On Veterans Day, I often find myself thinking back to the wars that this country has struggled through and the suffering of our soldiers. I think of men and women who quietly died in prisoner of war camps in Japan, who bled in the deep jungle of Vietnam, whose bodies exploded in a bomb in Afganistan. And I wonder if I could ever give the world what they have given, their very lives. When we look back on our lives, will you and I feel as if we have given enough? Will we feel that we have tried our best to make the world a better, safer, freer planet for all? Or will we look back with regret and think that we took the easy way out?
Nancy Klein has written a book. It is called Time to Think. In it, she remembers what her mother told her as she lay dying. "Nancy," she said. "I am so sorry for the state of the world that I am leaving to you. I wish that things were better. Our economy is struggling. The future is uncertain. There is so much potential for violence all over the world. Things are hard. I wish I could have made them better, but now it's up to you." Nancy thought a lot about her mothers words. Her mother never worked. She never went to war. She just raised Nancy and her siblings. But her mother had one great gift. Her mother knew how to listen.
When Nancy would come home from school, her mother would sit at the kitchen table with her and eagerly listen as Nancy recounted her day. And she did not just want to hear the events of the day. What she really got excited about were Nancy's ideas. She wanted to hear what Nancy thought about everyone, as if Nancy's thoughts mattered. And, as a result, Nancy grew up with the rare ability to think for herself. When everyone else was just trying to fit in, Nancy was thinking. She became a professor. And she has spent her life researching one incredible fact.
Nancy believes that the act of listening itself can change the world. She believes that when one person stops everything that they are doing and gives their undivided attention to another person, without judgement and without criticism, and tries with all their might to truly hear the thoughts of the individual in front of them, that the listener unleashes a great power in the speaker. And when that person is heard, they begin to feel safe to truly think deeply. And in the language of Scripture (not from Nancy) the logos comes into the conversation. And there is no telling what will happen.
Jesus walked into the temple with his disciples and he gave them a rare running commentary on what he saw there that day. There were the scribes, the teachers of the law, parading around in their robes. They loved to be respected and greeted in the marketplace. They said long prayers for the sake of appearance. And Jesus condemned them.
I always get a little nervous when I read these passages. After all, I wear robes. I parade around. I like to talk. Was it the robes that made Jesus mad? Was it the words? Was it the fact that they got paid?
I think that what made Jesus furious with the scribes and the Pharisees was one very simple fact: they did not listen. They were all about themselves. Their hearts were not open to God or to anyone else. The doors of their hearts were shut. They spoke prayers but they did not listen, meanwhile the holy one in the temple that day was a poor widow who put all her money in the collection plate. She did it quietly, but Jesus, who truly watched and listened, who saw the heart, Jesus saw her.
In fact, when you think of it, Jesus did teach and talk, but he also did an awful lot of listening. When the crowds thronged around him and they brought the suffering to him, before Jesus healed them, he always listened. He asked people what they wanted. When he looked at a person, he truly saw them, whether it was the rich young man or the poor widow. He saw directly into the heart of a person. And it was this fact that changed lives as much as the healing itself.
Some of the greatest learning experiences I have had have been in the office of a therapist or spiritual director. It is sad that we have to pay just to have someone truly listen, but I find it a relief to be able to talk about myself without guilt or shame. It is worth the money. When I was in my early twenties, I went to see a therapist who was a native American man. He was so kind. I was in a lot of pain at the time and I sat there and cried in his office for about three straight months. It took three months for me to even look around and notice the objects in his office. He was so attentive, so quiet. He would sometimes ask a simple question, or just smile at me.
After about six months, I was sitting in his office babbling about something when he interrupted me. I was annoyed that he would bust in on my monologue, but he simply said, "Kate, I'm sorry to interrupt, but look out the window..." and there was this beautiful buck staring in our window. He had huge antlers and he just stood there, staring at us in silence. I was dumbstruck.
About ten years later, I returned to Connecticut for a visit and decided to go to see this wonderful man and thank him for his listening. We sat in his office once more. I asked him if he remembered seeing the buck and he said, "Oh, yes. But do you remember what you were talking about at the time?"
"I have no idea," I said. "I was just babbling on about something."
"No," he said. "You were saying that you felt called to the priesthood but you wished that God would give you a sign that he wanted this of you. You just wished God would give you a sign."
I'm afraid that I began to cry again. I cried because God was listening. But I also cried because this old man listened and he never forgot. He was listening to me when I had stopped listening to myself.
This Veterans day, I want you to try to listen to just one person. Sit still. Don't let your eyes wander. Don't speak much. Just take a genuine interest in someone and really work to hear them. Listening to others is good practice, for when you can listen to others, you can listen to God. In fact, many times God will speak to you through others.
God bless those scribes and Pharisees. They thought so much about themselves that they did not listen. They forgot that God acts most powerfully when the logos has room to be heard, when we quiet down and make room for someone else to be wiser than we are. That is when great things happen.
