Discernment and Desire

So, if you can recall from our last installment that discernment is really about the biggest of big decisions — what I want to do with my life, for example, or how I want to live — we can take note of the role that desire plays in discernment, and we should take a moment to unpack that word.

Because desire is at the heart of the spiritual life, but it is also a word that we owe it to ourselves to take back, for the word itself has become somewhat sexualized in our culture. Indeed, not long ago, I was sitting with someone in a spiritual direction session, and she blanched when I asked what is a standard question in my field: What do you desire? The word felt “icky,” she said, bordering on inappropriate, almost, and certainly not a part of her regular lexicon. And that is a shame. For when we talk about desires in the spiritual life, we are not talking about passing fancies, but about the deepest yearnings of one’s heart. And yet, the two are not wholly unrelated. For we can see in the life of St. Ignatius Loyola, a person who was consumed by his passions as a young man — for women in the bedroom, for glory on the battlefield — but who overcame them and was able to purify them over time, and with God’s help and grace, separated the wheat from the chaff.

I have sat with a lot of students over the years and the struggles they have with vices around “bed and bottle” have remained consistent throughout. Bad choices abound, but I try to encourage students “not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.” (I am discouraged by how many do not know this idiom, by the
way.) Because at the root of even sinful passions might be holy desires. “Show me a man on the steps of a brothel, and I will show you a man looking for God,” G.K. Chesterton supposedly wrote. And I have found that to be true: We are a people who have deep, holy desires, but who are too often derailed and go looking for them in all the wrong places. Seen in this way, desire isn’t “icky” in the way my directee thought it was; but, gosh, it sure can be messy and complicated. 

In order to make it less complicated, it’s important, then, to dig deeply into our desires, to bore to our core. And in order to do that well, one has to channel their inner 5-year-old. Do you remember being 5? Your parents likely do. Because that is the age at which you, being precocious, asked “Why?” over and over. And while this may have been terribly annoying to others when you were young, this is an invaluable skill to develop in the spiritual life, for it helps to uncover the deepest of deep desires, those things that lie at our core and that make us, well, us. 

I offered this exercise once with a colleague years ago, at a Vocare weekend workshop to show sophomore students how to develop this skill. We started with a simple wish: “I want to get a dog,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, I think I want to have children and I think it might be a good way to see if I am mature enough to be a parent.” 

“But why do you want to take care of another living being?” 

“Because ... I have a lot of love to give,” she said haltingly, surprising even herself.

She had a right to be surprised. For in the course of this short dialogue, we had moved from a simple want — perhaps a passing fancy — to a seriously deep desire that was self-defining, and decidedly holy. And all because she kept digging, refusing to stop until she had arrived at a desire that was central to who she was and how she wanted to live.

For senior students who are wondering what they might do with their lives post-grad, I encourage them to try that exercise, and to keep asking until they can’t answer the question “Why?” anymore. Do not settle for distractions, trivial answers or things that fail to serve, either. I caution them: Responses like “because my parents want me to” is not an answer one gives about one’s own desires. You have to keep going — and keep digging.