Learning to Listen

Last week, in our journey through the practices of Revolutionary Love, we began to listen more deeply to where we may be holding or feeling rage. Like pain in our bodies, our rage can help us be more aware of where it is we have felt wounded or threatened or violated, and help clarify for us where we, ourselves, need protection or healing. Especially, if we can let ourselves identify it and really feel it, we may find greater hope to not act upon it in destructive ways, but instead find constructive means to get our actual needs met. 

Because when we act out our rage on others it generally leads to more wounds.

In our family, there are just two of us kids—my sister and me. Of the two, I always had the shorter fuse and often struggled to not act out physically what I felt emotionally. There’s a time we both remember a little too well in which she was sitting in the neighbor’s front yard (that was awaiting new sod) refusing to come play with me. Whether it was rejection or just loneliness I felt, I didn’t have the skills or emotional resilience to just walk away, so instead I reached down and started throwing mud at her instead.

Valarie Kaur says there are no monsters in our world, just human beings who are wounded. Without listening to one another to understand each other’s motives, it’s hard not to see our opponents as mean-spirited, bad-apples, hateful, stupid, wrong (you get it). But it may be the case that judging our opponents without understanding their perspective or appreciating that they, too, carry wounds just like we do is keeping us locked in our embattled roles, and preventing us from working together to ultimately both be healed. 

This Sunday, we remember our call to love our enemies by laboring in the loving work of listening. I hope to see you there.