Joan Guntzelman
Listening Matters

August 23 - 29 

Hear, O Israel! (Deut. 6:4)

If one gives answer before hearing, it is folly and shame. (Proverbs 18:13)

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. (Mark, 4:9)

Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak. (James 1:19b)

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth,
it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. (Samuel Johnson)

Listen is such a little, ordinary word.
Yet we all know the pain of not being listened to,
of not being heard. … In a way, not to be heard is not to exist.
(Margaret Guenther, Holy Listening)

To live without listening is not to live at all;
it is simply to drift in my own backwater.
(Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily)

All through the Bible, the Koran, the Hindu sacred books, and Buddhist texts, we hear admonitions to listen, to pay attention, to sharpen our awareness. But listening takes discipline. It may be one of the most challenging spiritual practices. It does matter.

Listening opens us to the wisdom of other people and all of creation. Listening allows us to encounter the sacred in all the movements of the day. In The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner records his conviction that each day holds the promise of encounters with the Holy One and that by listening to and writing of these, we tell a sacred story:

There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak—even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys. . . .

He says he is with us on our journeys. He says he has been with us since each of our journeys began. Listen for him. Listen to the sweet and bitter airs of your present and your past for the sound of him.

Henry David Thoreau understood God in much the same way: “God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us.” The reality around us is drenched and instilled with the sacred presence. We only need to listen and see just as Thoreau did.

Encounters with the holy continue today. Now. If we pay attention. If we listen. So we are gratified that Joan will help us renew our listening, reminding us of what it means to pay attention – something she does so well herself as a mentor, therapist, and friend.

-- Carl Koch, Director

When I am listening with the essence of my soul,
there is no separation into parts.
Life is no longer a zero-sum game
where putting more effort into one area
means another area has to lose.
Everything I do is related to the whole,
and the transitions are more seamless.
Each part nurtures the other
instead of competing for my time and attention.
Integration as distinct from balance
leads us to harmony and peace,
and from this peace we can listen –
to Source, ourselves, and others.
(Kay Lindahl, The Sacred Art of Listening)

To understand Joan’s gift of listening, check out these fine books that she has authored:

To understand Joan’s gift of listening, check out these fine books that she has authored:

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