- Pastor Lisa
EARS
A meditation based upon Psalm 44
To what are you listening?
What do you think you hear?
One person speaks, several hear
but each one may take away something different from the other
Often, when the speaker feels their intention has not been understood
they say, “You aren’t listening!”
But, we are all listening.
We all hear.
So, what is happening?
Hearing with our ears, is a physical exercise.
Hearing with our heart and with our understand is altogether something else.
Hearing with an open mind is yet something else again.
We each bring to our listening a lifetime of experience
experience than can influence how we understand what we are hearing
our pain, our anger, our fear, these can all color our understanding
our prior knowledge, the depth and breadth of it
or the shallowness and narrowness of it
also influence our understanding of what we are hearing
How will we ever all come to the same understanding
given our different backgrounds and experience
How can we understand our enemies
How do we not end up hurt
How do we not sell ourselves out
How can we be open to our neighbors who are different from us
How do we maintain honor and avoid shame
when painful words are hurled in misunderstanding anger
There are no easy answers
Keep listening
knowing that there is more to hearing than our ears