Sermon: Listen Well.
This week, our home, Winnipeg, was very windy, with leaves blowing all over. My favourite image of the wind is when it’s blowing around a newspaper or someone’s hat.
What’s yours? When I was in high school, the novel Wuthering Heights was a true inspiration – I liked the idea of living in a house where the wind ‘wuthers’ around. (show the picture). I like wind. This week, I posted on Facebook a beautiful “Wind” quote from The Silent Cry, written by Dorothee Soelle: “Become able once again of not hearing the wind as a noise and, instead, of listening to its voice.” I’ve been thinking about this lately, of hearing the voice of all creation, not just “noise.” Soon, I got my friend’s message with the picture (on the screen): “I need to remember this today, it is really windy here in PEI! This is a picture of the ocean from where I do my Bible Study.”
This morning, I would like to ponder with you what it means to listen well and how listening really becomes a spiritual part of our lives.
One thing I would like to note is that if we consider listening as a spiritual activity, it is really evidence that we are “in a deep relation”. For example, if we really want to listen to the wind, not just as noise but as a voice, we have to go out. I mean, to be more precise, we really need to “get out of ourselves” and seek out joy. Think about it. Going out to hear the wind, or even listen to it as a voice? That’s either a creative experiment or full-on whimsy. Or, if we fill in the spiritual element of that quest — it is for seeking out joy. Here’s the full quote from which the wind quote comes: ““As if humans had two souls”. The one soul said to the other, “You, my melancholic soul, unacquainted with praise, don’t hang around in yourself, look outside yourself, let go of yourself. Become able once again of not hearing the wind as a noise and, instead, of listening to its voice.”” Listening, if practiced as a spiritual activity in our lives, is evidence that we are in a deep relation with the Other: God, ourselves, our neighbours and all of God’s creation. Listening reminds us that we have the responsibility, at all times, for seeking out the joy of life. We have this responsibility for perceiving beauty. The beauty in all things. The beauty in ourselves. The beauty of the world. There’s a deep relation between the joy of God and beauty. To listen well and differently begins with finding joy and beauty.
What does it mean to listen well, and how can listening become a spiritual act within our lives? I wish to share two stories. The first one comes from a Korean poem I read recently. I assume that this poem was written in the 70’s or 80’s, when the student-led Social Democratic movement was burning in Korea. The poem is about a poet professor who, one day, invented a new theory, “Even sound has a bone” or “Every sound has a bone,” then, created a new class centred on that theory. The school’s Dean firmly opposed the creation of that class, because the teaching would be based on the professor’s nonsensical theory (The professor’s colleagues broke into laughter when they first heard it, because they thought it was a joke. They thanked the professor for his sense of humour and for giving them the chance to laugh.) Regardless, this class got approved. Some students took the poetry class out of a sense of mischievous curiosity, only to find their professor didn’t teach anything; he simply persisted with silence for the whole duration of every class that year. (The students got increasingly impatient; they began to argue among themselves. Mr. Park said, “The bone of the sound means silence.” Mr. Lee said, “It means the hidden meaning in words.” Another student said, “What it means doesn’t matter. It is a methodological metaphor to think outside the box.”) If you read this poem in Korean, it is both deep and funny. The poem concludes, as the result of the class, “In the following year, our ears could listen to all kinds of sounds much better than before.”
The second story I am going to share is mine. Two weekends ago, I went to Toronto to participate as a member in the General Council Executive meeting. I am happy to report that the Executive is a good group. During the two-day meeting, we gave ourselves more time than we did on other subjects to discuss, “What practical actions do we need to take to decolonize our work as an executive?” Then, this question was reframed to help us to think more concretely: “What are some of the ways in which our work is colonizing?” We broke into small groups. In my small group conversation, one member of the group asked me if I had been feeling included. She wondered about it, because I didn’t join the first Executive meeting held in September and this October one was my first in-person experience. I wanted to offer something deeper than simply saying yes, even though a yes would have been fine – I was feeling included. I answered, “I observed that in the larger group talk on decolonizing our own meeting, I offered many thoughts but didn’t feel that they were “echoed back” to me through the other members’ verbal responses, except for one person personally coming to meet me and strongly affirming what I had said.” I added, “And that’s ok. That’s what I normally experience in most United Church meetings, with my current congregation being the exception. They love me so much, they are ready and willing to listen to me." (Note: The congregation laughed. I said, "I know. Too much confidence! LOL)
Hearing my words, the member who asked me the question about my inclusion responded, (I’m paraphrasing here) “The reason why I might not have recorded your thoughts properly in my notes is because when someone who has an accent speaks, it occasionally happens when I don’t understand them. I also have hearing challenges.” What her feedback seemed to suggest to me was that the reason why I didn’t get the responses I might look for is because people were not able to understand what I was saying, and the reason may be (or most likely is) my accented English is a barrier to comprehension. That feedback painfully conflicted with my perception of myself and others. My belief is that if we are truly interested in one another, we communicate with each other and understand each other, even though we have different accents and speak in our own unique styles.
If you find yourself in this scenario or in similar ones, here is some helpful advice you can use to help yourself or others to “listen well”.
First, we need to examine the situation critically. Why did people suggest my accent to be the barrier or the problem, and is that critique or feedback necessary or helpful to others with whom we communicate and build community together?
I sent some quick S.O.S. text messages to Kim Uyede-Kai, who had been deeply involved in intercultural work in The United Church and had a ton of experience like this one. Kim kindly offered three model responses I/we could use in the future: “The more you get to know me and hear me speak, the easier it will be to understand me.” And, “I know what you mean. It takes time to tune your ear to a different accent and way of speaking. I have to do that all the time because English is spoken with different accents and grammar all over Canada.” The third one is, in my opinion, theologically beautiful and is so relevant to the process of decolonizing ourselves. “I experience different accents and ways of speaking in the Church as an opportunity to be the whole body of Christ, don’t you?”
What does it mean to listen well, and how can listening become a spiritual part and act within our lives? Listening is the evidence that we are in a deep relation with another, and we are bearing responsibility, at all times, for finding joy in life, in the recognition of beauty. Diversity is beauty. Strength. Joy. Listening, truly listening, humbles us, and therefore humanizes each of us through shared stories.
Another important lesson I learned: Listening well is a spiritual and transformative act, because it begins with amazement. Like in Job, “Hear this, O Job, stop and consider the wondrous works of God.” Diversity, as a phenomenon of God's being in relation, is the wondrous work of God, and it calls us to stop, get out of our heads… to listen to God’s wondrous work, well. Not just hearing the sound as noise but listening to it as a voice and wonder. It calls us to embrace a form of “stopping", then intentionally "setting aside" times and places for ourselves to relate, to engage, to listen to the difference. “Listening, being still, at rest, contemplating, and praying are all there to make room for amazement.” (Dorothee Soelle) In this sense, listening well is a form of farewell, in other words, "being apart” from the ordinary customs and norms of our culture, in order to be “amazed,” To be amazed by the original blessing of being in relation. Let us listen well.
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