Sitting on the verge of 2016, I wonder what sort of year it will be. Friends are posting about the presidential election. They are reflecting on racial injustices that continue to this day. They are concerned about climate change. They are making plans for celebrations for this evening and resolutions for the coming year.

My resolution for the coming year is to seek a better understanding of what God is calling me to do. There is a specific process for this for those who believe God may be calling them to ordained priesthood in the Episcopal Church, the discernment process.

Starting in a couple weeks, I will begin meeting regularly with a small group of people who will pray with me, study scripture together, and help me seek a better understanding of what God is calling me to. I view this as a wonder gift to me, and I hope it will be a wonderful gift for them as well.

Some of my early thoughts about this have been to explore how much I can share this online as well. The Discernment Manual of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut talks about the importance of maintaining confidentiality. “What is said here stays here. It is not appropriate to tell someone else’s story.” It is extremely difficult to maintain confidentiality online, so I won’t be posting stories from my discernment committee meetings online, although I hope to share some of the insights I’ve gained and further explore these insights online.

Yet as I think about it, the discernment process I will be going through seems limited in several ways. It is focused on people seeking discernment about becoming ordained priests. Yet we all should be seeking discernment. It takes place for a couple hours every other week, over a period of several months. Yet it seems we should all be seeking discernment constantly; praying without ceasing.

How do we do this, as we also pay attention to what is going on around us, like paying attention to the cars around us as we drive? It seems the idea of continuous partial attention by Linda Stone.

To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected.

How do we connect with God, and God’s creatures around us? Is that what we are doing when we scan through our social media feeds? What do we do with our feelings of outrage, compassion, awe, or gratitude? Are we seeking to discern how best to react?

My daughter who is building a tiny house talks about her goal of reconnecting art to daily life. I think this is part of continuous partial discernment. We need to recognize, create, and share art, things that are beautiful, things that have meaning. We need to have outrage at injustice and oppression, and seek discernment on how we can best address such injustice and oppression. Is it enough to click like? To share a link? To donate to a cause? What are we called to do?

How do we seek continuous partial discernment in the twenty first century?