Speaking the language of the heart: Listening with the ears of your heart.

Someone said to me recently “I can’t always tell when you are joking or when you are being serious.” I was half pleased about this. The truth is that sometimes I am at my most serious when I am joking, or at least half joking. There is a place for humour, even in the most serious situations. Sometimes absurdity, helps get you through. “There is a time for everything under the sun.”

People often call to ask my advice about things. I am not sure why they do, as I am loathed to give advice. I will listen and I will share my experience, but I am loathed to tell another person what they should or shouldn’t do. How would I know in any case. The times I do, when I am very direct, are few and far between and they are usually what you might call emergency moments. Again “There is a time for everything under the sun”

I have learnt that often in life all that people really need is someone to share things with, someone who will listen and empathise, not solve their problems for them. I am usually good at this, although sometimes I am not. I have my limits. I noticed I had drifted away while listening to someone the other day. The truth was that I was exhausted. I had been holding a rather challenging memorial service, which had just ended. Someone was sharing some things with me afterwards and I had just drifted away. There are other times when I get distracted by the events of my life too, sometimes the distraction can help.

This happened on Monday. I was out in the park with Molly. She was a having a whale of a time playing with other dogs. She has become a bit of a ball thief. She is not really interested in the ball, she has just learned that if she grabs the ball and runs off with it, then the other dog will chase her. She loves being chased and she loves to wrestle with other dogs. While she was playing my phone rang. It was a friend whose mum has been seriously ill and has been in hospital. She had some concerns about her mum as well as other family issues. She needed to talk. I listened and encouraged and then suddenly found myself distracted by the dog Molly was playing with getting over excited and somewhat amorous. It is ok as he isn’t intact. The dogs owner did nothing as she was engaged in an exercise class with a whole load of other women. I have met them before and her cockerpoo likes to dominate. I spent the next twenty minutes trying to be there for my friend, whilst having to constantly pull the other dog off Molly, only to have her run back to him to continue the wrestling. It was right scene. I kept apologising to my friend. She didn’t mind. Infact if truth be told I think it helped her. The levity and absurdity of the situation lifted her out of her concerns. She was calling for advice or someone to solve her problems, she just needed to talk. More importantly she just needed someone to listen, despite their own problems, someone to bare witness. Not someone to fix, or solve the problem, just to listen, to be present to her. Thankfully as the week has gone on her mum is improving as his her anxiety.

I spend much of my time listening to others, actually to life itself. It is a large part of my role as a minister. Most of the worship I create comes from listening, on oh so many levels and then making some sense of it all. This address being a good example.

Now while I do listen to life on oh so many levels, I do enjoy listening to words spoken from human lips. Words are powerful things, they touch deep places within us. And yet all that words are, when reduced to their merely physical components are vibrating air. This is true and yet it really isn’t true. Words are so much more than their physical components. They connect people to deep, deep places in one another’s beings. They are imitations of the Divine I suspect, they are like seeds in so many ways, they begin to bring salvation or utter destruction. And yet they are just noises formed from vibrating air.

I love listening to people when they speak from their heart; I love listening to people when they speak what they must speak. I have particularly enjoyed listening to the many and varied people who have attended the groups I lead at both congregations. I am fascinated by what comes from those in attendance. I just love listening to folk as they try to articulate their varied understandings of life and their personal spirituality to others. It is the same thing in other groups that I attend, as folk try to articulate their experiences. I love to hear the language of the heart and I love to listen with the ears of my heart. It is Divine activity, it is love coming to life.

Being listened to and especially being accepted and understood is so vital to all people. I have noticed this particularly in the grief group I host. Whenever a new person attends the one common feature for everyone is this sense of loneliness that they express after the loved one has gone, how they feel unheard by others, like their words are not being accepted or that others have tired of hearing them. The beauty of the group is that each can come and speak freely and are truly accepted. I have witnessed some moments of deep connection within the group. I have truly seen love incarnated in the air and words that we share together, it is a truly beautiful blessing.

There is something truly beautiful is speaking words, heart to heart. The language of the heart is not really about correct use of words but a way of being with each other, it is an intention, it is about invitation it is about allowing others to be who they are in your space, this is true openness by the way. Openness is not about telling another all about yourself, instead it is about inviting another to be themselves in your space.

Words connect us in some very special ways, they can be incredibly powerful. They can begin to bring deep healing or can be deeply destructive. What matters is the intention behind them. What seems to matter is the condition of our heart and soul as we speak what we must speak.

Words are powerful they can be either destructive or creative. Perhaps an example of their creative power comes at the beginning of John’s Gospel and the following lines:

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.'

According to John the spoken word can literally create life, in fact all life. Now of course in the original Greek, which these opening words were written in the word for “Word” was originally “Logos” which roughly translated actually does not mean merely “word,” but also “speech,” “principle,” “meaning” or “thought.” In Greek philosophy, it is also referred to as Divine Reason or the Mind of God. So it could mean God speaking life into being, linking it to the first verses from Genesis when God is said to have breathed life into being, remembering always that he saw this creation as “Good”. So “word” here means, in my view, that life is the meaning coming into being and Jesus is the example of this in human form. An example we can all aspire to. For we can all incarnate Love, we can all be a part of the Divine creation. It begins in our words and how we say these words for they are an expression of our meaning. It also begins in how we listen to others. Our ability for each to share, an open loving invitation. This Divine activity. This space between us is the Kin-dom of Love.

When we speak we are not merely flapping our lips, vibrating air we are engaged in Divine activity we are creating or destroying life. It is the same with listening. If we listen with ears of heart we are creating sacred space, this Kin-dom of Love.

There is no greater gift that you can give to another than your time and your presence. When we do, we are truly engaged in Divine activity. You don’t have to say much. Rarely can you solve their troubles. You can give them the most precious gift you possess though, your time and your loving presence. I have often found in those moments the love of God coming alive in me and in the person I am sharing my time and space with.

Minister need it too. I have been accompanied by many people this last year or so. It has touched me deeply. So many folk have been a good loving friend at times. I also sought out professional help, which has now come to an end. Thank you for the help there. This time and space has helped me heal and be ready to move forward in love. I was also intently listened for a couple of hours at the beginning of the year. I was interviewed for a book. I was sent the first draft of the section written from this interview the other day. It was fascinating to read what the author came up with. He was a great listener. I noticed that during that time, sharing my heart and being listened to, I reached some deeper truths about myself, this life, and the God of my limited understanding that is the heart of it. Something the author noticed and commented on in the piece her wrote. It was the same with Hannah the psychologist. That time being listened to in a skillfull way has enabled me to find those sometimes hard to reach places. I am grateful for this. It has enabled me to do listen more intently, to be fully present to this life and those I share it with.

I love people; I love listening to people, to connect with what they are sharing, what they are struggling with. I love to identify with others, to connect. It makes me feel so alive. Now of course this is my job, I am after all a minister. That said we can all minister, to minister is to serve and how do we serve, well by giving our hearts to each other, by opening the ears of our hearts, by creating sacred space.

I’m going to end this address with a beautiful bit of wisdom by Nancy Shaffer “Hauling Out Stones”, which I believe exemplifies what I have been talking about here.

“Hauling Out Stones” by Nancy Shaffer

Once, he said an odd thing:
Forgiving begins with someone
sitting near.
Later, he said, It isn’t for the one
who did the hurting.
It’s the other one who needs it.
One day, without warning,
he wept.
I sat close.
He told an old hurt
in half-sentences and single words
like stones he was coming upon, new;
like tree limbs, broken,
which he needed both arms for hauling aside.
A half-dozen times that summer we sat,
he weeping, hauling out stones,
gathering limbs; I near.
The stones got smaller,
his sentences, longer.
He said, It’s the crying part
I couldn’t do by myself.
And later he said, I feel cleaned out.
A wan smile.
Still later, he said,
I think I’ve done it.
Made a kind of peace, he meant.
He slapped his palm hard against mine.
Laughed. Slapped his palm again.

So lets create that space, where love comes to life. Let’s encourage the language of the heart, lets listen with the ears of our hearts. For if we do, that Kin-dom of Love will begin to built right here, right now.

The devotion below is based on the material in this "blogspot"