Porch #130 ❄️ Listening Life Book Club .3

'If you are not able to sit with your own painful emotions, you will likely dispense dismissive advice & religious cliches to others when they are in pain.'

Hey, All You Avid Listeners ~

Everything we've read so far in The Listening Life aims us toward the powerful concluding chapters as we wrap up our Book Club. For when we're truly connected to God and our own spiritual wells are filled to overflowing, we are able, by His grace, to authentically love others and have the miraculous ability to be fully present in their yearning and pain.

A core need of every person is to be heard, validated, and accepted right in the midst of their own messy unsettledness, confusion, or grief.  To have another sojourner faithfully walk with them over the long haul with no other agenda than to love and to listen ... while refusing to play God, offer pat answers, wave some kind of magic wand, or lob Scripture like a weapon?

This is sheer grace indeed.

I'm fairly confident that there are more than a few readers who are feeling like you've fallen a bit behind in keeping up with our fast paced posts.  Or maybe haven't even started the book you were longing to curl up in a quiet corner with. No worries. I'm not going anywhere and look forward to connecting as you read on. If you want to chat about your discoveries, I’ll meet you in the comments in the weeks ahead.

My pleasure.

❄️ The Listening Life Book Club .1

❄️ The Listening Life Book Club .2

Chapter 7 - Listening to People in Pain
'I once heard a ministry colleague say, "I'm going to be with a person in the hospital tonight.  Time to speak some truth."  This idea prevails in many Christian circles, that preaching is the healing balm for suffering.  Whether it's sickness or divorce or job loss, a crisis calls for some sound biblical exhortation.  I have a number of issues with this.  

First, it assumes that hurting people do not believe the right things or believe with enough fervency.  They may end up receiving the message that their faith is not strong enough for them to see their situation rightly, or that something is wrong with them because they are struggling.  Second, preaching to people in pain preys on the vulnerable.  It's stabbing the sword of truth into their wound or doing surgery without anesthesia.  Unwelcome truth is never healing.  Third, "speaking truth" into situations of pain is distancing.  You get to stand behind your pulpit or your intercessory prayer that sounds a lot like a sermon, and the other person is a captive audience, trapped in the pew of your anxious truth.  Suffering inevitably makes a person feel small and isolated, and preaching to them only makes them feel smaller and more alone, like a scolded child.'

Chapter 8 - Listening to Your Life
'But isn't listening to yourself, so the objection might go, an exercise in self-absorption, an excuse for narcissistic navel gazing?  Isn't focusing on myself the very definition of pride?  Aren't we supposed to be people of love who lose ourselves in the service of others?  I believe that good listening starts at home.  How you listen to yourself will determine how you listen to others.  Do you dismiss your own emotions?  Then there is a good chance you will make a regular habit of dismissing the emotions of others.  Those who are able to discern their own emotions will be most responsive to the emotions of others.  If you are not able to sit with your own painful emotions, you will likely dispense dismissive advice and religious cliches to others when they are in pain.  Do you quickly judge and condemn the thoughts and stirrings of your inner world?  Then you will be unable to show compassion to others when they risk sharing with you.  The harsher your own internal voices, the harsher will be your responses to the mistakes and shortcomings of others.  You will be likely to project your own insecurities and anxieties onto others.'

Chapter 9 - The Society of Reverse Listening
'What if, instead of coming to church to be preached to, people came to church to be heard?  What if the body of believers was known less as a preaching community and more as a listening community? What if the church was a group of people where the power dynamics of speaking and listening were inverted?  Imagine a society of reverse listening, where those who would normally expert to be heard, listen, and those who would normally expect to listen, are heard. I dream of a place where leaders listen to followers, adults listen to children, men listen to women, the majority listens to the minority, the rich listen to the poor, and insiders listen to outsiders.'

Epilogue 
'Listening goes last.  When I worked in hospice, I always told families to keep talking to patients, because no matter how unresponsive they seemed, they could still hear.  On a deep level, as deep as the soul, people in the brink of eternity could hear the whispers and songs of love their families offered them as parting gifts.'

May we be known as gentle, attentive listeners, faithful representatives of His generous lovingkindness,
Linda

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