Welcome to a prayer practice.
I'm Kelly Weber and I'm a spiritual director.
Today's prayer is about the generosity of silence.
Saying from the Desert Fathers and Mothers,
The early Christians of the fourth century,
Abba Joseph said to Abba Nisternes,
What should I do about my tongue,
For I cannot control it?
The old man said to him,
When you speak,
Do you find peace?
He replied,
No.
The old man said,
If you do not find peace,
Why do you speak?
Be silent,
And when a conversation takes place,
It is better to listen than to speak.
Today,
In our everybody say everything that's on their mind all at once and whenever they want to culture,
There's little room for silence,
Which means there's little room for listening.
I don't know about you,
But one of the most generous things that someone can do for me is to listen,
To stop what they're doing,
To give me their attention,
And to simply listen.
Simone Weil said,
Attention is the purest form of generosity.
And I agree.
You see,
When one enters a conversation,
Similarly to when one enters prayer,
One consents to be in the full presence of the other.
And when one consents to the possibility of being changed by the other.
This requires a kind of making space,
A generous vulnerability.
It requires listening.
Too often,
Rather than being in someone's presence,
We're merely in proximity.
And too often,
Rather than being open to the possibility of being changed by a conversation,
We're hermetically sealed,
Leaving no air for another voice.
These days,
We don't talk to people,
We talk at them.
We objectify the other as an extension of our own egos,
Looking for a mirror instead of another human soul.
But at its best,
Also,
Like in prayer,
When we are in that space of presence and openness,
And when we are listening deeply to each other,
We are in a space that dances.
It doesn't matter if we're talking about something we agree on or not.
If we are both open to the possibility of change,
Letting go of our egos,
Forgetting ourselves,
It's electric.
There's a neurotic charge,
A synchronistic energy.
There's emotional spontaneity.
There's joy if we can just get over ourselves.
In New Seats of Contemplation,
Thomas Merton writes about how us humans never quite get it right.
Merton says,
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose,
Cast our awful solemnity to the winds,
And join in the general dance.
So how do we forget ourselves?
Contemplative teacher Jim Finley says,
Our meditation practice is where we do that.
We come out from behind the curtain and we risk getting vulnerable.
We risk being empty-handed.
We risk living without answers.
We risk learning to lean into the love that loves us so,
Even in our confusion.
And we learn to sit there like an unlearned child,
That in our practice,
We forget ourselves on purpose.
All our obsessions,
Our compulsions,
They're still there,
Like the buzz that circles around waiting to have their way with us.
But in our intention,
We can keep the intentionality of our heart focused on what our heart knows is true.
What we know is true and real.
This is what is revealed in the silence of prayer and what is revealed in the listening space of deep conversations.
The true and the real are the very components of love as it whispers our stories back to us and invites us,
Like shy teenagers,
To forget ourselves and join in the general dance.
Let's pray.
Dear Jesus,
Thank you for teaching us the generosity of listening.
We know that when the woman washed your feet with her tear,
You sat quietly and did not say a word.
Thank you for showing us the importance of silence.
We know that you often withdrew to lonely places to pray.
Thank you for showing us the importance of restrained speech.
We know when Herod questioned you and mocked you,
You made no answer.
Give us the discipline of restrained speech.
Show us the importance of silence.
Bestow on us the gift of generous listening.
We sit with you now and give you our attention.
We allow our thoughts to pass through us and we listen.
Amen.
Thanks for praying with me today.
Take this blessing as you begin your week.
May you experience the generosity of silence in your prayers.
May you be generous in your listening to others.
May you feel generously listened to.
May you be in presence with people and not just proximity.
May you offer your attention to God and may you feel seen by God.
And may silence become a comfort in your every day.
Be well,
Friends.
I'll see you next week as we continue our practice.
