For Quakers, Decision-Making Is a Spiritual Practice
Deep Listening
How will you spend your time today? What needs your attention right now, and what can wait until things settle down? How will you spend the money in your budget? These are common workplace questions.
These questions are also spiritual. How you answer these questions will shape the pattern of your work; It will also shape the pattern of your life. How do you discern what matters the most? What gives you permission to rest or compels you to work a little longer?
As a Quaker organization, we want QVS staff to engage in a practice of deep listening. Develop a habit of reflecting on the questions that arise in the context of your work. Notice the questions. Also notice the answers. What do the answers tell you about yourself and your way of seeing the world?
“Deep listening” means we keep listening, even after a first answer comes to mind. Does the first answer come with a sense of peace? Does it bring a renewed sense of energy? Or does the answer feel like an obligation: like it’s the only way forward? Once an answer starts to form, look for the seeds that gave rise to that answer. Have those seeds germinated in your heart of hearts? Are they growing from what is most true inside of you? If not, look for something deeper.
Finding the Creative Third Way
Because the dominant culture values restless activity, taking time to discern is countercultural. When we resist the momentum of the dominant culture, we broaden the scope of what’s possible. Deep listening allows us to be more creative.
When making a decision, we often find ourselves at the intersection of two possibilities: Do we spend the money or not? Do we take the job or not? We are faced with two divergent options.
Deep listening allows to consider all the options that may not be evident at first glance. What if we only spent some of the money? If we communicate our need, might someone respond with a gift? What happens if we wait? Deep listening allows the discernment process to move in unexpected directions. This process can reveal a “creative third way.”
Conscience and Preference
Part of deep listening is working to distinguish matters of conscience from preference. In Quaker spaces, a matter of conscience holds more weight than a preference.
When discernment bogs down over whether to use a comma or a semicolon, it’s usually because people have conflicting preferences. If the way forward bogs down over which shade of beige carpet should be installed in the hallway, it’s usually because people have conflicting preferences. The most trivial disagreements can be the most intractable.
Deep listening requires the humility of identifying our preferences, and then releasing them. It’s especially vital to release our preferences if doing so allows someone else to live with integrity around a matter of conscience.
Quakers believe that we’re able to reach unity in matters of conscience. if we do the work of deep listening and stay engaged with one another despite the pain of disagreeing over deeply held values, we can discern a way forward. However, no process will provide us with shared preferences.
Community Discernment
In the privacy of our own thoughts, it’s easy to conflate preferences and convictions. It’s relatively easy to think the way forward is obvious because it falls within the patterns of what is familiar. Community complicates the process. There is tremendous value in that complication.
In worship and decision-making, Quakers emphasize the role of community. We believe that communities are usually better at discerning and expressing truth than any one individual acting in isolation. And we tend to trust that something is deeply true when it brings us together.
Quaker Tools
Over the last 350 years, Quakers have developed tools for the work of collective discernment. These tools include a practice of listening in stillness, the role of clerking, metaphors like Inner Light, Inward Seed, Light of Christ to help us talk about what arises from a place of deep spiritual conviction. We have fostered a belief that everyone is capable of discerning this deep truth, and that seeking it together will bring unity.
As an employee of QVS, acquaint yourself with these tools. Ask for a clearness committee. Consider forming an ongoing Anchor Committee to help you hold the responsibility of your work in a place of collective discernment and support. Practice distinguishing between preference and conscience. Talk to your supervisor about how to access these tools.