Part 3 of 3 by Lynne M. Baab —
originally published in Refresh Journal of Contemplative Spirituality, Summer 2015
The first two posts in this series presented five situations in which it can be hard to listen.
- I’ll never show perfect empathy so I don’t want to try.
Communication scholars view empathy as the highest listening skill. Empathy is the cognitive process of identifying with or vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. When we empathize, we are attempting to understand and/or experience what another person understands and/or experiences.
Empathy is beautiful to experience. It is also very hard to sustain. In fact, no one can empathise perfectly. Sometimes we are tempted not to try because it is so challenging.
Perhaps you’ll find it encouraging to know that the people in my life who are the very best listeners have expressed to me how often they feel they fail as listeners. They are very aware that their empathy is only partial and that sometimes they simply talk too much or fail to perceive what another person is trying to say.
But they keep trying. They constantly work at listening better. They intentionally give feedback through their facial expression, body language and short words. They try to ask good questions. They pay attention to what the other person is saying and try to reflect back in order to be sure they have comprehended what was said. And they work at paying attention to those times that they are tempted to talk and talk. They know that the urge to fill the air with their own words comes from some kind of inner anxiety that must be acknowledged before it can be set aside.
An example
I interviewed the minister of a culturally diverse congregation in Auckland. He said that some of the European members of his congregation have expressed their uneasiness in conversations with Asians in the congregation. He has asked them, “What’s the issue?”
One woman responded, “Well, if I talk to an Asian I don’t know what to say. If I talk to a European, I might be able to say, ‘Oh, you went to school in Wellington!’ I can kind of imagine that because it would be like me going to school in Auckland. But if you said you went to school in Kuala Lumpur – blank.”
The minister said he found himself thinking, “You’re an intelligent person, so why don’t you just ask the next question: ‘What was it like going to school in Kuala Lumpur?’”
To “neighbor” the people God has put in our lives who come from very different backgrounds than we do, or who believe very different things than we do, requires using a variety of listening skills. One of those skills is asking simple and appropriate questions like, “What was it like going to school in Kuala Lumpur?” Asking good questions and being willing to listen to the answer requires something else first: we must stop talking. Many people talk rather than listen because it’s easier for so many reasons. Exploring those reasons and learning to set them aside from time to time helps us show love to the people God is bringing to us as neighbors.
Watch for the ways you feel loved in conversations. Watch for the way people in your life “neighbor” you as they listen to you. Then go and do likewise. You’ll learn so much from people who are different than you are, and you’ll enter into Jesus’ love for you and for the people around you.
[1] Kathleen S. Verderber and Rudolph F. Verderber, Inter-Act: Interpersonal Communication Concepts, Skills and Contexts, 10th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 211.
By John Birch —
So fill us with your love
that it might cascade
into the ordinariness
of our working lives,
and others experience
the warmth of its flow,
spreading from hearts
and words and deeds;
an unbroken stream
bringing refreshment
to all that it touches.
International Artist Day was founded by Canadian painter, Chris MacClure, as a way of recognising the value of art and those who create it in our lives. If we look around us we might be astonished at just how much art we see every day, from the patterns on our kitchen tiles to the design of our clothes, the graphics we see on the internet and the paintings we hang on our walls. All these visual feasts have been crafted by someone with an artistic imagination. Perhaps it is worth pausing for a moment and thinking how dull and sad our lives would be without this beauty all around us.
Artwork by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt
Oscar Wilde was once asked why Americans were so violent, and his reply was, “Because their wallpaper is so ugly.” It is humorous of course, but as always with Wilde, there is an element of truth here. When our surroundings are garish or bereft of beauty, when they are clinical or bare, or overbearingly ornate, they are not conducive to peace or contentment.
Artists, in general, are seeking to beautify the world. I’m primarily a writer, but discovered a gift for art a couple of years ago and am now enjoying honing my craft. I paint mostly in pastels, and feel that it is good to reflect one of the facets of God’s image by creating. God has an amazing imagination, creative bent and sense of humour. One only has to take a quick glance at nature to see that, and the infinite variety all around us is unending inspiration.
When I create a piece of art, my goal is very simple, to express my joy at living in such a beautiful world. I hope that some of this translates to those who look at it. I would love, also to create art that invites people deeper into encounter with God’s character, through nature and my expression of the beauty of souls, whether they are the souls of people, animals or even (in a way) landscapes. Everyone and everything is part of God’s world and nothing is too small or unimportant to be portrayed. Everybody has a beautiful smile, worthy of being captured on canvas.
Art is a tool we have for showing our love for the world, our surroundings, animals, people, plants, and our creator. Dostoevsky said through his character Prince Miskin in The Idiot, “Beauty will save the world,” and I do believe that creativity is a powerful tool for lifting us into that spiritual realm where deep truths can touch us and connect us in loving unity.
Painters can of course also use their art to express political concerns and expose the darkness in our hearts, or the horrors of life. One might think here of Picasso’s Guernica, Munch’s The Scream, or the work of Hieronymus Bosch. But these pieces are beautiful and powerful too, and serve the same purpose of bringing us altogether.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, —that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
As Keats wrote in his Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Part 2 of 3 by Lynne M. Baab —
originally published in Refresh Journal of Contemplative Spirituality, Summer 2015
Yesterday’s post presented one way that listening gets shut down because of things we think or feel. Here are four more situations in which it might be hard to listen.
- People say things that I don’t know how to respond to.
Imagine your new co-worker not only wears a scarf, but she tells you about the recent death of her father. Imagine you are uncomfortable talking about death, so her story arouses your sense of insecurity about what to say when people are grieving. The next time you see her, you don’t ask any questions about her father or the funeral or how her family members are coping. Instead, you talk about the project you’re working on together. You’re afraid she’ll talk about her grief and then you won’t know what to say.
All of us, even the best listeners, find ourselves wondering from time to time about what’s the best thing to say. The challenge is to learn to set aside our anxiety about what to say so we can make space in the conversation for whatever the other person wants to talk about. If we can set aside that anxiety, we won’t be afraid to let people talk about what matters to them. We will be open to them and their concerns, as a good neighbor would be. Often no response at all is necessary, and with time we can learn to feel comfortable with silence in conversations. Learning to set aside our anxiety about what we’re going to say next is a key listening skill.
- I’m in a hurry.
Another key listening skill is knowing how to cut off the flow of words gracefully. When we encounter someone in the supermarket and they start a long story, it’s perfectly appropriate to say, “I can’t talk now. I’m so sorry, but I’ve got an appointment.” We must not ever make listening such an absolute value that our lives become out of control. Sometimes there simply isn’t time to listen well.
However, it’s worth examining our lives a bit. How long has it been since you’ve listened to a story from someone who is upset about something or worried or discouraged or angry? How long has it been since you have felt uncomfortable in a conversation? If it’s been weeks or months, then it’s probably time to spend some effort engaging with someone who’s a bit different than you are or who is experiencing things that make you uneasy. Jesus calls us to “neighbor” the people around us, and if we are always rushing off to the next appointment and never listening, then we are probably missing his call.
Just about all of us in this busy world have a long to-do list. That list can get in the way of listening. We need to ask God’s help to know when to focus on the list and when to set the list aside for ten or thirty or ninety minutes to listen to someone.
- I’m in the habit of talking because it’s less effort than listening.
Let’s be honest. Active, engaged listening is quite tiring. For many people, talking is less demanding than listening. Let’s be honest again. We simply don’t have the time and energy to listen carefully all day long. But in order to build bridges with people who are different than we are, in order to “neighbor” people around us, we have to listen attentively sometimes. And, for those of us who are talkative, that means letting go of our love of talking for a period of time.
- I have no idea how to show love while listening because it wasn’t modeled to me.
When I did my interviews for my book The Power of Listening, several of my interviewees talked about people in their congregations who had never been listened to and simply had no model for good listening. If you’re one of those people, I have three suggestions:
Read the Gospels. Jesus was a champion listener. Watch for the ways he paid close attention to the people he interacted with. He frequently spoke up and he frequently listened. He knew how to do both, and he is a great model.
Secondly, watch the pattern of the conversations in your life. Pay attention to conversations when you’re with people you like to be with. In what ways do they listen to you? Also, pay attention to the pattern of conversation with people who are hard to be with. What are their listening habits? I have learned so much from paying attention to the listening practices of people in my life, both good and bad.
Thirdly, consider finding a spiritual director. Again, watch the pattern of listening on the part of your spiritual director and you will learn a lot.
Tomorrow: one more thing that can block us from listening, then an illustration of what it might look like to listen to someone quite different than we are.
Part 1 of 3 originally published in Refresh Journal of Contemplative Spirituality, Summer 2015
Many years ago I heard a sermon on the prodigal son. “Who is my neighbor?” the teacher of the law asks Jesus (Luke 10:29). In response, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. At the end of the story, Jesus asks, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (verse 36).
On that Sunday long ago, the preacher said that it’s helpful to think of “neighbor” in Jesus’ question as a verb rather than a noun. In other words, “Which of the three men in the story ‘neighbored’ the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
To “neighbor” someone, then, is to act in a certain way. I want to argue that to “neighbor” people must include listening to them.
Why is listening a part of “neighboring”? Good listening conveys so many things. In the seminars I conduct on listening, I always open with the question, “Why does listening matter?” Participants usually come up with about twenty answers. Listening shows love and acceptance, they say. Listening helps people understand they are not alone in whatever issues they are facing. Listening helps people solve their own problems as they talk through an issue. Listening builds relationships. In fact, listening reflects the dance of the Triune God where each of the three Persons of the Trinity lives in love and deep communication with each other.
Listening skills – which can be learned – include those small indicators that we are listening, “hmmm” or “yes” or “I see.” Listening skills include body language and facial expressions that indicate we are paying attending. Other key skills include learning to ask open-ended questions and growing in our ability to reflect back to the person what we think they have said.
All listening skills depend on one behaviour. We must stop talking in order to listen. In this post, and the next two posts, I want to write about some of the inner forces that make it hard for us to stop talking.
- People are different and their difference makes me feel tense.
Imagine that you have a new co-worker. This new person wears a headscarf, so you wonder if she is a Muslim. Imagine that you’ve never actually had a conversation with a Muslim before. What do you say? What do you ask? What do you feel?
Use your imagination a bit more. Imagine that last week you were talking with a family member who expressed his conviction that Muslims are trying to take over the world. At the time, you disagreed with him, but now, as you want to have a conversation with the new co-worker, your family member’s words come back to you, and you begin to feel tense about what you will say.
All of us feel some degree of tension in conversations with people who are different than we are. Perhaps you’ve had lots of interesting conversations with Muslims, but maybe you get tense when you talk with people who have different political beliefs than you do. Or maybe your new colleague is a vegetarian and you are intimidated by people who don’t eat meat.
When Jesus challenges us to “neighbor” the people around us, he is asking us to make a difficult move. He is asking us to engage with people with whom we feel uneasy, perhaps because of their religious or political beliefs or their convictions about things that matter to us. Jesus is asking us to engage with interest and respect. For many of us, our knee-jerk response when we feel uneasy is to fill the air with our own words because we worry about what the other person might say that would make us uneasy. Setting aside that uneasiness so we can listen is a key listening challenge.
Continued tomorrow: Four more ways it can be hard to listen
Autumn is in full swing here in the Pacific NW. The leaves are changing colour, the winds are whipping up and rain has finally returned. I love this changing of the seasons, and this year decided I wanted to incorporate it in a special way into my spiritual observances and those of our community. And I wanted to have some fun. Reading this article about the consequences of loss of play in our lives made me realize how important it is for all of us to incorporate fun, playful activities into our spiritual lives whenever possible. So at our last community meeting we painted leaves.
I had fun collecting a bunch of different shapes and different colours, delighted as I did so at how awesome it was to notice something I had not noticed for a long time. The different shapes and sizes, the vibrant, and sometimes fading colours of autumn, the poignant reminder that all things have a season, was life giving. Some of the leaves I immediately sealed with Mod Podge acrylic sealer, but most of them I pressed for a couple of days and then laid them out with my paint pens for everyone to inspire.
I suggested people reflect on the question In the changing seasons what am I hoping for? It was good to both acknowledge the change that is rapidly approaching as we enter the festive season and talk about our hopes and expectations. Just expressing these out loud can help make them a reality.
Leaf painting is not as popular as rock painting, but there are a lot of people out there giving it a go so I printed out some examples from Pinterest, to inspire us. I was amazed at both the creativity that emerged and the inspiration for the future that was expressed.
The nice thing about this is that you don’t need to wait for autumn. Those of you in the southern hemisphere could devise a similar exercise with emerging spring leaves. Or you might like to do a leaf rubbing in your journal while you sit quietly and reflect on your leaf. There are a huge range of possibilities, all of them fun!
One person drew a pattern of concentric circles on her leaves, expressing her desire to become more centred over the coming months. Another copied some of the colourful patterns in the photos I provided, finding relaxation and rest in the calm of the exercise. Another drew a picture of their hopes for their family on one side of a leaf and of their desires for their ministry on the other. I painted along the leaf skeletons, some with lines others with dots, feeling as I did so that my hopes and expectations for the coming season are not fully formed.
At the end we coated our leaves in Mod Podge water based sealer. It brought back the vibrancy of the colours and kept the leaves a little more flexible than the acrylic sealer did. I laid my leaves out on the dining room table in the hope that they will last until Thanksgiving, providing me with a reminder of my need to continue thinking about my hopes and expectations for this season.
What is your Response?
What are your hopes and expectations for the coming festive season? Is there a fun, creative and reflective exercise that you could plan over the next few days that would help you to think about these? Is there something you could do to help you focus on your hopes and expectations for the future?
By Lilly Lewin
Psalm 23 (The Message)
-3 God, my shepherd!
I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.
4 Even when the way goes through
Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
makes me feel secure.
5 You serve me a six-course dinner
right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.
6 Your beauty and love chase after me
every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
for the rest of my life.
The twenty third psalm was the psalm of the day this past Sunday….During our journaling time, I wrote the following:
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.(NIV) GOD, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. (The Message)
Jesus help me know that you are ENOUGH! And with you I have everything that I need! I don’t really lack anything. ENOUGH…what does that mean? What does that look like?
What if I really believed that with Jesus, I have enough?
What if I knew, REALLY knew that with Jesus I lack nothing? What does that mean? What would it look like if I lived out The Lord is my shepherd, I LACK NOTHING? How would I be different?
What if I saw everything as enough?
Enough money, time, attention, focus, creativity, work, and love?
How does this change my thinking? If I really believe that I have enough, or that today I am enough, and if I believe that with Jesus, he is enough….. In ENOUGH I am not yearning for the next thing. I’m not comparing myself with other people! I’m not acting in fear. I’m not living in the land of anxiety and the land of hopelessness is banished from the horizon.
In the Land of Enough there is no fear of missing out, no FOMO, because I’m right where I am supposed to be. In Enough I am content with where I am and what is happening today, not wishing for the next thing or yearning to be somewhere else.
The Lord is my shepherd, I have ENOUGH….Time, Resources, Focus, Work, Creativity, Love.
I need to ask for forgiveness Jesus. Please forgive me that too often I act like I don’t have enough. I act like I don’t trust you that you are guiding me beside still waters and leading me to green pastures. Forgive me for doubting that you have just the right stuff planned for me. Jesus, I ‘m sorry. Help me to Live in the Land of Enough! Not in the land of scarcity. Not in the land of fear. Not in the land of anxiety and missing out. Help me to live with you in the land of Enough. Help me Jesus to know You are enough!
How about you? What does it mean to you to be in the land of ENOUGH?
Read the 23rd Psalm out loud in a couple of different translations. Listen for God’s invitation to you rather than a demand or command.
How does it feel to be invited to be in green pastures and beside still waters?
How or where do you experience beauty? What things bring you comfort and joy? Do you thank God these things? Take some time to be thankful for God’s care and for the beauty you see/experience in your life.
How does it feel to know that God has your back? That God knows what you need and is guiding you?
Maybe you are not feeling like you are being led by still waters. Maybe life is stressful or the path doesn’t feel like it’s going towards green pastures. Maybe the land of Enough is too far away and feels impossible. Talk to God about this. Allow God to show you God’s comfort, love and path.
Together this week, let’s practice living in the Land of Enough and remember our Shepherd’s care.
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