Before transitioning to healthcare chaplaincy, I spent nearly 30 years as a full-time Minister of Music/Worship Pastor. Especially early on in my ministry, I had opportunities to lead the preschool “choir,” though that is a generous term for such a group, to be sure. The experience was much more about simply exposing children to basic musical concepts such as rhythm, pitch, and volume.
One of the questions I regularly asked the children was, “What part of your body is most important to use when singing?” The most common answer, of course, was ”your mouth.” Occasionally, a child would respond with “your breath” or “your eyes” (for watching the director). I don’t recall a single occasion, though, on which I received the answer I was looking for – your ears. Before a child could learn to sing, they had to learn to listen – to themselves, to other voices, and so on.
Interestingly, when I began training for chaplaincy, I was reminded of a similar truth. The first step to being an effective chaplain is learning to listen. Listening well – to what is said as well as to what is unsaid, to what is verbalized as well as to what is “spoken” in other ways – is the foundation of meaningful ministry as a chaplain. The art of listening is one that I continue to develop every day, and I hope to continue that process for the rest of my life.
The
biggest hindrance to listening, though, is learning to be quiet. In today’s society, most of us are
uncomfortable with quietness, with silence.
We’ve come to regard almost any pause in a conversation as an “awkward
pause.” Rather than simply wait, we say
something. Anything. This is especially true when we encounter
others going through a time of crisis or pain.
Our first inclination is to help, to fix, to say something
meaningful. More often than not, though,
our first inclination is wrong.
Take,
for instance, the biblical example of Job, a prosperous man who was blessed
with a large family and many possessions. The opening line of the Old Testament book of
Job tells us that he was also “blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away
from evil” (Job 1:1). Suddenly, however,
Job’s world came crashing down. He lost
his children, the bulk of his possessions, even his own health. And three of his friends, hearing of his
terrible misfortune, came “to sympathize with him and
comfort him”
(Job 2:11). As soon as they arrived,
they began to share words of comfort and understanding.
NO!
I say, again, NO! “They sat down on the ground with him for
seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw
that his pain was very great” (Job 2:13).
Did you hear that? “With no one
speaking a word to him.” “They sat down
on the ground with him.” “For seven days
and seven nights.”
Do
you suppose their ears were open, even while their mouths were shut? Do you suppose they spent at least part of
those seven days and seven nights listening to Job’s grief? It’s no stretch to suggest that the most
effective part of their ministry to their friend was in those first seven days
of their visit, simply sitting in silence.
I
share this to remind myself, all of us, of the incredible power to be found in
listening, in using my ears before I even consider using my mouth. I can’t afford to let the discomfort of another’s
pain goad me into filling the silence with the clatter of my own voice. To offer the simple gift of presence, to use
my ears and truly listen, is the most meaningful gift I can bring.
#listen #listening #hearing #presence #quiet #silence #SSM2017
I recently had an opportunity to share some of these thoughts in person with the 2017 SSM Leadership Conference in St. Louis. Select the link below to view.
