Welcome to another Theology Talk hosted by the 99th RSC Chaplain Office! I’m honored to be with you all again tonight in support of the 99th’s spiritual resiliency programs and the DoD-wide extremism standdown efforts.
Thank you: Thank you to CH Ippolito and your whole team for inviting me back – this time to talk about how we listen to one another and what it looks like to listen well.
Me: A bit about me before we jump in – CH (CPT) Anna Page, BN Chaplain for the 414th Civil Affairs Battalion in Southfield, MI; live in North Carolina; Episcopal Priest
My hope for us tonight is that we both feel heard and learn how to hear others as we attempt to make our Army, and our world, a more loving and affirming place.
Disclaimer: As an Episcopal priest and Christian chaplain, I will be teaching through a primarily Judeo-Christian lens. However, the concepts that I will be sharing are universal in nature and are espoused by various faith traditions, just by different names. If a concept sounds familiar to you but you call it something else in your tradition, please share this! No one tradition has a lock on listening, and truly listening to one another requires multiple perspectives…especially since we are all interwoven in a meshwork of life. But we’ll get back to that.
Norms:
Exploration: This is our space – to create, dream, and imagine the world as it could be. Be curious about how you see the world, how others see the world, and what might be stirring in you.
Participation: Please type your questions or comments into the FB chat as they come up – I’ll respond as I can!
Respect: Seek to understand before being understood, and listen to understand rather than prove.
Thesis/Framework: Tonight, I’m going to suggest one way to listen well to one another – a way advocated for and championed by civil rights activists, womanists, and liberation scholars throughout history. We must cultivate a personal ethic of listening by which we not only intently listen to others – whomever or whatever we deem as not ourselves – but also see ourselves as interwoven with others if we are to create a world in which all persons can flourish (x2). If we do not learn to listen well, then we will only drive misunderstanding, division, and hate.
Outline:
What does it mean to listen well?
What listening looks like lived out
Meshwork theory
Ubuntu
Beloved Community
How we live this out
Agape
Shalom
Conclusion: Practical implications for cultivating this ethic of listening
What does it mean to listen well?
What does it mean to listen well?
Well, before we answer that, perhaps we need to ask to whom are we listening? To which I would say that there are 4 possibilities…
Listen to God
Listen to others
Listen to self
Listen to creation
I bring these up to expand our minds, to imagine, about to whom or what do we listen
While listening well to each of these categories may take its own form, there are some general principles that we’ve likely all heard before – a good listener is an active listener
Eye contact
Nonverbal communication like head nodding
Verbal affirmation like, “mm,” “yes,” “I see”
Patience
Many of you listening probably already practice these forms of active listening – which is awesome! Please keep doing that.
Then, let me take us a step further and have us add “envisioning ourselves enmeshed with the person to whom we’re speaking” as a principle of active listening
“envisioning ourselves as enmeshed with the person to whom we’re speaking”
By this, I mean devoting your full time, attention, and being to the person with whom you’re speaking in such a way that it feels like your future depends on hearing their words à if they are expressing pain, you can feel their pain; if they are expressing joy, you experience their joy
Another way of thinking about this could be, “invoking empathy” when we actively listen à but stick with this “enmeshed” concept, as it will come back up in just a moment
Ultimately, cultivating an ethic of listening which leads us to listen with intentionality and see ourselves as interwoven, or enmeshed, establishes the foundation of creating understanding, connection, and love.
What would our world look like if we listened?
What would our societies look like if we listened with this intentionality to our understanding of the Divine, others, ourselves, and creation?
Ultimately, our societies would reflect the ecology we already see in nature. Let me suggest to you three models for what this could look like if we took seriously our interconnectedness.
(1) Meshwork model (Tim Ingold)
The first model I want to suggest is one proposed by anthropologist Tim Ingold
Ingold has this theory about human connectivity. He literally writes about lines, like the distance between two points à like what you see here on the screen.
But what Ingold argues, is that life is lived through way fairing, or journeying, not from point to point but “through, a round, to and from them, from and to places elsewhere” à as humans traverse, our trails become intertwined and create “knots” à knots are places of connection, are intertwined, and create an entangled or enmeshed web
This state of enmeshment forces us to understand ourselves as in relationship with others because we are deeply intertwined à our connections create the fungi-like meshwork, which replaces the linear network à this meshwork no one exists within it without another
Ingold looked to nature, and to ancestral wisdom to develop this theory…
(2) Ubuntu
Which brings us to our second model – ubuntu
Ubuntu comes from the Nguni language spoken throughout Southern Africa
Oft associated with Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, post-Apartheid
Defining:
About connectedness which exists between all living creatures, esp. people (humanist philosophy)
Behaving well towards others or acting in ways that benefit the community
A soul force – an actual metaphysical connection shared between people and which helps us connect to each other
Can’t be seen, but a philosophy to be not just bought in to but embodied à believing that we are all interconnected; my actions impact you, and yours me
Various takes on Ubuntu:
“My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours” (Archbishop Desmond Tutu)
“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free” – Fannie Lou Hamer
I can’t be fully me, unless you can be fully you
Restorative justice practices à bring someone back into society, make amends, reparations
“A person is a person through other persons” (Nguni Proverb)
Like we just said with Ingold, no one exists without one another
(3) Beloved Community
The final model I want to propose for how to think of ourselves as enmeshed comes from Christianity, in particular the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King
Using the definition from the Episcopal Church, “The BC is the body within which all people can grow to love God and love the image of God that we find in our neighbors, in ourselves, and in creation…” (TEC)
Remembers to whom or what do we listen?
God/concept of the Divine
Others
Ourselves
Creation
Beloved Community is about how we relate to people – and creation – of all identifiers – from different races, ethnicities, national origins, sexual orientation, religions, socioeconomic classes, gender identity, the environment, and yes…for my Christians in the room, even denomination.
Ultimately, we find ourselves in the Beloved Community when we understand ourselves as in enmeshed, ubuntu-like relationship with the world.
Now, I get that these models are idyllic, but are they realistic past an interpersonal level?
They sound great on paper, but human tendencies creep in. We break our connections and instead turn to in-groups and out-groups. We see ourselves as individuals in this world, just occupying vacuous space à rather than interconnected beings inhabiting places together. From this occupation mentality, we experience war, division, suffering, isolation, racism, marginalization, and injustice.
This means that we must strive to make economic and social justice, from interpersonal to institutional levels, realities before any of these models can be our societal reality à else, power will default to pre-existing powers and principalities
We’ll discuss more of these implications later
No matter how idyllic, we must hold onto these images of meshwork, ubuntu, and Beloved Community when listening to God, others, ourselves, and creation because these images empower us to change the world from a place of division and distrust to a place of connection and collective liberation
How do we live out listening well?
By this point you may be wondering, how do we live in such a way that we enact these models? Active listening is great, but what else?
Well, when our ethic of listening implores us to see the world as interwoven, then we are called to live love and enact peace since our collective well-being is tied together.
One way of understanding this is the Biblical concepts of agape and shalom.
= biblical terms which speak to interpersonal relationships with humanity and creation; shalom comes from Hebrew and we are first introduced to it in the Hebrew Bible; and agape is a Greek term frequently used in the NT by J’s disciples
Both terms show us how to live in striving to make ubuntu or the BC a reality
All encompassing love, total self-giving love, unconditional Love
not something that just happens to us or a feeling for someone else, but it is action à the choice we make to seek the well-being for others above ourselves
Seeking well-being without expecting anything in return
Treating well the person we cannot stand à spark of Divine in everyone
Denotes the absence of war, enmity, quarrel, strife, peace amongst people, communal life à replacing these with wholeness or completeness, state of well-being, tranquility, prosperity, security, manifestation of divine grace
So, we can make a meshwork a reality when we live into peace or restoration with others and the self and show love to others, especially those who are overlooked. Note the emphasis on restoration, or justice, in order for peace to occur.
Important to note is that while these terms enable introspection, they are namely played out and defined in community à they push us to understand ourselves as in relationship with others. Which all comes back to underscoring the importance of our personal ethics of listening.
What are the implications of this ethic of listening?
Understanding ourselves as enmeshed with all of creation as some practical implications:
Personal:
Thinking critically and ethically about how I live impacts others
Working on our empathy, esp. by striving to understand the lived experiences of those who appear “different” than ourselves through books, media, and conversations
Always ask yourself,
Who do I include?
Who do I exclude?
Who is not at the table?
Be mindful of the environment and our personal environmental impacts
Consider to what/where you give your money and time
Consider how your gifts, talents, and position can be used in the ministries of confession, reconciliation, community building, and healing
Listen more, talk less (“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” James 1:19)
How could you use your insights, assets, and relationships for the sake of justice-making and healing?
Language
Assumptions/Stereotypes/biases
Interpersonal:
Make a new friend
Smile at a stranger
Invite someone into conversation
Correct when someone uses derogatory language à holding each other accountable
Communal:
Participating in intentional community (not a commune, but envisioning the world as an enmeshed community or ecosystem)
Create norms which affirm, welcome, and include all persons à and denounce racism, sexism, homophobia, and Christian nationalism
Checking in on our community members when violence and hate occurs; and to ensure no one is isolated
Systemic:
Understanding the role of systems and institutions in perpetuating injustice, and learning where we fit into this
Dismantling of American individualism
Asking:
Who is not at the table?
What is keeping someone from the table?
Ending White Supremacy and extremism
Tonight, I suggested that listening well looks not only like taking the time to intently listen to others, but also to understand ourselves as interwoven with the rest of the created world (x2). This is not a new concept – womanists, liberation scholars, peacemakers, and civil rights activists have been teaching this for centuries. Though an old concept, it is still so timely for today given the divisiveness, hate, injustice, and polarization of our world.
If anyone has any lingering questions my email is [email protected] if you’d like to send along questions or comments.
Thank you!
Resources:
Gustavo Gutierrez
bell hooks
Audre Lorde
Fanny Lou Hammer
MLK Jr.
See No Stranger
Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice
John Paul Lederach, The Little Book of Conflict Transformation