by E. Louise Williams

Perhaps you know what it feels like to have someone really listen to you. It’s not just that she takes in and understands your words, she also hears the meanings underneath. She lets you find your thoughts and waits patiently through the silences. In her verbal and nonverbal responses, she lets you know that she hears and understands. There is no interruption or contradiction or explaining away what comes from deep within you. Somehow in the process, such a listener gives you a sense that you are a person of value. To listen in this way is to give you a wonderful gift.

The gift of listening is rare in our world. Sometimes it is hard to find even in the church. There is always so much to do and so little time. Our communication seems to be built around sound bites and instant messaging. Television programs often feature people interrupting one another, shouting their opinions, and ridiculing those who disagree with them. More and more, people seem ready to label others rather than listen to them. Once people are labeled, everyone assumes that they know what they are going to say, and there is no more need to listen to them. In a world that is more and more fearful and polarized, patient listening is harder and harder to find.

We who have been labeled "child of God" and marked with the cross of Christ in baptism are called to a different way of being in the church and the world. We know that all of us who belong to Christ also belong to each other. And we know how much God loves the world and longs for the reconciliation of the whole creation. That sense of belonging and longing impels us to learn again how to listen. God, who listens patiently to us, shows us the way and gives us both the courage and power to do it.

Compassion
Like a good mother listening to her child, God wants to hear what is on our hearts and minds. The Hebrew words that are often translated as compassion share a root with the Hebrew word for womb.

Compassion is womb love, a mother’s love. It is a regard that knows there is a connection with that other person and will keep loving and trying until that other person knows it, too.

In her book, The Strength of the Weak (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984, p. 41), Dorothee Soelle tells the story of a rabbi who asked his students how to recognize the moment when night ends and day begins.

"Is it when, from a great distance, you can tell a dog from a sheep?" one student asked.

"No," said the rabbi.

"Is it when, from a great distance, you can tell a date palm from a fig tree?" another student asked.

"No," said the rabbi.

"Then when is it?" the students asked.

"It is when you look into the face of any human creature and see your brother or your sister there. Until then, night is still with us."

Our listening begins in seeking to see with God’s own compassionate eyes. In the other person we see a sister or brother, one born from the same womb. And we listen with new ears because we know that the story that our sister or brother tells is also partly our story.

Attentiveness
The Song of Solomon paints a picture of a lover completely focused on the beloved. We can see God in that attentive lover who notices the nuances in the words and actions of the beloved. We have a sense of God’s listening to us as if we were the only person in the world.

In a world of sights and sounds competing for our attention, it is a challenge for us to focus on a single person long enough to listen.

A few years ago, I was attending a meeting of the World Council of Churches. I arrived a few minutes late and found a young man speaking to the group with a great deal of difficulty. It was hard for me to understand him. At first I was impatient and wondered why they didn’t get a better speaker. Then I realized that this young man’s way of speaking was as much a part of his message as his words. When I began to give him my full attention, I could hear what he was saying: that people with disabilities bring gifts to the church, that any of us might be only a moment or two away from having difficulty speaking because of a stroke or an accident, that faithfulness to Christ’s call means that we make our churches and ourselves accessible. This young man, a pastor from Sweden, has cerebral palsy. Since that first meeting, I have continued to listen and to learn from him.

We cannot listen well until we tune out what distracts us and give our full attention to the one we need to hear. Only then can we listen between and behind the words to the full message that one offers.

Receptivity
When we read the psalms, we encounter the full range of human emotion — from inexpressible joy to deep despair, from high praise to grievous lament. In the psalms we find a picture of the human condition, and we get a glimpse of God who is ready to receive whatever we bring.

Sometimes listening is easy. The speaker is winsome and the message is delightful and edifying. Sometimes, though, the listening is hard. What the speaker brings may be pain or anger or hopelessness. The message may even include some criticism or judgment of us — deserved or not. Then it is not so easy to be receptive.

God, whose arms are open wide in forgiveness and welcome, embraces us and the one who is hard for us to hear. Within that embrace, we can dare to listen and receive the wisdom that that other person, also loved by God, brings. In our patient, receptive listening, the other person might begin to sense the grace of God.

Hospitality
To be hospitable is to make an open space so that the other person can come in. Hospitality does not demand that they become as we are, but gives them room to be who they are. Hospitality means being welcoming to that other one even while still a stranger.

A stranger is someone unknown to us, different from us. We may think of a stranger as someone from a different culture or having a different educational background or coming from a different religious tradition or holding a different set of opinions. To welcome such a person may seem risky. Our first impulse is to protect ourselves from strangers, not to welcome them.

While we surely don’t want to make light of the dangers in our world today, we find ourselves called to consider another perspective.

The biblical witness is full of stories of people who extended hospitality to strangers and discovered in them a message from God. (Remember, for example, Sarah and Abraham entertaining strangers in Genesis 18 and the disciples on the road to Emmaus on that first Easter afternoon in Luke 24.)

The overwhelming biblical witness is that God has been amazingly hospitable to us. While we were still strangers — sinners — God welcomed us, made an open space for us, and loved us just as we are. That love can make us hospitable, too.

Hospitality of listening requires that we make an open space in our heart. It may well mean setting aside some of the clutter that we might find there — prejudices, fears, expectations, opinions. It may mean entertaining the other person’s opinions, perspectives, and ideas. Hospitality doesn’t necessarily mean that we adopt their viewpoint. It simply means that we allow them to have it.

As we listen with hospitality of heart, we may well hear some surprising message from God that will leave us never quite the same again.

Compassion, attentiveness, receptivity, hospitality — tools for patient listening. Imagine using them when you have an opportunity to listen patiently. Imagine listening to an angry child. Imagine listening to a congregation member with whom you disagree. A friend who complains about her boss. A person who doesn’t speak English fluently. A beloved family member who tells you the same story over and over. A colleague who criticizes your faith. A member of a different political party.

What difference might it make if we see that other person as one beloved by God and therefore connected to us? How can we prepare ourselves to be more receptive and hospitable? Can we envision God embracing and welcoming us all?

We might find in our own hearts some new sense of God’s extravagant love. We could find ourselves bringing healing to broken relationships. We might feel God’s own longing "that they may be one" even stronger within ourselves. To listen patiently may well be a bold act after all.