“Let anyone with ears listen!”
--Matthew 11:15 NRSV
The great 20th
century theologian Paul Tillich wrote, “The first duty of love is to listen.” I don’t know about you, but listening is
pretty difficult for me. “Chase, are you
listening to me?” is a common refrain in my house that usually is said by my
wife when my nose is buried in my phone.
When I talk with others, especially people I disagree with, often I’m
not listening to their words at all but merely thinking of what I will say
next. Listening, really listening is
valued less and less in a culture that allows all of us to post our thoughts at
all times.
The last few weeks of protest
following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has
heightened the awareness among white people of the suffering of black
people. The effects of hundreds of years
of systemic oppression are very much a part of our present however much we wish
to believe they are in our collective rearview mirror. Yet, this week the media is beginning to turn
away and while protests persist their furor has died down. I would offer, however, that white folks,
myself included, who really wish for our culture to improve must remain in
listening mode.
Now that we white people don’t
have the pain of systemic racism thrust in our faces in the same way as we did during
the last two weeks, we can’t simply go back to our safe white spaces where we
don’t have to think about it anymore. We
must keep listening. If we stop
listening to what the African American community is saying, we will just be in
this same place again. Who else must die
and what else must burn to get our attention once more?
The spiritual writer Douglas
Steere wrote, “Someone once suggested to me that in every conversation
between two people there are always at least six persons present. What each
person said are two; what each person meant to say are two more; and what each
person understood the other to say are two more.” He illustrates the essential barriers to communication
between any two people. This is
especially true when it comes to black people and white people talking about
racism. Plenty of times I have reacted
to the pain voiced by a black person with my own disbelief or
defensiveness. I heard only an attack,
when what was really being expressed was pain, fear, and anger. Those emotions might have been directed at
me, but they weren’t about me. I have
had to learn (and I still struggle to accept) that like most things, when I
talk with a black person about race, I need to switch my focus from me to
them. I have to actually listen.
Morton Kelsey, who has written a lot on prayer, says, “Real listening
is a kind of prayer, for as we listen, we penetrate through the human ego and
hear the Spirit of God, which dwells in the heart of everyone. Real listening
is a religious experience. Often, when I have listened deeply to another, I
have the same sense of awe as when I have entered into a holy place and
communed with the heart of being itself.”
When I have been able, with God’s help, to remove my ego from center
stage and to actually listen to the pain our culture’s racism inflicts on black
people, I have discovered the voice of God speaking. Defensiveness, denial, disbelief each drown
out the voice of God when white folks say they are listening to African
American people. How do I know? Because I am guilty of telling black people I have listened to them
when I have merely been protecting my own misguided attempts of respectability.
We can do better. We must do
better. We have to keep listening.
What is God saying to you through black people in our culture these
last few weeks?
Have you been able to
stop and listen?
Don’t turn away.
Don’t change the channel.
Keep listening.
God has more to say to you.
Grace and Peace,
Chase
Chase
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