It’s funny that I ended up writing about this chapter because it’s the place that I most need to work on in my own pastoral skills. I am a talker by trade, and often, I find myself working on just staying present in pastoral conversations: to not jump to the predictable conclusion that the person I’m listening to will get to; to not mentally review my list of errands for the day; to not fret about whether I slathered Lucie with the right sunscreen that morning.
But, in some ways, I found this chapter redemptive because it spoke to another kind of listening that I do all the time but never really considered as a listening skill: listening as observing. Our church planting authors write: “our kind of listening is really more about what you do with your eyes instead of your ears.” (and sorry folks, I am reading this on my iPhone kindle and can’t figure out how to find the actual hardcopy page number for you.) No doubt this listening-as-observing is an important and somewhat under-celebrated skill in our spiritual care handbooks. It really does help to watch sensitively and carefully to our communities before we start the path to response, or maybe while we are responding?
As we approach our time annual together for holy conferencing, I wonder if this form of listening couldn’t benefit us all? What if we worked to ask more questions of one another as the ending reflection suggests? What if we worked to be more in prayerful listening, consideration and discernment in the times of difficult, long, and hot plenaries? I know that conference asks us to make decisions, but I wonder if we all wouldn’t be better served if we listened more and talked less about these decisions? If we listened and observed more before and as we respond to the matters at hand? Starting with me.
-Melinda Dodge
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