I remember my mother calling me in from play, usually to do chores. I’d ignore the first couple of calls, because they challenged my desire to live life on my terms. Then I’d give in and show up at home.
“Didn’t you hear me?" she would always ask.
I did hear her — but I wasn’t really listening to her.
I heard the noise of her call — but I didn’t want to hear the content. It would disrupt my playtime plans.
Underneath her spoken content there was even more to listen to.
I never thought to listen to her frustration at my challenge to her parenting authority, her desire to control at least one thing in a rather chaotic household, or her loneliness, because if I didn’t show up there was no one else at home.
There was so much to learn if I had really listened.
There’s a lot of “noise” in the air these days, from loud and angry voices.
Sometimes loud and angry is an appropriate response. But too many accusations and judgments and demonizing labels are being hurled across the divides of politics and culture. From the latest social media platform to the low-tech bumper sticker, we’re often passing out a piece of our mind with too much certainty and not enough civility.
The “noise” from all sides of many divisions makes real listening difficult. Real listening does best in calm and quiet — two things in short supply.
The older I get, the worse my hearing gets, but my listening is slowly improving. It’s hard work and takes practice, and I struggle with what I learn when I really listen. Often I don’t want to face what I might discover.
Deeply listening, I risk being changed, finding my ideas altered, my certainty about how things are challenged by what is believed and experienced by others in my community.
Part of the struggle of listening to people’s opinions, experiences and hopes is that while they’re talking, I’m tempted to be figuring out how to persuade them to give up their viewpoint and accept mine.
When I’m tuned in mostly to myself, I’m not truly listening.
God has been aware of this hearing-listening problem all along.
I say my prayers, which are often a list of what I want God to do for me, for people I care about, for my community and beyond. God, the carpenter, plumber, tech support for this planet, here’s the list of what needs fixing. I want to call God in from whatever God’s been doing, to attend to my chores.
At my worst, I’m actually trying to get God to see the world my way, agree with my opinions, take my side in the arguments!
Fortunately, God is deeply listening to me. Beneath the noise of my prayers, God is listening to my frustration that life is not happening as I wish it would.
God is listening to the fear beneath my desire to control myself and others. God is listening to the loneliness of a person separated from so much of my community by divisions caused by mutual anger and distrust and ignorance.
God is responding to the hopes and fears beneath my noise, responding with love and forgiveness and grace. I can know this if I quietly, calmly, listen to God, opening heart and mind into the silence, obeying the scriptural advice: “Be still and know that I am God.”
To know God and accept God’s presence in my life, I must be still, listen, be openhearted and open-minded. To know my neighbors, I must be still, listen and be openhearted and open-minded.
My faith tradition teaches: “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is the connection that binds us all together.
Love is a gift we will receive and give when we really listen to God — and to each other.
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