Of dogs and discernment

Tess

It's been three months since I last posted. The blog rather slipped my mind, actually. Things have been busy, and today I felt the need to get some things "on paper" before getting back to my spring break tasks, which consist largely of getting caught up to where I should have been last week.

Or last month, more like it.

Anyway, the big news is that in January we welcomed a dog into our home. The shelter had given her the name Sweet Caroline. Her foster dad felt that that wasn't her name and tried Care Bear instead. We settled pretty quickly on Tess (we're a very Victorian-novel sort of household), and she recognized it as her name within a day or two. We were told she's an American Staffordshire Terrier and Australian Cattle Dog mix--we're awaiting DNA testing to confirm that--and about three years old. She's sweet, relaxed, nonreactive, and affectionate, and I am utterly smitten with her.

In the meantime, I had work to do on two search committees: I was chairing a faculty search committee for the Philosophy Department at the University of South Florida and serving on the bishop coadjutor discernment committee for the Diocese of Southwest Florida. Both of those were time-consuming but gratifying. Hiring is the most important service activity we do in academic life (alongside making decisions about tenure and promotion), and we ended up hiring someone who will bring a lot of interesting new things to the department (and is also lowkey hilarious). As for the coadjutor discernment committee, I believe very strongly in the office and ministry of bishops, so I was delighted to be part of the holy work of that faithful and committed group. We agreed on a slate of four candidates to recommend to the standing committee, and those are the candidates whom we'll be voting on come April 2.

Tess looking fierce

So, unlike with the faculty search, there is still a time of discernment remaining for the bishop search. I have not made up my own mind yet, and I expect to pay close attention to next week's three meet-and-greet events as I continue to pray about this.

It occurred to me only today that I've been deeply plunged into another kind of discernment over the last few weeks. Vague memories of spiritual direction classes yoked with theories of psychological development churned up the word "stagnation." It's stagnation or . . . Oh yeah: generativity. Generativity vs stagnation is the seventh stage of Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, occurring in "middle adulthood," which is between roughly 40 and 65. I'll be 55 in two months, so I suppose it's not surprising that I've been thinking and praying a lot about nurturing friendships, taking new steps in my academic career, working toward better health--a lot of the things that fall within the distinctive concerns of that seventh stage. What, if anything, will come of these reflections is still up in the air; it will certainly not come to light definitively by virtue of a convention vote by orders.

In the meantime:

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment,
and light riseth up in darkness for the godly:
Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties,
the grace to ask what thou wouldest have us to do,
that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices,
and that in thy light we may see light,
and in thy straight path may not stumble;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.