A Case for Listening

The last few weeks have been hard and ugly, have they not? 

I have had to take deep breaths as I watch yet another brave sister say (or whisper) ‘me too.’ The tally is off the charts at this point. I watch so many faces flicker across my phone, even in joyous moments, and remember the time she was, you were, made to feel unsafe and unworthy. Thank you all for your courage. 

I’ve watched the legitimacy of people and places I love be disparaged and debated.

 Even celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday brought tension. Words and actions and ideals of so many appeared incongruent and infuriating. Maybe that's the point though... holidays suggest the word "celebrate," but is that really what we're doing here on the third Monday of ever January? More like mourning. Calling to mind the history that isn't so irrelevant. 

I have read so many words undermining voices and stories. So many bruised hearts, and bodies for that matter, are questioned rather than cradled. 

I wish my words could mend and bandage and correct and make right. But they're searching and stumbling words, certainly inadequate. 

Do I withdraw from any "political" conversation at all? I couldn't simply stand by, because these are conversations about people who matter. Take a social media hiatus? I don't think so, but I also cannot multiply frustration and divide connection by constantly engaging in this way. Absorbing messages and trying to sort their meaning and the filter by which I should interpret the messenger.  

There has been one instance in my life in which I audibly heard and tangibly felt the presence of the Lord. 

Six years ago, in an obscure hostel in Switzerland, my friend Alex and I made small talk that rapidly evolved into an engaging conversation with some other American travelers. We encountered a young man who was extremely intelligent. He connected philosophy and classic literature and history with such confidence. He was well read and well spoken. He also openly mocked Christianity. 

It troubled me greatly. What was this faith I claimed, that I had spent so much time of my life investing in and believed to my core, if I couldn't debate proficiently? Why did I even spend those two weeks in an apologetics session at camp? Much less all of the years of several church events a week. What good was I to God? Why, oh why, couldn't I be a person who thought of things in the moment rather than after a conversation? I wrote in my journal the next day that I felt "confused, small, and like a little Sunday school girl."

I tossed and turned all night, in a room filled with bunks and about 20 other women. I still feel like I could throw a pillow at the precise angle of the women snoring across the room and to my left. I was on the top bunk, with my backpack nestled between my restless body and the wall. Finally, in the wee but at long last passably morning hours, I tiptoed out the door, around the corner, and up into the loft to the single restroom. I dressed for the day, still anxious and disappointed in my lack. It was a cold Swiss February morning, and I suddenly felt a rush of heat. I felt a comforting grip on my shoulders, and heard a voice tell me "I never asked you to. Liesie, you do not have to fight for me, I am more than big enough to fight. Your purpose is to live and love for me. I haven't created you with debate skills. Your gifts from me to love and care for others will do far more for my kingdom than speaking or arguing." 

I sit here now, having learned so much more about my personality since then. I have learned that I'm an introvert. That I process events internally and after the fact. That I am highly sensitive. 

I carefully monitor these hot spots in my life, but I also use what I learned on that day. That lesson of loving and caring for others as my expression of faithfulness. 

I drive into neighborhoods with large numbers of immigrant children and give a listening ear to the disabled, weak, confused, mocked, often inconvenient in classroom ones. I originally had typed "give a voice," as that is a phrase I quickly and easily associate with my profession as a speech language pathologist. The truth, though, is that they have their own voice. They may need some modeling and some help along the way, but more often than not, giving them a little extra time and a trustworthy audience is just as effective as handing them a microphone. 

I notice a friend in an abusive marriage, book her a flight for the next weekend, and care for her basic needs while I tell her, "this is not okay. you are brave, and you are worth more than this." i remind her of beauty and joy so that she can return to them. 

I wear a black dress day after day for an entire month until it's worn to transparency, so that others can be reminded that there are people in this world, tens of millions of them, still being treated as slaves. 

I tell you all this not because I'm any kind of hero. I'm pretty average. I often go to bed at 9:00. I spend entire weeks at a time stressed out and grumpy. I overcommit for 7 weekends in a row, desperate for a break, and then I get lonely anyway. I spend too much money at Target and ordering books on Amazon. 

I just want you to know that just like for my students, I'm willing to take a little time, settle in, and listen to you. When blips come across my radar of something that I can do to help, I'll probably do it. 

I have decided that instead of determining someone else's story for them, I will try create as many joyful and meaningful intersections into the lives of others as I can. Maybe that's someone at the grocery store, maybe it's a new friendship in an unexpected context. Less roadblocks and red-light-you're-wrongs and more giving the right of way. More curiosity than condemnation. More "I hear you, I believe you." More questions. More time. More "thank you for sharing." Just more slowing down to love. 

And that is how I'm handling this terrible, sad, doom and gloom, angry, twisted world that is also somehow lovely and beautiful and in the rippling pains of leading to something wonderful. 

“We need to get better at permission and grace. What is right for us may not be right for everyone, and we don’t have to burn down the house simply because we’ve moved our things out. Other good folks probably still live there, and until one minute ago, we did too. We can bless the honorable parts of that house and express sincere gratitude for what we learned under its roof. It is unwise and shortsighted to isolate the remaining inhabitants, because there is a lot of life left, and as it turns out, we are still neighbors.”

Jen Hatmaker, Of Mess and Moxie