BECOMING A GOOD LISTENER I
Lenten Observations 2012
by Gregory Talipson
a.k.a. Snark
Father Mulhegan had enjoyed dressing as Santa this year for some of the children from the poorer neighborhoods in his parish . . . a neighborhood not far from Elsewhere. He'd gotten a new Santa suit online and, while its construction was worth little more than the small amount he'd paid for it, the fabric was plush enough; and the white trim was especially luxurious.
He knew better than to wash and dry the Santa suit with other items, so he saved that task for when he didn't have other clothes to launder. By the beginning of the second week in February he looked with satisfaction at his clean and dry Santa suit. The red had not bled unduly into the white trim and so, with a satisfied grin, he put it away for another Christmas season. A week or so later, while a new load of his mainly black clothes spun in the dryer, Father Mulhegan was studying the Biblical texts about how Jesus resisted Satan's temptations in the wilderness for forty days when he was jolted out of his studies by the sound of the rectory's fire alarm. Bolting from his study, he called 911, and ran to the basement where he was repelled by smoke and flames emanating from the laundry area.
The fire department arrived very quickly and, with minimal collateral damage to the rectory, was able to extinguish the blaze. Other than some charred ceiling tiles and some water and smoke damage to the basement, the structure had escaped further damage: a fact for which the relieved Father M. gave thanks right on the spot . . . a thanksgiving he would repeat during the celebration of the Mass the next Sunday.
When Father M. asked about how the fire had started, the fire marshal informed him, "Your dryer was clogged-up with too much lent, Father. In the future, be sure to clean it out regularly. Over time, a lot of stuff gets stuck in there and then, when you're least expecting it: FOOOOOOOOOM! up it goes in flames! At the very least, clean out the lent trap each time you use it, Father."
Too much lent. A clogged lent trap. Who knew?
Whenever one contemplates beginning a new venture, taking some time for introspection is always a good idea. Among the usual questions: "Am I up to the task . . . what personal resources will be required of me . . . do I have them . . . if not, how can I get them . . . what outer realities are likely to stand between me and success . . . what realities within myself might get in the way . . . is this venture likely to succeed . . . in my lifetime . . . in anyone's . . . and can the outcome be left to someone or Someone else?"
Those are the sort of questions Jesus wrestled with before he entered his public role as a rabbi. At least some of those are the questions this writer asked as he sat down to write this Lenten observation. "If I begin with a shaggy dog story that ends with a pun, will anybody be left to read this particular sentence?" Whether the new venture is infitesimally small . . . like writing these words . . . or the rather more significant venture Jesus was considering, we do well to ask those questions and to count the cost.
A failure to do so usually finds us knee-deep in the big muddy of our project, our filters clogged with spiritual lint. (Finally . . . the correct spelling!) And, just as with Father Mulhegan's dryer fire, our venture usually comes to a less-than-satisfactory end. The church has preserved this wisdom in its liturgical year and so, for the next 40 days (not counting Sundays), Christians will focus on Jesus' own inner soul-work by engaging in some of their own.
Of course, nothing is foolproof for a sufficiently committed fool! Being one, I should know! So, some of us will try to drop 15 pounds and "sacrifice" carbohydrate-rich foods. Won't eat 'em. Huh uh. There are lots of variations on that theme. You know the drill. Others will focus on the sacrificial nature of Jesus' life and death . . . how, they say, he put us right with God. Some of them will probably rent Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ from Netflix and watch Jesus writhe in pain. The ways we observe this season are seemingly endless. Within all of them . . . from weight-loss to Jesus' painful loss of life . . . there is at least some spiritual gain.
For those of you who have been reading the Dialogues Upon Sundry Occasions, * you already know that what Margaret and I believe is important has something to do with sacrificing the place of preeminence within ourselves that our ego has usurped. As you read in Dialogues 24-26, we need good healthy egos, for that's the part of us that helps us get what we need. And there's a lot that's very right and good about that!
The problem is that the ego likes to elbow our Real Self out of the way. In it's fear-filled concern to keep us safe, fat and happy, the ego likes to hog the show. It can even fear that if the Real Self is allowed its proper place, we won't have enough . . . we will have to do without. So it tries to take over. And it is often quite successful.
The problem with that strategy is that it keeps us from inhabiting or "occupying" that part of us which is most like God . . . the part of us that can go beyond "me and mine" and be generous toward "the other", even the strangers in our midst. That's what the Real Self is. Not living out of our Real Selves leads to a spiritually clogged-up life. And that's just as self-destructive as Father Mulhegan's clogged-up dryer!
So, no matter what else you decide to do to observe Lent this year, I want to invite you to join me in "taking up" something for Lent. I invite you to become a wonderful listener! What a lot of marriages suffer from is a lack of listening. (Of course, it's also true that in many marriages one or both partners need to find their voices and start talking. Still, once that happens, both partners will want to have their stories heard.)
In addition, our country's body politic could use a good dose of listening as well! Most of the political speech these days is calculated to put the opponents on the defensive. Well, no one can listen well when they're under attack. The founding fathers insured the right to free speech . . . I just wish they'd also said something about the civic responsibility of listening.
Of course, your marriage or other important relationship may already seem too far gone to bother with any of this. Yep. Been there and it's hard, hard, hard. Also, an election year is a particularly unfortunate year in which to try to sell the idea of taking up listening for Lent. That's where cultivating hope and letting go of the outcome come into play. It was Vaclav Havel, the late Czech writer and poet-turned-president of his country who said of hope:
"Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. . . . It is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. . . . [Hope] is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." (quoted in The Christian Century, February 22, 2012, p.8)
Listening . . . really listening . . . is hard work because if we would listen well, we will need to find some ways to keep our egos from interrupting, judging, interpreting and competing with what the other is trying to say. When our egos get in the way of our listening, there are always at least two casualties: 1) our Real Self, and; 2) the other, whose story we cannot or will not hear.
Listening well requires that we attend to the build-up of the ego's lint. If we don't attend to cleaning it out . . . and that is the focus of Lent . . . then our relationships . . . and maybe even our country . . . can go up in smoke.
That's my invitation on this Fat Tuesday. As Lent arrives, I'll put up some suggestions about ways to help each of us manage the lint . . . and, with patience and persistence on our part, God's graceful Presence will find a sneaky way to help us to hear with our heads and listen with our hearts as well.
Be well!
Snark
* NOTE: This was the original title of a work on this site that has subsequently been published here as a free e-book, Last Supper Red. Chapters 24-26 disguss the proper place of the ego. Snark, Margaret, and Advocatus are characters in the book.
Top Of Page
