“Well I don’t know where it all begins / And I don’t know where it all will end / We’re better off for all that we let in.”[1] Lyrics from the American folk-rock band Indigo Girls. Once again, thanks to Jenn Richard for her gift of music this morning. I always do this to Jenn—or maybe she always does it to me. She suggests a few songs for a service, and I find the lyrics so evocative that a line or a phrase from one of the songs becomes the starting place for my sermon. This morning it’s “All That We Let In.”
Our ministry theme for October is deep listening. I want to thank Carolyn Gimbrone and Martha Larson for last Sunday’s service on deep listening. This morning I am continuing with this theme, hopefully adding a further dimension to our collective exploration of what it means to listen deeply: to ourselves, to others, to the natural world, to divinity. In short, listening well is a spiritual discipline. The purpose of this discipline is to prop us open, to cultivate openness in us so that we can let in others’ perspectives, others’ experiences, others’ joy, pain, hopefulness, suffering, others’ anger, even rage. It is not easy. This letting in, as beautiful and as positively life-transforming as it can be, as much as it is the source of learning and growth for us, can also expose us to thoughts, feelings, opinions, philosophies, world-views and ideologies we’d rather not encounter. And although sometimes we simply cannot encounter them—they’re triggering or traumatic, they’re life-negating in some way, and we need to set boundaries—which is part of the spiritual discipline of deep listening—nevertheless, I agree with Emily Saliers, who wrote the lyrics to the song, “we’re better off for all that we let in.”
Having worked and served as a pastor for a quarter century now, I do have significant experience when it comes to listening. I like to think it is a skill I possess. I hope those of you to whom I have listened over the years feel that I have heard you. And having said that, I’m confident my listening hasn’t been perfect. I have missed things. I am likely missing things now. I don’t pretend to be an expert listener, or to be always open to hearing thoughts, feelings and opinions I’d rather not encounter. I’m also aware that I listen better in some contexts than others, perhaps better here at the meeting house than at home. By now many of you have heard me tell the story of my visit to the audiologist a year ago, though I haven’t shared it from the pulpit. My wife was concerned that I might be developing hearing loss—a fairly common condition for people my age, especially for someone who played in rock bands for almost 30 years. I took the standard hearing test. The audiologist said he had good news and bad news. The good news was that my hearing was perfect. The bad news is that I need to listen to my wife better. Bottom line: I know something about how to listen, and that knowledge doesn’t always translate into actual listening. I know something about opening myself up to another, and I have evidence that my capacity for openness, at times, is limited.
We press on.
I want to listen more deeply. I want to be propped open. I want the spiritual discipline of listening to be central to who I am, not only as a pastor, but as a husband, father and friend, indeed, as a human being. Despite my limitations and inconsistencies, I want to cultivate openness to others’ experience of the world, and openness to the world itself. I want to keep getting better at it. I want what the mid-19th century, one-time Unitarian minister, American essayist, poet, lecturer Transcendentalist leader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, called “an original relation to the universe”[2] which, I believe, originates in deep listening. I want to let it all in, because I believe, as the song says, I am better off for it.
I shared earlier the meditation, “Listen to the Leaves,” from Choctaw elder and Episcopal bishop and theologian Steven Charleston. When he was young his great-grandmother urged him to keep listening to the rustling leaves, listening to the voice of the Spirit in the trees. As an elder, recognizing that he still has much to learn, he says “I know one thing for certain: / The wind in the trees knows us by name. / If you don’t believe me, go out and listen. / Close your eyes, listen to the leaves, / And hear you name written on the wind.”[3]
I did that when I was preparing this sermon. I stood beneath the trees at the edge of our yard. This was Wednesday, one of those beautiful, sunny autumn days. I heard the leaves rustling. I didn’t hear my name, but figured it would take years of listening to arrive at that kind of hearing. It definitely felt good to pause and listen. It felt like the right and necessary thing for me to be doing in that moment. I want that practice in my life. And more. I want to listen not only to the rustling leaves, but to the wind itself; both the gentle autumn breeze and the raging New England nor-easter. I want to let it all in—not only the wind, but the rain, the sleet, the snow, the hail. And more. I want to listen to the creatures, not only the rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, hawks, owls, ants and a hundred other critters that scurry around our yard, and sometimes our basement, but also the more distant, more difficult to imagine creatures—creatures of the deep seas, creatures of the hot, moist jungles, creatures of the great savannahs, creatures of the arid desserts. I want to let it all in: the cycles of days: dawn into morning, dusk into night; the cycles of the seasons: autumn into winter into spring into summer; the cycles of our lives: birth, growth, decline, death and rebirth in all the ways we are—or might be—reborn. I want to let it all in and be better off for it.
And maybe, to begin, what it takes is a willingness simply to pause in the midst of life’s demands, and listen with no pre-conceived notions of what I will hear. Steven Charleston has another meditation called “What the Wind Says” in which he writes “There is a word for each of us, a message sent directly / That flows through the wind each day / Offering us insight and vision, clarity and creative ideas. / If only we will stop long enough to receive it. / Be still. Be awake. Trust your spiritual senses. / Listen to the wind. The Spirit is speaking to you.”[4] I want that in my life. I want to learn the art of deep listening. I want, in time, to hear what Spirit is saying to me. I want to let it all in and be better off for it. So I commit myself to pausing more, to being still, to being awake, to listening deeply.
Reality check #1! It’s hard enough to do this with consistency in response to the natural world. It’s even harder to do it in response to our fellow humans. It’s hard not only because our lives don’t always accommodate our longing to pause, be still, and listen. It’s hard also because some of what we let in doesn’t feel good. I said it at the outset of my remarks. As much as deep listening is a source of learning and growth for us, it can also expose us to thoughts, feelings, opinions, philosophies, world-views and ideologies we’d rather not encounter.
In the United States we live now in a very polarized society, polarized along political, cultural and religious lines. On Thursday, many of us watched the film “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy.” That film, if nothing else, gives a glimpse into just how polarized we are. I am very mindful that, because of polarization, for the most part, I live in a communication bubble on one side of the so-called culture war. I tend to communicate almost exclusively with people who think and feel the same way I do about the future of the United States. I do not spend a significant amount of time in dialogue with people who think and feel radically differently than I do about the future of the United States. More now than ever before, I don’t really know many people who think and feel radically differently than I do about the future of the United States, and I know the same is true for a lot of you. For the record, at least one person who attended the film on Thursday was a pastor from a local, conservative Christian congregation. He didn’t stay for the discussion. I don’t know why, but I also don’t blame him. He’s not in our liberal bubble. And I can’t help thinking we missed an opportunity.
We continue in our bubbles, yet we also recognize that our society won’t break out of polarization without dialogue across our divisions, without listening deeply to each other, and without a willingness to compromise. So we say, “let’s listen to each other.” And maybe in some instances we can get somewhere, especially at the local level, especially if the most extreme positions aren’t part of the conversation.
But there need to be boundaries. I don’t want to listen to someone explain the need to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, based, at least recently, on blatant lies about legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. And the person who believes those lies likely doesn’t want to hear me talk about treating undocumented immigrants humanely. I don’t want to listen to someone explain why teachers shouldn’t be allowed to make space for children to safely explore their gender identity, or that books that celebrate GLBTQ identity shouldn’t be on library shelves in public schools. I don’t want to listen to someone explain to me that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and therefore I don’t understand the First Amendment of the Constitution. There are hundreds of examples. All this stuff is toxic, painful, traumatic—and if it doesn’t hurt me directly, it hurts people I love. I can’t take it all in. I won’t take it all in. I want to listen, but I also need to set some boundaries. The divides are stark and dangerous. The path forward, the path to healing and repair, is not clear.
Reality Check #2! I want to close with a few words about our experience of division here at UUSE. Without a doubt, for those of you who’ve been in dialogue about the change to Article II of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) bylaws; for those of you who’ve been in dialogue about changing our congregation’s constitution in response to concerns about the UUA, the differences among us have felt unbridgeable at times. With apologies to those who aren’t in the dialogue or who don’t know what I’m talking about, I want to name that we’ve had our own communication bubbles. We’ve had our own habits of not talking to people with whom we disagree. I will tell you that as one who has always loved the UUA, as one who has always been committed to the UUA and its efforts to address the way racism and other forms of oppression operate both in the larger society and within our congregations; and as one in whom the UUA invested considerable resources to train 30 years ago, it has been very difficult for me to listen to criticisms of the UUA. I have not wanted to let them in.
But I’ve learned to let them in. I’ve learned—I hope—to really listen to the criticisms, to try my best to understand them, to say when I agree, to say when I disagree. And I believe I am better off for it. I also recognize—this is the reality check—that everybody who is involved in this dialogue, no matter what their position, has the best interests of our congregation at heart. That’s not just a hopeful statement. It’s a sturdy truth. Those of you involved in this dialogue, despite disagreements that at times feel unbridgeable, have the best interests of this congregation at heart. It’s a beautiful thing to witness, and it bodes well for our future.
Our UUA Discernment Task Force is about to launch its long-awaited discernment process that will enable members and friends of the congregation who are in disagreement to come together, to share concerns, and to find, together, a common vision for what our institutional relationship to the UUA ought to be, and how it ought to be reflected in our constitution. We have strong disagreements, but not unbridgeable disagreements. I say, let it all in. Listen deeply to each other. Listen to each other like you might listen for your name in the rustling of the leaves. Listen to each other like you might listen to the still small voice within. Listen to each other. Let each other in, knowing, trusting, believing we will all be better off for it.
Amen and blessed be.
[1] Saliers, Emily Ann, “All That We Let In” from the 2005 Indigo Girls album, All That We Let In. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6sDR2bOuGE
[2] Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Nature, in Whicher, Stephen E., ed., Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1957) pp. 23.
[3] Charleston, Steven, “Listen to the Leaves,” in Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigneous Elder (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023) p. 173.
[4] Charleston, Steven, “What the Wind Says,” in Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigneous Elder (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023) p. 149.
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