly bombard us through commercials, billboards, TV, and movies, we also have the voices of our family, our workplace, our church, and many others.

Jesus told his disciples to abide in him (see John 15). He calls us to stay put, to return, to remain in him. The first step in appraising God’s directives is to abide in awe-filled attention, focusing on God.

Spending time with God is important. So is how we spend that time. When I sit down to spend time with God, my mind is like a bunch of jumping monkeys. Thoughts come and leave as quickly as they come. Some thoughts hang around, hounding me. I feel scattered. The internal dialogue screams, especially in silence.

Abiding in awe-filled attention takes energy and intention. It also takes time and consistency. Perhaps that is the challenge. This is not our default state. Like Martha, we are distracted by many things (see Luke 10:38-42).

For our first movement of abiding, we carve time out of our busy day, quiet ourselves, and shift our attention to God. We read scripture slowly. We don’t rush. This is time to abide with our attention focused on God.

I’m not going to promise instant success. Those jumping monkeys don’t leave quickly. When I learn new things, whether it’s playing an instrument or learning a new game, it feels foreign. Questions come: Will I ever get this right? Is all this effort and energy worth the discomfort I have right now?

When I enter into silent attention, I wonder if the internal noise will ever stop. I want to quit, give up, and pick up my phone. “I’m just not good at this,” I think. Yet there have been other times when I’ve thought the same thing about something else and stuck with it. I’m glad I did.

Please stick with this as well. Over time, you will find the rewards of a centered and attentive life far outweigh the difficulties of quieting those jumping monkeys. They will continue to jump, but they will jump less.

I encourage you to find a time and a place where you can abide in awe-filled attention. You can begin by reflecting on a Psalm such as Psalm 23 or 46, or by reading from the Gospels. Don’t rush. Allow this time to be a time for quieting. Spend 5 minutes or more in silence, letting go of thoughts and focusing on God’s presence and your desire for his will.

It’s better to spend 5 minutes in true awe-filled attention than 30 minutes scattered and distracted. You can always increase the time as you become more comfortable with the practice. Finding time to abide is essential if we are going to appraise which directives are from God, from others, or even from ourselves.

May God bless you as you focus your attention on him! As you do, you will find yourself beginning to align with what God wants for you. Forgiveness comes easier. Love begins to bloom. You start to have a stronger sense of God’s directives.

Instead of listening to whatever voice is the loudest, you will begin to listen to the only voice that really matters.

I’ll post on the second movement, apprehension, next. Until then,

Peace,

David.