The Arbor
Like those among the early church, the community called The Arbor shares time, space, belongings, finances, and life with one another. Individuals within The Arbor commit to living their lives guided by traditional practices of Christian faith such as hospitality, prayer, discernment, worship, fellowship, forgiveness, and simple living.
Discernment
Our world is noisy. There are too many voices calling us, too many interests we want to fulfill, too many temptations away from the one who created us. (On Tuckaseegee Road, there are also too many excessively loud car radios assaulting our hearing.) We live in a world where the sound is constant, where our eyes are fogged from staring at screens, and where we can find ourselves lacking the ability to understand both ourselves and one another. We too easily lose sight of that which is true. We lack the wisdom to know which voices are those of God calling us and which are the slag and dross of the world.
This condition is not new, and for many centuries Christians have practiced discernment in order to listen for what is truthful among all of the competing voices that would claim our lives. To discern comes from the Latin meaning “sift apart.” Discernment is the process of sifting through those voices that call us to find the ones that are truthful. Discernment is about listening, listening deeply to God, to one another, and to ourselves. In the process, we search out those people, places, and ideas that are good and adjust our behavior likewise.
The practice of discernment is always imperfect, but in its best form it must involve others in helping us to listen. Friends, community members, pastors, spiritual directors, even strangers and enemies, can provide invaluable insight into ourselves and into the potential of those key decisions we make to be life-giving. In Hyaets Community, our practice of discernment includes sharing with and listening to one another, the cultivation of personal devotional habits, and the frequent observance of silence for the sake of listening. We also meet as a group with a spiritual director on a monthly basis, and some individual members also have individual spiritual directors. Through these several avenues of discernment, we hope to sift through the many voices that call us and to listen well to which voice belongs to God that we may act faithfully in response.
