Listening with your heart

William Stafford: "Listening"

My father could hear a little animal step,
or a moth in the dark against the screen,
and every far sound called the listening out
into places where the rest of us had never been.

More spoke to him from the soft wild night
than came to our porch for us on the wind;
we would watch him look up and his face go keen
till the walls of the world flared, widened.

My father heard so much that we still stand
inviting the quiet by turning the face,
waiting for a time when something in the night
will touch us too from that other place.

“How do I listen?”

How do I listen to others? As if everyone were my Master speaking to me his cherished last words.”

Words of the great Sufi mystic Hafiz. How do we listen in such a way? Well maybe it begins by listening like the father in William Stafford’s poem above, to be like someone who can listen for what they can hear, far off in the night, “from that other place.” Such people hear so much that they make me want to listen as well. So often in life it has been the example of how others listen and really hear that has inspired me to listen. That said I don’t always listen to others as if everyone were my master, sadly sometimes I don’t listen, or I find it hard to listen.

I have noticed in the last few weeks that I have found it a challenge to listen to others. As a result I have not been as effective as I would hope to be in my work. This is hardly surprising. I am grieving and hurting and deeply concerned for my nearest and deepest. I know well the power that grief has on myself and others being. I have been reminded of this over the last year or so as I have shared deeply with others in the grief group I lead, “The colours of grief: Our shared experience of love and loss”. They have been some of the most treasured moments of my own ministry as we have shared together our own experiences of love and loss, holding one another, listening to each other and beginning to bring some healing. Through our shared experience of suffering we have helped bring healing to one another. Through this deep communion of coming together in love and loss we have experienced what Richard Rohr has described as “dear compassion” which as he has observed “is formed much more by shared pain than by shared pleasure.” In these deeply intimate moments I have heard the Divine Love speak as I have listened with others with my heart open, as we have listened with “the ears of our hearts”.

I found listening particularly difficult at last week’s Unitarian General Assembly Annual Meetings. It was interesting that I found it less difficult engaging in group participation work, but found it impossible to listen to talks and particularly debate in the important business meetings. I tried, but found I just couldn’t sit and listen. So I took the wise move of taking care of myself, spending time in loving company and actually sitting and talking with others in smaller more intimate groups. I heard some beautiful things and was involved in some deeply moving conversations. The Friday morning, the day I delivered “The Anniversary Sermon” was a wonderful example of this. After sharing breakfast with Sue we remained at our table as others left for the buisness meeting. We sat down at 8am after sharing worship and did not move again until noon. Wow! What a beautiful four hours as different people passed by and stopped and shared with us. It was deeply healing, interesting and moving. I laughed and cried and shared, I also heard some pretty eccentric views too. These were Unitarians after all. It was a beautiful morning. Sue enjoyed it too and although the morning had started badly with an unpleasant encounter she met some beautiful and friendly people, with open hearts, minds and souls.

I enjoyed deeply what I heard all morning, I said very little actually. I heard everyone as if they were the Divine speaking to me his cherished last words. I know that it helped to heal something in my heart, it opened my heart and helped me share the anniversary sermon with my heart wide open. It was deeply connective and healing. I listened with the ear of my heart, I let those words sink into my being and as a result began to speak the language of the heart. From what I was told later, this connected with those in the congregation deeply.

The next day my colleague Mark Hutchinson sent the following reflection on my address:

It went by the title “A Danny Meditation”

How many statues
Stare out into the ocean
Wishing only to be
Somewhere else
Not seeing
Or hearing
Or listening

Hold each other
Be held

Not even realising
As the powerful tide is rising
How all statues that wish this way
Are never walking
Or listening
Or talking
Just disappearing
Each and every day.

Hold each other
Be held
This is your domain.

This is a world of pain and joy
For every girl every boy
Everything around and in between
We cannot stop the pain
Nor stem the rising tide
But we can listen
There are things to be said and seen.

Hold each other
Be held
This is your domain
Awaken a new dominion

A man two loving sisters holds
This man is held by them
Not wishing for another place
Despite the seething pain
Just to hold
And to be held.

Hold each other
Be held
This is your domain
Awaken a new dominion
Do your job.

Trusting statues
Talking listening holding,
Stepping back from the tide
Have laughed, sung and cried
And not once tried
To be away
From this very necessary day

In trust and love
Hold each other
Be held
From your domain
Awaken a new dominion
Do your job
Let us hold
Let us be held
Let us all
Do our job.

Mark listened and absorbed every word and created something beautiful from it. It has certainly touched me deeply. He seemed to be listening with his heart and responding with his heart. To me this is what it means to truly live religiously. It is to listen and to live with “dear compassion.”

To truly live religiously is to live in communion with one another, it is to live in “dear compassion”, this is about inviting others truly into our lives and I have come to understand that is about truly listening to each other with our hearts, with the ears of our hearts.

Listening is about invitation. It is about inviting the other into our lives; it is about making space for the other. This is not always easy to do especially when engaging in conversation.

As I have shared many times before “Listen with the ear of your heart”, is one of my ministerial mantras. It comes from “The Rule of Benedict” a set of ancient principles for monastic orders. The foundation of the rule is listening, deep attentive listening. It begins, “listen carefully, my child, to the instructions...and attend to them with the ear of your heart “.

This is no easy task. It is so easy to get wrapped up in so many other things, particularly our own pain and troubles. That said in order to make space for the other we do need to learn to listen; to listen “with the ear of our hearts”.

Ernest Hemingway once said "When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."

How many of us can really say that we listen to one another? When we begin to converse do we take time to truly listen to what the other person is saying? Or are we merely waiting for our turn to make our point? When we engage with one another are we really attempting to make space for them or is it all about us? Is it about our need to be heard? Are we engaging with others in the hope that they will agree with us?

In “Forgotten Art of Deep Listening” Kay Lindahl asks us to:

“Think of the difference it would make if each of us felt really listened to when we spoke. Imagine the time it would save to be heard the first time around, instead of having to repeat ourselves over and over again. Envision a conversation in which each person is listened to with respect, even those whose views are different from ours. This is all possible in conversations of the heart, when we practice the sacred art of listening. It takes intention and commitment. We need to slow down to expand our awareness of the possibilities of deep listening. The simple act of listening to each other can transform all of our relationships. Indeed, it can transform the world, as we practice being the change we wish to see in the world.”

By listening we can begin to transform the world; by listening we begin to practise being the change we wish to see in the world.

Listening is about making space for the other, it is an invitation; an invitation to create true spiritual intimacy. Listening is one way to release ourselves from the treadmill of own ego centric little worlds. It can release us from hell.

Yes sometimes it is hard to listen, particularly when we are caught up in our own pain. It happens to all of us, it’s been happening to me of late. I thank God that I have not run and I have not tried to hide, I have simply let others share their time and space with me, to listen to me when I have been ready to speak my own pain and fear and love and truth.

I have lived faithfully, indeed I have lived religiously in intimate company with others. I have lived with others in “dear compassion”

To truly live religiously is to live in communion with one another, it is to live in “dear compassion”, it is about inviting others truly into our lives; it is about making space for the other. It’s about listening with our hearts, with the ears of hearts. It’s about living with others in “dear compassion”

Let us live in “dear compassion”.