ENG 265: Entry #14. Just listen. Please.

I love people: they are strangely curious creatures.  I love the shifting, changing nature of communities, personal lives, philosophies.  I love to listen to people’s thoughts and dilemmas and in my mind, crawl across the table and into the inside of their heads to see what it might be like looking through their eyes.  I try to imagine holding their responsibilities, the things that weigh on their shoulders and what it could look like walking the path they have chosen.

These last two years I have learned to shut my mouth and listen more.  I think it was Ghandi that said something about two ears and one mouth, meaning we should listen twice as much as we talk.  And listening, well, I often think that that is a good remedy for a bad day, a sad heart, or a hurting friend.  Oprah, Dr. Phil, Jeremy Kyle (the british Oprah) and all the self help books collecting dust on our shelves already tell us of the 100 more things we should be doing/thinking/praying/believing/meditating on.  The last thing someone needs is to be told one more thing to do/think/pray for/believe or meditate on.  The last thing I want on a “bad day” is to be told one more thing to think or feel or try or buy.  I’m done with it all.  For Pete’s sakes, just listen.  Please.

Working in youth ministry also taught me to listen.  Actually, it forced me to listen.  Anyone who knows a teenage girl knows that man, can she ever talk!  I often wonder if electricity could be produced by the talk of teenage girls and their excitement over Twilight, Justin Beiber, Robert Pattinson or whatever the next craze is.  (When I was a teen, Tamagotchis were the “thing”, now it’s vampires.  Go figure).  However, once I’d explored the jungle of the teenage girl’s latest boy crush, most hated subjects at school and most loved film stars, we’d often get to other topics somewhat deeper and more vulnerable than the previous.  Rejection, divorce, cutting, self image, desire, loneliness, desperation.  These things and more plague the teen girls heart, and to her, they are all very real (no matter how much we rationalize on our own position of what they’re going through).  A young girl’s heart can rise and fall in a single day, depending on a graded paper, a conversation with a guy, a nasty look from a girlfriend.  So when she steps into my office and opens up her heart, the last thing she needs is to be told what Bible passage to look for, or what to say, or what to do or think or feel.  School already does all of that and more.  She needs to be heard.

Isn’t it so nice when you have the freedom to tell someone you trust something that is plaguing you?  Or how about opening up and sharing your fears about faith with someone from church?  Doesn’t it feel so great to just be listened to, with no interruptions.  You have the freedom to verbally vomit all the things that are jumbled and tangled in your head, and not be judged for them.  A safe environment, a trusted friend or spouse or stranger.  Sometimes I imagine that it would be like that talking to Jesus, but at the end of your rant He’d having something incredibly profound and life changing to say.  He, on the other hand, can get away with it.  After all, He is God.  But you and I are not.  Our words can complicate things, our secret, unconscious motives get in the way, or even our pride.

“Doesn’t that sound good?” My subconscious sometimes whispers while I’m proudly dolling out advice. “You sound so wise for such a young age”.
“Why thank you!” I respond, silently.  Then instantly I realize I have a friend in front of me, pouring out their heart about a delicate matter.  In my mind I scold myself.  ”Just shut it and listen”.  Stupid pride.

But seriously.  I think we may have an epidemic on our hands: the inability to listen.  And I’m not commenting on this because I’ve had a bad experience recently.  Not at all, in fact my husband is a great listener as well as my close friends.  But generally speaking.  As a Christian community, I think we need to be quieter.  We need to listen, to catch on to every word that someone utters to us.  Give eye contact, nod our heads in agreement.  And when someone is done, let there be silence.  Let all that they have said sink in slowly into our own hearts and if you are that way inclined, silently reach out to God in our hearts to say “I have no clue how to respond.  God, this is your cue because my experience in these subjects ended a while back in the story.”  Cue God.  Cue God when we let go of our own ideas about how to fix others, or how others should behave.  Cue God when we silence our own thoughts and let the Spirit weave in between the words that have been spoken to form questions in our mind.  Cue God to help us tread carefully forward when someone has laid in front of us their vulnerability, hurt and insecurity.  Cue God because in reality, we have no idea how to go about this world any more than the next person does.

And isn’t it the case that you know what the answer is already?  You know what it is you need to do more of, or less of. You know what to think or feel or explore or let go of.  Surely, in the sharing we’re not always asking for advice.  I know when I share with someone, I already have the solution.  I’m reaching out to you and asking you to listen, not because I need fixing but because I’m asking you to help me in my loneliness.  I’m sharing my heart and tangled thoughts because I need someone sane to help me remember that I’m totally normal and that sometimes feeling crazy in this world is an okay response.  I also need to be reminded that you are my friend, my trusted companion.  I am holding out my hand to you and asking you to quietly join me – walk alongside me on this journey, just like the Lord would.  Listen, observe and tell me you understand.

And at the end of it all, when it is your turn to go through something, reach out to me and I will be there, waiting to listen.

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