Some time ago I wrote a blog post on discernment. A comment received was critical (in a very nice way) saying that I had missed an important element in the equation. I argued that discernment involves faith, freedom and facts. I was criticised because I didn't include feelings in the process. Feelings exist and therefore feelings are facts as much as any other empirical evidence that can be taken into account.
We all react uniquely. We all feel differently about the choices and opportunities that we face. There is frequently not one right or wrong course of action to be followed but several ways ahead, some of which may be better or worse for us. We need to be explicit about the degree to which we will enjoy the various options.
If we do not acknowledge our feelings we will allow them to fester under the surface un-named where they may have an unexpected and undue influence on our lives and all that we are. Feelings are very important for how we live and all that we do.
For example if I am trying to discern which of two jobs I should do and I don't consciously acknowledge the fact that I will enjoy doing one job much more that the other then I may end up resenting what I am doing and not understanding the reason for the underlying resentment. I may choose a course of action that I know I will dislike out of a sense of duty but if you are a person who gains satisfaction from acting out of a sense of duty then this may be OK.
We need honesty, and as I said before being honest with ourselves is often most difficult, to analyse our feelings about various options and feed this information into our discernment process along with all the other factors.
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