Margaret Wheatley writes,

Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise or coach or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.

This is so hard for most of us, especially if we’ve been trained in the ways of Christian evangelicalism which assumes, “We’ve got the answers and we need to make sure you have the answers too.” This, of course, means we’re assuming, “We’re right and you’re wrong and for the sake of the Gospel we have to do whatever it takes to beat the Truth into you.”

But this isn’t the way of Jesus.

Jesus heard the cries of those in need above the noise of those who thought they were well. Jesus listened when little kids wanted to sit with him and tell them all about the cool bugs they found and told his oh-so-wise disciples to stop being his bouncers and let the little children come to him. Jesus heard when the unclean – bleeding women and leprous men – were calling out for his help, and he listened. He asked them what they wanted. He listened. He responded. 

“Listening is about with genuine care, interest, and empathy” writes John Crilly (is his book The 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversation). It’s about interacting “with others without editorializing or offering my own under solicited options.”

This art of listening is absolutely essential at this particular moment in our society. Racism and its unjust treatment of people of color is the subject of lots and lots of discussion. It’s upsetting to us white people who’ve been blind to the systems of privilege we’ve enjoyed and completely oblivious to the perpetual racism of our 21st century world.

So what do we do? 

We don’t do anything.

We listen.

Let’s practice hearing the stories of others, especially to the voices of those we’ve never listened to before…especially to those who are hurt and angry…especially to others who we think are blaming us for things we never did.

We must listen with our whole selves, enter into their stories without offering our opinions or even responses.

Let’s just listen for a while, shall we? Listening is the start of living out the compassion of Jesus.