Email to Discernment professor - I am pissed/anxious

 Original Email which more accurately is what I want to say because I am pissed off:

Good evening, 

After class this evening, I am actually quite concerned with passing. This is for a few reasons, but it mostly boils down to a concern about communication. I also want to say first and foremost this is not any kind of accusation, as I do not feel it was intentional at all. 

On one hand, I now doubt my ability to communicate about discernment in a way that actually gets my thought across and on the other hand I almost feel as if the pagan voice is being dismissed. I know that is not your intention, and if you hadn't read the articles before saying anything during classI wouldn't feel this way. In your response you dismissed them as the wrong type of discernment and that I would be able to use them as a means of "dialogue" with the version of discernment being used in class, by doing that it feels like you ignored 90% of what the articles were saying. Either that or I am not understanding what discernment is at all; which is cause for concern on its own given I am going to have to define it as part of the assignments.  

With the 4 articles I shared with you, I was excited because it shows how discernment (as we are discussing it) is used in Paganism... and then you had said that you mostly interpreted them as a means of decision making. I would say out of all the sections across all 4 articles, only a small section actually talked about decision making. (Even in the Chrsitian texts you're having us read, decision making is still the final step of the process; even though the focus of the class isn't on that part of it.)  If that is how you interpreted those articles, I do not feel confident in my ability to convey discernment/mystic awareness in order to communicate properly in the upcoming assignments.

In  Discernment: Distilling Truth from our Pagan Experiences  "; only the last section involved decision making. Everything leading up to that covers the tools of discernment - even in his example under the "Discernment requires decision" section he breaks it down. His primary example was: "Discernment led me to understand that Cernunnos was calling me to be His priest." He then answered the call, and later turned down the call of another deity. The discernment process is how he even became aware there was something to decide on - it wasn't the decision itself. 

When Godphones Ring – Discernment for Pagans listed 8 steps of discernment and only the last 2 are about making a decision. The bulk of the article talks about being able to discern the message from the divine. It's about trying to figure out what is being communicated before trying to then move towards action. This article as a whole is about discerning who is speaking and what is being said. 

A Pagan Framework For Discernment is all about discerning belief - it never mentions making a physical choice but rather an internal one. What reality of Spirit/Magic/The Divine is true? 

Receiving the Call: Tuning the Godphone and Learning Discernment this one (and the first one) are in my opinion most similar and relevant to discernment in how we have been talking about it in class; it even defines discernment similar to most of the definitions given on the first night: "To briefly define discernment: it is being able to tell the difference between wishful thinking, your own deepest fears haunting you, and what is really coming from outside of you." This article is talking about discerning messages and where they come from. It even gives an exercise not unlike one or two of the ones given in the reading discussed tonight. 

Overall from how I have understood discernment so far in this class is how to pick up on messages from "Spirit" "God". How to see "God" giving hints or nods or signs - how to feel and interpret them. We use discernment in decision making - that part is clear across the board - but the decision making isn't the discernment.  At least that is how I've understood the readings so far and that is how I understood these articles. But if I am not understanding this class's version of discernment - then I need help to do so. If these articles are not touching on the very same process we are covering in class I don't understand where they differ. Either I am completely missing the point of the class or I am reading something entirely different from the articles you are. 

If, by chance, I am not misunderstanding what discernment is (for the sake of this class) and the same type of discernment is being used in the articles, I have to wonder if it was missed during your first reading of them because they do not use the Christian framework. If this is the case I am concerned that when it comes to the essays we have to write in class you will also only see the "decision making" part and not the divine awareness of my writing. 

Final Draft after lots of refining:

Good evening,

After class tonight, I felt concerned about my understanding of discernment as it’s being discussed in this class and about how that understanding is going to come across in the future assignments.

I want to be clear that my intention here isn’t to challenge but rather to voice genuine confusion and ask for clarity so I can continue more confidently in the course. 

My concern mostly centers around how the Pagan articles I shared were interpreted and what that might mean for my understanding of discernment. I was excited to share them with you because they, to me, directly engage with the kind of discernment we’ve been exploring in class and the readings: listening for divine communication, developing spiritual awareness, and interpreting what’s being received - not just making decisions.

When your response framed them primarily as examples of decision-making and said they could be used only as dialogue in contrast to how we are discussing the topic, it felt like a large part of their meaning was dismissed. I understand that the framework in class is from a Christian lens, and that not everything will map perfectly, but in the articles I shared, especially in Discernment: Distilling Truth from Our Pagan Experiences and When Godphones Ring, discernment is discussed as perceiving and interpreting divine or spiritual messages (which they end up using to make a decision). This is very much in line with how we’ve been defining discernment in class, or at least in how I have been understanding the definition. 

If I’ve misunderstood the core perspective we're working from, I’d really appreciate some clarity and guidance so I can better approach the upcoming assignments. On the other hand, if these articles are in alignment with the course’s concept of discernment, I’m worried that their message may have been unintentionally overlooked because they come from a non-Christian context. If that is the case, I would like guidance on how to communicate them in a way that shows their relevance, without having to translate them entirely into a Christian framework.

Given this possible misunderstanding of how discernment is supposed to be approached from, I am especially anxious about the upcoming assignments. If possible, I’d really appreciate a chance to talk through this in person. Would you be available to have a meeting over Zoom? I can generally be pretty flexible at work, so I should be able to work around your availability. Thank you for the help!