Virginia Episcopalian Magazine Spring 2013 Issue | Page 7

Discernment fed my own desire to seek out communities
in the Episcopal Church who ask radical questions about what
it means to be the body of Christ in the world today. Do we
have a building? A prayer book? A priesthood? No one on
my committee had answers but encouraged my questions,
encouragement that helped me step out to spend my time in
seminary continuing the search, meeting people who have
dreams of holy mischief in the Church and the world, and
opening my own sense of call up to possibilities I could not
have dreamed while in discernment.

Three years later, I can say I have fewer answers than
when I began, but I’m rather skilled at asking a good question.
And still I have that deep sense that the world needs space
where it’s OK not to know, not to have it all together. But in all
our not-knowing, we are to know and proclaim what God has
shown us in Christ: We are God’s beloved children.
The Rev. John Ohmer
Rector, The Falls Church, Falls Church
The best definition of “discernment”
I’ve heard is “listening to various voices.”
That definition recognizes that the voice
of God is not the only voice we hear; it’s
a recognition that many other things
compete for our attention.
And because the voice of God
is most often “a still, small voice – the
Ohmer
sound of soft stillness” (1 Kings 19), it can
be easy to miss hearing God’s call. Jesus, we