Community relies upon people seeing… Attending to the world as it is around us. And in the seeing we discover a resonance with who we are… and from that we can respond, as the call of God upon us.

One of the methods of discerning ‘call’ that I have found really helpful is what we call the Daily Examen. It comes out of the Jesuit tradition, and it is a way of reflecting upon our experience of each day, and discerning the resonances between ourselves and what we see around us…of placing what we see in a God context, and so responding to call. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.

This is a version of the five-step Daily Examen that St. Ignatius practiced:

1. Become aware of God’s presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions – being open to being aware of your response to the experiences of the day as life-giving or life-diminishing.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.

And then watch the patterns. Everyone has ups and downs, good and bad days. But as we follow a rhythm of prayer like this, we begin to discern the patterns that tell us about the resonance of God in our lives, the things we are called to or from. We begin to discern that which we are called to be and how that is to outwork. We begin to recognize the balances and imbalances, and we can then make decisions about this.

Try it between October and Christmas, and see what happens.