Listen, Pray, Love

When Fr. Shoberg stepped down from his position as priest of our little Anglo-Catholic bunch... that's what he asked us to do. It sounds simple, doesn't it? Listen, Pray, Love. Just three things to do... I'll talk about pray and love in another blog post later.

This is advice given as we embarked on our search for a new priest. We are at the end of our interim priest, and are dealing with division over the ordination of female clergy. We class ourselves as Anglo-Catholic and it seems that we've different definitions of that term in our midst. Some are Angl0-Catholic with regard to liturgy and ritual, and some would say that Anglo-Catholic means we hold all the catholic principles of a Roman Catholic except the tie to Rome.

It's a division... and with division comes some strife. I think this is why that wise man told us to Listen-- and that certainly seems easy enough. But listening is not as easy as it may seem. Listening, if it is to be done well, involves active listening. Making certain that we aren't just hearing, but are participating. If listening is done well than there is an understanding of others positions that comes forward.

Listening today is a much prized skill to those seeking to be heard. The world, on the other hand, encourages us to hear what we want to hear and ignore the rest. Just get the soundbite, ignore the substance. While that may work (albeit dysfunctionally) in politics, in a family such poor listening skills are death.

Perhaps this is why Jesus so often says, "Let him who has ears hear" a recognition that true listening requires more than just hearing. We all have ears but not everyone hears. We must listen.

We also need to listen by being quiet... and sometimes this is the most onerous task of them all. I know I struggle with it. I want to debate, to interject my viewpoint and demonstrate the error in the views of others, but that is not listening. I think if we really listen, we'll find more commonality than difference.

It's also important to note that just because we listen, and develop a better understanding of differing viewpoints; doesn't mean that we'll come to automatic agreement. In fact, all listening does is help to ensure that we're not misrepresenting one another and that we truly do understand the viewpoints of others. Those of us who are speaking must get over the idea that if we could just get the other side to listen or understand, they'd come around to our viewpoint... because it just doesn't work that way. To think it does is hubris. Lord knows there's plenty of that in government, in the upper level echelons of TEC, and elsewhere...