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Listening relaxes strangleholds that impound change within padlocked barriers.
Listening steels resolve to accept the unacceptable, with its terror of the unknown.
Listening encourages taking the next step wherever it leads, up or down, anywhere.
Listening eases raspy breaths until the next treatment, with the expulsion of fluids.
Listening stills the gibberish wheel whirling nonessentials into crazed perceptions.
Listening staunches imperatives that impound choices within sticky globs of paste.
Listening softens the jagged edges of anger intent upon maiming, grousing, lying.
Listening defuses pompous pretending like pricking helium balloons tied to gates.
Listening twizzles cacophony into harmonious rhythms that brilliance moods.
Listening unearths flickering images signaling critical change in the night sky.
Listening greens hope that hides out in recesses of stuffed closets and drawers.
Listening waters parched arroyos with decades of insect and animal detritus.
Listening enhances words that vibrate like dulcimers along mountain streams.
Listening teases shimmering pastels that titter in sunshine-drenched mornings.
Listening patches potholes of isolation and ignorance with significant connections.
Listening burgeons whispered prayer like striped camellia blossoms in full flower.
Such listening fosters obedience of the heart, authentic living, and growth in His likeness.
“Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life … Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:24; 36)—Thus proclaims the theme for the First Sunday in Advent; its dire words startle, if anyone is listening
Like first-century Palestine, the setting for this mandate, our times are rife with turmoil, with reversals in values, with rampant greed, with untoward events that decry expression. Covert and overt oppression hold people hostage. Homelessness, actual or psychological, sours hearts. Indeed, whole cityscapes appear inert, frozen in toxic fears. And Black Friday’s madness launched the shopping craze until the eve of Christmas. This scenario, ramped up by devotees of Evil, continues emasculating spirit, year after year.
Yet there is another voice that rings through the centuries: ”Watch yourselves …” To heed its imperative toward conversion of life requires humility, prayer, and selflessness. Through the practice of these disciplines emerge stalwart hearts, clear vision, and unflinching truth. That’s what really matters.
But such disciplines are counter-cultural, many protest. I’d much rather hang out with my buddies at the bar or go shopping. That’s where real life happens.
Yet the challenge remains: to go apart, alone, in silence, and see whom we meet.
It works. It really does.
We’re all inclined to stash: the catch-all drawer in the study; the jammed shelves in the front hall closet; the rusting bikes and tools in the garage; the dusky trunks in the attic; the bulging sacks in the basement; the faded shed in the backyard; the discolored boxes stashed in the annex; the stacks of recipes from House and Garden magazines bundled in the kitchen cupboards.
What compels us to hoard stuff we think we’ll use someday, especially when that “someday” rarely arrives?
A similar clutter can also occur in our psyches vacuuming social media for titillation, engorging the latest scandal from The Hill or undigested trivia, staring down our neighbor’s excesses—even Broadway productions of festering resentments.
And then we wonder why we seek medical or psychiatric attention: pills to fix us, an injection to mellow us, or even surgery to cut out the disorder.
Can it be about mindlessness?
There is a response to this disorder offered by a wise friend: “If in doubt, out!”
Heart Whisperings 