Silence

Silence, as all writers know, allows the word to be heard.

 At a given moment, the silence is so strong that the words express nothing but it alone.

Does this silence, capable of making language tilt over, possess its own language to which one can attribute neither origin nor name?

Inaudible language of the secret?

Those who have been reduced to silence, once, know it best, but know also that they can hear it.

~Edmund Jabès (French poet (1912-1991)

Listening

“In every experience of true listening, especially to God but also to another person, there is a mysterious moment in which the one who listens steps out from a fortress of self-concern and dwells silently in the truth of the one who speaks. This is a moment of great risk and great courage, for it ushers us into a different way of being in the world. Over time, we may even cease to be people who listen and become people who are listening, people whose very being is shaped by the posture of listening. This is the posture of the servant, whose attentiveness is not a sign of cringing compliance but a mark of human life lived ever more fully in the Spirit of love (see I Sam. 3:10).”

                                                                      ~John S. Mogabgab

                                                                         Editor, Weavings magazine

I Samuel 3:10

          Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Listen

How does part of the world leave the world?

How can wetness leave water?

Don't try to put out a fire by throwing on more fire.

Don't wash a wound with blood.

No matter how fast you run,

your shadow more than keeps up.

Sometimes it's in front.

Only full, overhead sun diminishes your shadow.

But that shadow has been serving you.

What hurts you blesses you.

Darkness is your candle.

Your boundaries are your quest...

You must have shadow and light source both.

Listen, 

and lay your head under the tree of awe...

-- Rumi

The Sound of Silence

 

 

Non-Duality Cartoons

Listening is Loving

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

~~John Fox

Talkers and Others

Lately, I've become aware that I often have little to say. Some people have the ability to talk and talk, while I sit there. Maybe I could say that I am being a good listener. . . sometimes I just have no response. That's how I seemed in EFM today--nothing to say, or that is how I felt.

It makes me wonder how to better facilitate groups. Growing up, I was always taught "not to interrupt," which is hard for me to change. However, what do you do with those people who don't pause in their verbiage and keep on talking? That sometimes happens in meetings, and I am unsure of the right way to get people back on track. I could ring the bell, but that seems rude. Is the only way to interrupt??

At the same time, I am remembering how the most talkative one in the Wisdom Class today expressed appreciation for being listened to. Still, other people did not have the opportunity to speak.

Thus, I am aware of how people fall into the verbose category or quieter mode. Maybe it is time to remind people of the power of listening, which we practiced a few years ago.

Or is it all related to introversion and extroversion? Maybe I need to read that book about introverts in the church that Altar Ego has written about in the past.

Grateful for Friends

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force.
The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward.
When we are listened to,
it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.

~~Karl Menninger

I am grateful for my friends, near and faraway, as well as blogging friends.

Listen attentively under the tree

Brian J. Pierce, OP, author of We Walk the Path Together: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister Ekhart, writes:

"I was invited to take part in an indigenous religious ceremony with the Lenca Indians in Honduras several years ago. Mixing ancient Lenca rituals with Christian prayers, the elderly rezador, or shaman, performed the ceremony while holding a freshly cut pine bow in his hands. I later approached him and asked about the symbolism behind the frequent use of pine branches in Lenca worship. He looked at me with his wide, dark eyes, and said:

"Oh, you do not know? Then let me tell you. If you sit quietly beneath a pine tree in the early morning hours, before the sun rises, and listen very attentively, you will hear the pine tree singing to God." (9-10)

Psalm 96:11-12
"Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lenca Indians
"The Lencas are one of the seven largest ethnic groups in Honduras. Numbering 100,000, they live in the central department of Las Paz, and the western departments of Lempira and Itibuca, as well as in some smaller communities in the northern part of the country. Their homes are made form bahareque a mixture of mud and bamboo. Their communities lack all of the basic services such as running water. Roofs are made of clay tiles or nylon. In a twenty square meter room there is a bed and a kitchen. The bed is made from pieces of plywood tied to posts and sunk into the dirt floor. Eight people usually occupy one bed. At night the cold mountain air seeps through the cracks in the walls and results in frequent respiratory illnesses. Many Lencas work on coffee plantations and harvest. "

Now? What is happening now?

I am still researching and reading books about listening. Once having learned that one of my gifts is being a "Gatherer," I see how I love to gather information and new learning! That is also a weakness, because I'd rather do that than put everything together and WRITE!

One of the people I keep seeing referred to is Brenda Ueland (1891-1985), who was a writer. I like that her mother was a suffragette (for womens' votes!), and my mother's mother was one, too. She wrote a short essay entitled "Tell Me More," which is in her book Strength to Your Sword Arm. (A pdf of "Tell Me More" can be found here.)

So here is a wonderful paragraph from that essay about listening:

"In order to learn to listen, here are some suggestions: Try to learn tranquility, to live in the present a part of the time every day. Sometimes say to yourself: 'Now. What is happening now? This friend is talking. I am quiet. There is endless time. I hear it, every word.' Then suddenly you begin to hear not only what people are saying, but what they are trying to say, and you sense the whole truth about them. And you sense existence, not piece-meal, not this object and that, but as a translucent whole."

~~Brenda Ueland

NOW--that describes how to live, listen, love.
Contemplative listening=contemplative prayer.

True Listening

“In every experience of true listening, especially to God but also to another person, there is a mysterious moment in which the one who listens steps out from a fortress of self-concern and dwells silently in the truth of the one who speaks. This is a moment of great risk and great courage, for it ushers us into a different way of being in the world. Over time, we may even cease to be people who listen and become people who are listening, people whose very being is shaped by the posture of listening. This is the posture of the servant, whose attentiveness is not a sign of cringing compliance but a mark of human life lived ever more fully in the Spirit of love (see I Sam. 3:10).”

~John S. Mogabgab

Editor, Weavings magazine

I Samuel 3:10

Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Trying to Listen (and Wait)

The weekly Wisdom Class, which is a kind-of book study, is reading Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr. Suddenly, our group has grown from about five people to over ten each week! Plus, each week someone else arrives who is new to the group, and others miss a class every so often. One person is having a hard time realizing we are a "class" that is more of a community that does not only talk about the book, but we share about our faith, insights, problems, and lives. And in any group, a new member changes the dynamics. So each week that is happening.

A lot is going on, plus we are trying to do Deep Listening in a Group, which is a struggle. A vestry member brought some guidelines a few weeks ago that were tried in a vestry meeting, which were from the Kaleidoscope Institute for Competent Leadership in a Diverse Changing World. For the past two weeks we've tried to follow the Kaleidoscope Institute's plan* for the first hour of our class and then have a open discussion for the second hour:

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Respectful Communication Guidelines*

R = take RESPONSIBILITY for what you say and feel without blaming others

E = use EMPATHETIC listening

S = be SENSITIVE to differences in communication styles

P = PONDER what you hear and feel before you speak

E = EXAMINE your assumptions and perceptions

C = keep CONFIDENTIALITY/share CONSTRUCTIVELY

T = TRUST ambiguity because we are NOT here to debate who is right or wrong

Mutual Invitation*

"In order to ensure that everyone who wants to share has the opportunity to speak, we will proceed in the following way:

"The leader or a designated person will share first. After that person has spoken, he or she then invites another to share. Who you invite does not need to be the person next to you. After the next person has spoken, that person is given the privilege to invite another to share. If you have something to say but are not ready yet, you may say 'Pass for now' and then invite another to share. You will be invited again later. If you don't want to say anything, simply say 'Pass" and invite another to share. We will do this until everyone has been invited."

(Kaleidoscope Institute)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This past Tuesday class was teeming with emotions, especially with a returning elderly member who did NOT like refraining from debating the speakers. There was more discussion about the process than the book during the second hour. I felt frustrated and not sure of my reaction as "the facilitator."

Today I talked to a Quaker friend MKG from Shalem about this. She compared it to worship sharing, which is also called "creative listening." It sounds like what we're trying to do:

"The facilitator of a worship sharing group usually asks the attenders to observe some general rules, such as: speak for a second time only after everyone has had a chance to speak once; speak from your own experience only; leave silence between speakers; everything said in the group is confidential to the group; do not comment directly on what others have said; listen with attention and do not lapse into discussion." (Quaker Structures)

Talking with MKG helped me to see that our Wisdom Class is still in the transition period as a group, getting used to each other with new members and growing accustomed to a different process of interaction. We're trying to find our balance, which is why various emotions come up. I was so helped to realize that this is a waiting time, not a decision time (YES or NO to the listening format). Wait on the Lord!

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord."

Psalm 27:14

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And now I was encouraged by Mine Unbelief where I was directed by ChoralGirl. The first post is all about waiting, with a link to a wonderful poem about being Jonah in the belly of the whale:

Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait.

Deep Listening in a Group

I facilitate a book study called The Wisdom Class every Tuesday at All Saints Episcopal Church. Last week a member brought information about the listening practices of Quakers. He suggested that we wait 10-15 seconds between speakers. I was in a position where I could watch the second hand on the wall clock creep slowly along and realized how long a time period those seconds seemed. I'm not sure that we all waited that long between talking, but there was a definite difference in the way we were listening to each other during the two-hour meeting.

I reflected on the depth of listening during the past week, and was surprised to find a relevant meditation from Henri Nouwen this morning in my email box:

Listening as Spiritual Hospitality by Henri Nouwen

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.

Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

From the free daily message found at the Henri Nouwen webpage. Subscribe.

This also brings to mind the attentiveness needed in listening as displayed in Meister Eckhart's story of the burro-- Love Offers Freedom. Listening opens a space of freedom and acceptance.

Today we met again as The Wisdom Class and reflected upon last week's process. We agreed to try again to listen deeply to each other and agreed upon these guidelines:

1. What is said stays here.

2. Listen to what each person has to say:

Be open, sensitive, and tender to others.

3. Do not interrupt another speaker

4. Do not speak too often or too long;

allow silence between speakers.

5. Keep 10-15 seconds of silence between speakers.

6. Try to be aware that our desire to be present to each other is also our desire to be present to the Holy One.

It's going to take lots of practice!