Let the wise also listen and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill.
(Proverbs 1:5)
Before we begin, I would like you to take a deep breath with me.
Deep breath in…hold it…hold it…now let it out.
There. Repeat as necessary.
When I’m stressed I have a tendency to hold my breath. And though these are exciting, historic days, they are also stressful. I’ve been holding my breath a lot. It’s not an overstatement to say that the country is literally changing before our eyes. In many ways the change is for the good as we struggle and stumble toward racial equality. My high school history teacher would say we are going through growing pains.
Speaking of high school, this past weekend my great-niece graduated from Helena High School (congrats Emma!). Because of the Corona Virus, it was a different sort of ceremony, and we watched her graduate on-line.
It was a bittersweet graduation, since the senior class had been unable to do so many of the things they had looked forward to. But, the ceremony itself was beautiful.
The class valedictorians tag-teamed their speech. The they built a “survival kit” for facing the challenges of life ahead. One item they included in their kit was a whistle because a whistle calls you to pay attention and listen. And then it calls you to action.
This part of the speech caught my attention because there has been a lot of talking (yelling & shouting) lately and not much listening. That’s not hard to understand because it takes humility in order to be a good listener. You have to set your opinions aside (at least momentarily) and actually consider what the other person is saying.
And how do we listen with humility? We do so by first repenting and acknowledging our own flaws. It might be helpful to return briefly to Joan Chittister’s book on the Rule of Benedict, Radical Spirit:
“The humble, no matter how great, do not spend their lives intent on controlling the rest of their tiny little worlds. On the contrary. Once we learn to let God be God, once we accept the fact that the will of God is greater, broader, deeper, more loving than our own, we are content to learn from others. We begin to see everyone around us as a lesson in living. We find ourselves stretched to honor the gifts of others as well as the value of our own.”
This is not a time for me to share my opinions. I need to be stretched. I need to learn. I need to do more listening. The best I can do is to share some of the voices I have been listening to this week.
“The country is in deep trouble. We’ve forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that’s the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.” – Cornel West
“Slavery casts a long shadow across our lives. The spoils we reaped from forcing people to work without wages and treating them with grievous inhumanity continue to haunt us in a racial gulf that seems impossible to overcome…What, then, can we do? We must return to the moral and spiritual foundations of our country and grapple with the consequences of our original sin…The time is at hand for reckoning with the past, recognizing the truth of the present, and moving together to redeem the nation for our future.” – Michael Eric Dyson
What is the best thing we can do in these troubled times? Be engaged. Really listen and seek to understand. And “bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)
God bless. Stay well. And breathe.
Divine Overtones 