When people raise the volume of their voice, one of two emotions are in play. Uncertainty or lying.
People telling the truth speak softly. People with assurance also speak softly.
Perhaps we should tune our ears to ourselves for immediate feedback. We can catch ourselves before being foolish.
Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake. — Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens is one of my favorite poets. He was both insurance executive and poet. I tend toward people who exhibit both sides of the brain.
Perhaps you have experienced this truth. Many people whom I’ve read recently discuss how they come to insight after taking a walk in nature. I’ve done that. Many times.
You walk for a while. Your mind is churning over your latest problem or setback. Gradually nature takes over. You hear a bird calling its mate. Or perhaps geese flying overhead squawking directions of flight to each other. You begin to notice the pond or trees or grasslands. Nature settles in pushing the churning aside. Now you are able, if you listen, to hear the whisper of God. Perhaps the answer is stillness. Or a more specific answer penetrates your awareness. You now have a direction and the calm to pursue it.
Yes, sometimes a walk around the lake provides healing medicine.
I picked up this thought from the James Clear newsletter (author of Atomic Habits).
Playwright, poet, and writer, Samuel Johnson, on listening and learning: “I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”
This seems to fit within the wisdom of the Apostle James, the half-brother of Jesus, who advised thinking before speaking, be slow to speak and quick to listen.
I finally blocked most of Facebook from my feed in 2020 because so much was just passing stuff around that probably originated in Russia, anyway. No thought. All reaction. No conversation.
Johnson was right. Interact with those who have read and thought much. Fewer people. More depth.
Sitting on the patio this morning with my bowl of oatmeal and blueberries and a cup of coffee, a breeze mitigates the penetrating morning sun. It comes from my right side. Then ceases. Then from the front. Switching again to the side. Then off. Then on.
Poets and spiritual writers have noticed this for millennia. It also relates to humans.
Sometimes we blow hot. Sometimes cold. Sometimes we are active on a cause or project. Sometimes we quit. We are enthused; then withdrawn.
How is anyone to know where we stand? What is our anchor? Are we living with God? Or, are well living for ourselves alone?
That’s the purpose of the cup of coffee on my morning table. I sip and pause and contemplate the beauty around me. And I open myself to any whisper that may come from God in that shifting breeze. What are my guiding words for the day?
Perhaps to be the stability within the vicissitudes of life around me.
Once I walked into my boss’s office. His head was bent over the desk resting in his hands. There was no energy in the room. The company president looked up at me with bleary eyes, “Gary, no one listens to me.”
To which I, Vice President of a bunch of stuff, replied, “Huh?”
“No one listens to me.”
“Huh?”
Then he caught it. The spell was broken. We could have the discussion on whatever problem of the day I had.
A newsletter dropped into my inbox this morning. An engineer whom I respect discussed his education on “listening” to machinery when he was troubleshooting a problem in the field. It was beautiful. You listen to the sounds. Feel for vibration with your fingertips. Drink in smells from the electrical cabinet and the machine. Watch how it operates. You “listen” with all your senses.
Psychotherapist Carl Rogers on listening: “Some of you may be feeling that you listen well to people, and that you have never seen such results. The chances are very great indeed that your listening has not been of the type I have described.” He suggested that his readers conduct a short experiment when they next found themselves in a dispute: “Stop the discussion for a moment, and institute this rule: ‘Each person can speak up for himself only after he has first restated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker’s satisfaction.’”
These are examples of listening to people and things. Perhaps we need to pause, turn on all of our senses, and listen to God in the same way. Try to really “hear” what is said. Try to understand the meaning of the message.
Jesus talked about words like seeds. Words in his story were about the Kingdom of God. His point was about the hearer. Some hearers ignore the words for a variety of reasons. Some get enthused briefly but forget about them after a brief period of time. Kind of like listening to a moving sermon or a motivational speaker at a conference.
But some hearers allow the words to be planted, grow, and flourish in their thinking and in their life.
At about the same time in another land and in another language, Lucius Antaeus Seneca wrote to his good friend Lucilius a similar message.
You are right when you urge that we increase our mutual traffic in letters. But the greatest benefit is to be derived from conversation, because it creeps by degrees into the soul. Words should be like seed; no matter how small the seed may be, if it has once found a favorable ground, it unfolds its strength and from an insignificant thing spreads to its greatest growth.
Let a favorable mind receive and assimilate them. Then of itself the mind also will produce bounteously in its turn, giving back more than it has received.
I think that it would have been a great thing for Jesus and Seneca to have met. Tradition holds that Jesus traveled to the East. There are reports of his traveling to India, for instance. Seneca seemed to have little knowledge of the Middle East having stopped no farther east than Greece. Oh, well. We can take a lesson from these two thoughts.
We should be wise in our conversation. Be aware and responsible of the power of our words.
We should be wise hearers of the words. Choose wisely to whom we listen. Let the words settle in, nurture them, let the ideas blossom and bear fruit.
Comedian Graucho Marx presided over a game show at the dawn of commercial TV. “You Be Your Life” is the prototype of many game shows even today and in many different countries. One little ploy was, “Say the secret word and win $100.” If the contestant happened to say the secret word, a goofy stuffed duck would drop into the scene with the word taped to its bill.
I started thinking about words today listening to Andy Stanley’s Your Move podcast where he focused on the chapter of James talking about how the tongue can get you into trouble.
I had the opportunity to teach hundreds of young people about being a soccer referee over a 25+ year career. I wondered, when did I say a secret word that helped someone grow or when did I say a secret word that hurt someone?
My wife had an experience where she was talking with a former student from more than 20 years ago. It was amazing what that student remembered from her class.
Once again I felt convicted of anything I may have said that would have hurt someone and sent them the wrong way. Or, as I often tell teachers, you may not know for 20 years or you may never know how you’ve positively affected someone’s life.
Remember this wise advice from the Apostle James, a brother of Jesus–be quick to listen and slow to speak. And be careful what you say.
I guess I have sinned in the eyes of the Southern Baptist Convention. I have learned from a woman. I don’t mean my primary school teachers–I guess that’s OK. But as an adult. I have learned from Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Therese of Lisieux, Beth Moore, and many others. Oops, I guess that some (men) within the SBC took offense that Moore had men in her audience (as I have been told). I see she has taken a public stance about the leaders of her denomination.
I never forsake an opportunity to learn something, no matter who is teaching or leading. I don’t like to tell people what to do, but I think I’d make this a command–learn from whomever.
It wasn’t this news that brought this to mind as much as it was reading Pope Benedict XVI’s description of Saint Jerome. “Moreover, an aspect rather disregarded in ancient times but held vital by our author [Jerome] is the promotion of the woman, to whom he recognizes the right to a complete formation: human, scholastic, religious, professional.”
Something else Jerome wrote that I think is appropriate at all times (but seems brought out by much news of (male) religious leaders over the past few years, “May your actions never be unworthy of your words, may it not happen that, when you preach in church, someone might say to himself: ‘Why does he therefore not act like this?’ How can a teacher, on a full stomach, discuss fasting; even a thief can blame avarice; but in the priest of Christ the mind and words must harmonize.”
1,600 years later, we’d extrapolate that “priest” part to include everyone who proclaims Christ. If only they (we) would all let our actions and words align.
This blog has surpassed 2,400 posts this week. That’s a lot of discipline. That’s a lot of opportunity for those few who know me to say–he isn’t really like that. But I hope not.
I once worked with a guy for about six years. He was always in trouble with his wife. She would talk to him about a problem at work. He’d offer suggestions about how to fix the situation. She ignored the advice and would be not happy with him. “Brian,” I’d say, “she doesn’t want a solution. She’s smart. She’ll figure it out. She just wants you to listen.” He was an engineer. I don’t know if it was an engineer thing, or a man thing, or just a thing thing.
If we want to support each other’s inner lives, we must remember a simple truth: the human soul does not want to be fixed, it wants simply to be seen and heard. If we want to see and hear a person’s soul, there is another truth we must remember: the soul is like a wild animal – tough, resilient, and yet shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.
Parker J. Palmer
I think this sit quietly and wait and listen that Parker Palmer talks about is the real key. Some try to order others around. They’ll fix you if you just do as they order. Perhaps more like a dog or cat is “fixed”, than finding a solution. Or helping some soul in need.
Some competent engineers in Texas could fix the power grid problem, if empowered.
Competent engineering, the trained problem-solvers among us, fail to help the human soul. Somewhat perversely, that takes more inaction than action. Sitting quietly and waiting on God is perhaps the hardest spiritual formation task of all.
I watched last night’s broadcast of the Super Bowl–the highlight of American football. It was hyped as the ultimate matchup of the last generation of great quarterbacks (the key person who leads the offense) and the heir apparent to that throne.
The trouble with that hype is that ignores the other 10 men on the offense squad. And they are important. What happened in reality is that the “offensive line”–the big guys who protect the quarterback–of the Kansas City side had sustained injuries. The line, which must work as a unit much like the defenders in football (soccer), found itself with replacements and players playing positions where they had not played all year.
The result was that the young quarterback, who really is quite good, had inadequate protection. And they lost.
And so, I thought, there must be a spiritual metaphor in that situation.
I searched “protection” in both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures. The results were meager.
What I gained from my search was that often we humans seek protection from the wrong source. And often protection from the wrong opposing force.
Following Jesus into life in the spirit, in the kingdom of God, may not provide protection from every physical threat. It will provide the solid foundation to protect our spiritual life in the end from all the doubts and questions and threats of emotional vicissitude. He protects us from bad decisions, if we but listen. He provides guidance when we need it, if we but listen.
Gary Mintchell
Faith Venture 