Discernment

Discernment /dəˈsərnm(ə)nt/:

1. to sift through, to sort out.

2. perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual guidance and understanding.

3. an initial step in becoming a steward who guides, inspires, and nurtures others’ spiritual growth, serving as a model of faith rather than a manager.

The young seminarian labored intently beside his elder as they walked in the direction of the rising sun. He could make out the village in the distance and for a moment thought he could hear the voices of the villagers in the breeze. Not likely, however, for though this world had the medium through which vibrations could travel, the planet seemed stingy in this regard, as it did in many regards, and sound did not travel as one felt it should. You could be a few hundred feet away from another person on a clear morning, speak something to them, and a reply might be, “say again!” He kept walking.

He hated this world. He was tired. The human body was not designed for a pressure of 16.7 meters per second squared (1.7 Gs). Even the healthiest could not function without the constant use of compression clothing on the extremities of their body. He resented not being lucky enough to be born to the world evolution had designed him for. Here human bones were denser, the population was shorter than average due to spinal compression, the heart had to pump harder in order to properly provide blood to the brain, injuries were easier to happen and took far longer to heal. Every human here, though born here and adapted after many generations, suffered a shorter, pain filled life. Each step brought him closer to screaming. He didn’t though. He took another step. Then another. Ad infinitum.

“Cecilio,” said Sabio, the elder. “We’re seeing three persons today. One is infirm, twenty four years old. He has only days unless he chooses otherwise. The second —“ He looked as the seminarian sideways. “You’ll see. And the third is a transient, about my age.”

The seminarian looked sideways at the elder. He noted the rivulets of sweat pouring off the man. He noticed the faint wheeze in the man’s breathing. Cecilio hated his own name. It meant “blind.” How pretentious and insulting could the seminary be, to make it so everyone he encountered called him, quite literally, “blind?” And the elder’s name, Sabio, meant “wise.” Really? He scoffed inwardly.

“Is there significance to the order in which we will see them?” asked Cecilio.

“Only proximity.” 

Cecilio noted that his eyes did not hurt so much as the sun had now cleared the horizon. The sky was also brightening, approaching the mixture of white and blue that was a typical clear day on Vela. The breeze picked up a little and this time he was almost sure he could hear sounds from the village. He sighed and began to steel himself for the day.

The first hut they came to was just beyond the village border and built parallel to a narrow river. As they came nearer Cecilio saw that a canal had been dug which allowed water to flow towards the house. He had seen this before. If they were farmers then this water was for irrigation, or for the watering of animals. Surprisingly, however, he saw that the same canal had been extended around the hut, and with water leading into it effectively created a moat around the structure. How amusing it would be, he thought, to find a miniature drawbridge leading to the front door.

Instead of a drawbridge, however, there was simply a little bridge made of four planks that crossed the three foot wide span. 

Cecilio realized that he had stopped and then realized that Sabio had been quietly watching him with a patient smile. 

“An impractical and unnecessary project,” said the elder. “For what reason would a farmer build such a thing?”

“If it is impractical and unnecessary then it can only have been built for aesthetic reasons,” said Cecilio. “Perhaps he built it for someone. His wife?”

Sabio smiled wider. “Perhaps.”

As soon as they were inside the house he could hear the man’s labored breathing.

The sick young person stared at his ceiling and struggled to breath. The mattress under him was stained with sweat. The accompanying smell was as expected. The seminarian took a moment to verify for himself that the young man, though his eyes were open, was essentially catatonic. Each breath was a monumental effort. Unfortunately, breathing is an autonomous system, meaning it does not require a conscious effort. This man’s body was fighting without him. And the energy it was expending to keep him alive was monumental. And since he was no longer eating, the body was eating itself. By eating itself he was therefore growing weaker. Being weaker meant the body must work harder still for every consequent breath. 

It was madness.

“You are his wife,” said the elder to the young woman at the bedside.

She nodded.

“Did he have last words?”

“Nothing worthwhile,” she said.

“Children?”

“No,” she said. She said this, however, with a sigh of relief. In that moment the seminarian felt close to her. The affinity he felt was palpable. He could feel her in that one word say “No! Thank God, no!”

“Do you have any requests before we begin the final rights?”

She thought about it for some time, no doubt for an internal dialogue in which she asked herself if she thought she needed something of her husband’s as a keepsake. She probably partitioned some of that time to briefly see their time together as husband and wife, to count the times that were bearable and weigh them against those unbearable.

In the end she shook her head.

The elder and the seminarian performed the last rights to a man who was no longer conscious and then left. His remains would be attended to later.

The sun approached the horizon. The white sky was beginning to turn pink as the wavelengths lengthened. As they walked through the town square they kicked up some dust. The dust settled slightly quicker than it would on earth, though none here had ever known earth so would not have noticed the difference.

The heat did not diminish. The weight the seminarian dragged became heavier still.

For three weeks he’d listened to and accompanied the elder on his errands. Everywhere he saw the same hardship and desperation and misery that he felt. The elder had not shown him anything new. If anything, the elder was probably more miserable than he. He walked with a slight limp. An injury? More likely arthritis. He was an old man, almost thirty. He’d tended to this flock nearly his entire adult life and would soon need to be replaced.

At length they approached a house near the edge of the town. There was a small crowd outside. They talked little, conserving their energy, but he saw that they each had a glass of water in their hand. They nodded to the seminarian and the elder and parted to reveal a bathtub a few feet from the front door.

The elder had not said who they were here to see and so it was shocking to hear the cry of an infant.

The seminarian looked at the elder but the elder kept his eyes forward and his face immobile.

Watch everything, the seminarian had been told. We live a hard life on a hard world. You have chosen to be a shepherd but you likely do not know what that entails. So, watch everything. 

The cries of the infant came again. His steps towards this house suddenly seemed to lighten and he slowly realized it was because he was growing angry. The scream he carried with him was deafening inside his own head and he could feel the tightening of this throat. 

When he was a child he quickly decided that he wanted to help people. He wanted to help them remember who they were and help them to not despair. He decided he would learn to teach them to cope with the wretchedness of their lot and would learn the words to soften their distress. He had grown up with neighbors who had children almost every year. He saw those infants struggle under the unnatural weight of this world. He watched them wither. He watched them die. He watched their parents grieve. And he watched them try again, wilting under the stress of their choice, shortening their own lives further. And he hated them. How could people be so selfish as to inflict this pain on innocents? How dare they? He would work to bring reason into their lives. To see that it was mercy to choose not to procreate.

The fact that this line of thinking was contradictory to the seminary’s teaching slowed him down only a small amount. He would mouth the words. But he would be careful of what words he chose.

And so, each step closer to the house he became angrier. 

It occurred to him to wonder if perhaps the elder was watching him.  

His pace slowed. He smoothed his breathing.

The father smiled when he saw the seminarian in the frame of his door.

“Come in, come in!” he said.

“Thank you.” He crossed the threshold. He inhaled deeply, his heart hammering. He closed his eyes and stood still, willing himself to calm. The crying of the baby interfered, however. He could hear the innocent’s pain as clear as words. Help! It hurts! The poor child cried inconsolably while its parents pranced around, smiling as if everything was all right, refusing to ease their loved one’s agony. The insult was greater because they were not strangers, the betrayal greater so.

“Thank you so much for making the journey out to us, father,” said the father.

“Please, I am at seminary. I am not ‘father,’ yet,” said the seminarian.

“Even so, we are two kilometers from the town center, father. Our heavy hearts welcome you.”

“Please, show me the creature,” said the seminarian.

The father beamed proudly. “This way,” he said and led the way deeper into the house. The ground rose at a gentle grade, a typical design in response to deluge, and their steps kicked up dirt since no one had sprinkled water this morning. Near the center of the house light and sound had to travel farther and around corners. This meant that the sleeping room was always dark and quiet. The child’s crying, then, was vastly amplified.

The mother smiled, her modesty washed away hours ago by the act of giving light. About the room there was evidence that others had been here. Midwives likely. 

“Hello, father,” said the mother.

“Hello,” he said. 

The seminarian struggled to hide his desperation, struggled to keep his face from contorting. The best he could hope for was that if the others noticed they would think it was due to happy emotion. Inside his head he screamed, but when he spoke his voice was soft and tender and nurturing. He gave the child his blessing and promised to love him and protect him with all his might. Then he passed the child back to its mother.

“Thank you, father,” she mouthed, not wanting to add to the cacophony of the child’s cries echoing off the clay walls.

When it came time to leave they left the room and walked in concentric semi-circles, brightening with the light of the sun until they reached the outermost wall. But something else; he could hear murmurs from outside, voices asking questions, voices responding. The Seminarian turned to his mentor.

“Now, young man, I will speak to your doubts,” said his mentor.

What doubts? he thought. But in an instant he understood. Of course his mentor would have known! Who knows how many seminarians he’d looked after? And yet he’d not said anything about his observations until now. Which meant—and this he realized with relief—they must be at the deepest point of a trough. And he could sense a swelling nearby, as if each breath carried him up higher towards the next peak, away from the gloom and despair he’d been hauling, and he whimpered when he realized just how low he’d gotten.

Through the opening of the door he could see shadows of people mingling outside, waiting for them to exit. 

“You see no end to the pain being endured here,” said the old man. “You see a people who have been promised salvation, not in the afterlife, but here while they live on a world that was not made for us, light years from Earth, and you know it is a lie. It is a lie. There is no help coming for us. And if help arrives it won’t be for dozens of generations at least. And you don’t see how you can possibly counsel them,” he nodded toward the door, “to continue to have faith, to continue to love, to continue to endure. You don’t see how you can possibly lie to them.”

That’s it! he thought. It would be lying! It would be false. It would be the biggest sin to tell even one of them that they should wait for salvation knowing that none was to come.

“But you are missing information,” said his mentor.

“What am I missing?” said the seminarian.

“You are meant to live here for a solar year and in that year to discern how best to serve them.” When he said ‘them’ we indicated towards the center of the home where the father and mother and newborn were and then towards the outside of the home where it was beginning to sound like the whole town was waiting.

“What are the three discernments?”

“To be a priest charged for their learning and understanding of the word. To be a buttress by providing structure and support as one of them. To leave the church and be a husband, linking one generation to the one that came before and to the one that comes after.”

“Were you born here?” said his mentor.

“I was born on Brisa, at the opposite end of the continent.” His mentor knew all of this, but he answered anyway.

“Your parents?” 

“Dead.”

“Who cared for you?”

“The monks of Brisa,” he said. This was a technical fact. What he knew about his own birth and infancy was conjecture since he had no actual memories regarding these events.

On this world as on others (or so they were taught) a person could choose what to do with their life. If the person chose to not contribute to the advancement of the state on this world it was allowed so long as it was not detrimental or hurtful, and he was required to provide for himself for all his needs. An orphan, however, being a ward of the state, was required to choose one of three ways in which he would be of service to society. 

He realized his mentor was peering at him. The old man cleared his throat and nodded to the outside.

“There are here, all of them. They wanted you to see this.”

They were all outside and had formed a ring by the front entrance. In the center of the ring there was an empty tub. As he looked around at the villagers they each smiled back at him, and they each had a glass of water in their hands. 

As his mind shuffled to make connections he could hear the crying newborn louder and louder until he was carried out of the house. People gasped and some of the children cooed. None of the grownups spoke however, as if they did not want to further overwhelm the baby. 

The mother held the baby and tried to comfort him while the father approached the tub. He gestured with his hand and the group of people began to get closer.

First one person walked to the tub and poured his water in, then another. Children also poured their water in; some of those without water were handed some by an adult and they poured it in also.

Quickly the tub filled and people reformed the ring. When the last person’s glass was empty the father motioned for his wife to approach the tub. The seminarian noticed the widow, empty glass in her hand, looking at him and then at the tub. 

The mother climbed in with her baby still crying. The shock of the cold made the child wail louder still. But then her volume slowly diminished and a look of what anyone would recognize as surprise appeared on her face. With her body completely submerged the baby girl was experiencing a buoyancy similar to what she’d had in the womb. The weight of this world, at least for the moment, was no longer crushing her. You could see the relief in her eyes.

The children were the first to approach the tub and now they spoke to the baby and called her by her name and touched her face and her little hands. Then the grownups approached and did the same. 

The seminarian looked on. He could see the associations that these people were forming intentionally, jointly, and there was a stir within him. He wanted to be part of it. His feet seemed to move before he told them to, and when he kneeled he did so with a big smile. 

“Hello, little one,” he said, and the child turned towards his voice. He knew her eyes were not functional yet, but there was nothing wrong with her hearing. He went to touch her hand and was surprised when she gripped his finger. She sighed.

He looked at the baby’s mother. Her eyes were closed but she was obviously awake. He realized that her being in the water was giving her great relief as well. “Her name is Elpidia,” she said. 

Eventually, the little girl fell asleep and the rest of the village quietly walked away to resume their day. The mother slowly climbed out of the tub. He imagined that she hated having to, but of course if she stayed longer her body would get used to it and the heaviness upon exiting would be that much more excruciating. 

The mother and father thanked him and his mentor and returned to the shade of their home. He could hear the baby starting to get fussy again.

After a while his mentor knelt beside him and put his hand on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything—what could he have said— and after a time he got back on his feet and walked back the way they’d come.

The seminarian stayed kneeling. He noticed the pain in his knees only vaguely. Less vague was the red of the evening sky as the world continued its spinning, a tireless ballerina held in place by nothing more than a few rudimentary physical laws. The slow breeze brought the occasional voices of people living, sending down for the night, certain the morning would arrive as it had a million times before.

2.11.2018 – 3.1.2026