“Really Listen & Hear”
October 28, 2012
Pray
Here, in this space where we gather,
My hope is that each of us is
touched by the Sacred.
Not by my words,
but through the compassion shared.
May my words help that happen.
READINGS FOR THE DAY:
FIRST READING: An excerpt from:
The Secret Language of Signs: How to Interpret the Coincidences and Symbols in Your Life by Denise Linn
“In every moment the universe is whispering to you. There are messages for you carried on the winds. There is wisdom for you in the morning songs of the birds outside your window and in the soft murmurs of an ebbing sea. Even ordinary, everyday events in your life carry communications from the realm of spirit. … Signs are powerful indicators that can give you understanding about yourself and insight about direction in life. They can also reflect what is occurring in your subconscious mind, beneath your conscious awareness. … In times past, people understood and knew how to interpret these portents and omens. In fact, the entire destiny of a tribe, or even a nation, was often decided by signs.”
SECOND READING: From The Message
by Eugene Peterson – Matthew 13:1-13.
At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. “Are you listening to this? Really listening?” The disciples came up and asked, “Why do you tell stories?” He replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it.”
~~
So the student asks the teacher, “Why do you tell these stories? Why do you teach in stories all the time?” I want to assume that the students ‘get’ what the teacher is trying to teach and they are asking because they just want the teacher to be a little more direct with those people who don’t get it. They might just as well have said to the teacher, ‘just tell them straight out, then they’ll understand as we do.’
Well it’s like our children’s time; it is a simple illustration that attempts to get to the heart of the message. When you already know the answer it is easy to see. When you have the insight it takes to understand, the message is easy to discern. When you are ready to really hear the message then you will be able to understand what is being said. If a person’s heart is ready to accept the lesson, then acceptance flows freely.
The teacher answers the question by saying, “I tell stories, to nudge people along the path of understanding and help them get ready for the insight that is coming so they’ll hear the message.”
As we drive the streets here in town or cruise the interstate highway, we know that the signs are there to point the way and tell us where the streets are or when our exit is coming. We believe it to be self-evident, that so obvious as to not have to be explained, we have that insight. Yet somewhere, someone may not know that the signs alongside the ribbons of concrete across the country will point the way to where they need to be.
Well, there are signs in life everywhere that will give us direction if we will only use our hearts and minds to listen to what is all around.
We can either be closed or open to thinking about or hearing what might be behind certain indicators that are available to us. We can ignore the indicators and take everything the way it is or we can ask ourselves what the message or what the deeper concern is behind what we see.
What’s the deeper concern with Lake Michigan water levels dropping to near record low levels?
What’s the deeper concern when the Aral Sea in Russia, formerly one of the world’s four largest lakes, shrinks to only ten percent of its 1960 size?
What’s the deeper concern when millions of dollars get spent on TV ads during a football game and children in this country go to bed hungry?
What’s the deeper concern when a Gallup Poll indicates that fewer than ten percent of U.S. citizens approve the job that Congress is doing?
What is the deeper concern when suicide rates go up in our county, or when plants close, or when our school district has a high rate of students on subsidized lunch program, or when pockets of poverty increase and wealth becomes more concentrated in fewer people?
What is the deeper concern and therefore the message or the sign to be read when there are more people in this country that claim no religious affiliation than any other segment?
What do things such as these and a dozen more seem to indicate to us about the direction we are going? What are these road signs telling us?
Denise Linn, in the book excerpt read earlier says, “In every moment the universe is whispering to you. There are messages for you carried on the winds. There is wisdom for you in the morning songs of the birds outside your window and in the soft murmurs of an ebbing sea. Even ordinary, everyday events in your life carry communications.” What are the signs now that we ought to be reading in order to guide our way on the road of life as individuals as well as for our country and even from a global perspective. How are we listening to the world and to each other? What signs might we be missing? What are the deeper concerns? What is the message that lies in everything we see and hear? Where are we as a faith community headed in the midst of it all and what is our responsibility?
We get mired in the mud when perhaps we should be worried that there is mud at all. In the book Earth Medicine: Ancestors’ Ways of Harmony for Many Moons by Jamie Sams, the author tells us, “Listening is the foremost rule that determines a person’s integrity and substance. And she goes on to say that in Native American culture, “Words are … considered part of the Sacred Breath of Life that holds a person’s Sacred Point of View. When people are talking, they are not listening. When one person interrupts another, the lack of respect is apparent.”
We get distracted into conversations about interpretations of religious texts when religion has become irrelevant to huge segments of the population. Are we living what we believe, walking the walk, practicing what we preach, or thinking too much about what is next for ourselves to be able to see and interpret the signs all around us that indicate there is a great spiritual thirst to be quenched. We can make a difference in the world by working together to quench that thirst, to guide all people to more civil behavior and to feed those hungry for connections and relationships.
The Jewish people have a phrase, almost like a mantra that begins many of the prayers, Sacred teachings and Holy days. This central mantra of theirs is: “Hear, Oh Israel” (H-E-A-R). Remembering that Israel literally translated means the people of God. (-el remember means ‘of God’). Listen, pay attention, hear what’s coming ‘people of God’? Watch for the signs. The world around us is still revealing and the signs are all around, in nature, in our community, in our relationships. Like the old railway crossing signs used to say, “Stop, Look, and Listen” or you won’t see what’s coming!
There are some times when I just want to go to a movie or read a book or watch a TV show just for some mindless simple entertainment, a comedy to take me somewhere to laugh, or a mystery to occupy my thoughts, but we can’t afford to do that with our lives. We cannot blank out. We must remain engaged seeking the deeper meanings and the messages that are there for us. We must use our intuition and insight, engage our powers of reason and deduction and consider the implications of the relationships we are in so we see where we are headed. Then we are honoring the Sacred Breath of the world and allowing the Holy Spirit to move in and through us to bring hope to those we know.
Blessings to you Friends.
Amen.
