If I say I love someone, I will invest the time required to hear what he or she wants to say.
Listening, like love, has no gimmicks, no tricks.
It is expressing genuine interest. It is putting my own concerns aside for a while and entering someone else’s world. It’s rewriting, reshaping, re-writing, nothing I hear. I will listen as if I am appreciating fine, complex, beautiful art, a masterpiece. I will not “listen” as if I’m engaged in a competitive game of verbal tennis. I will listen as one who has much to learn rather than hide behind the covert belief that I’m the one with much to teach.
Such arrogance neither hears, nor listens well, or accurately.
The arrogant listener hears what he or she wants to hear. Arrogance reshapes what’s said into what the listener prefers.
When I think “I”ve heard it all before” I’m not listening.
Listening opens new worlds for the speaker and the listener leading each down a path of brave discovery. It’s a mutual risk.
The loving listener listens to what is said and unsaid, without rearranging either.
The listener enters another’s world, then departs with it untouched, understood, admired, no matter how beautiful, troubled, complex, that world may be.
Illustration by Siggi Berg and used with permission.
“I have the most generous mother. Now 80 and strong as an ox. I remember her asking me to go for a drive some evenings as a teemager. She would chat to me about people who had less than us. We never had lots. She would have an envelope with money from her housekeeping and we would stop and I had to pop it into the letterbox (of people in need) without being seen. She never told my dad or anyone else. It taught me at a tender age that tithe was not always meant to be bought into the storehouse but sometimes distributed where the need was seen. I value her influence in my life. I have tried to emulate her motherly wisdom.”
Thank you for your beautiful letter. Your mother’s generosity and her habitual acts of generosity are inspiring. What’s also inspiring is that you, her son, recognize it and appreciate it. Your mother has etched an indelible memory into your whole being.
I have no doubt that you too, are a generous man. How could you not be, after what you experienced?
I continue to believe that generosity is a very powerful agent for goodness — not only for the recipients, but also for the givers.
“What parenting advice could you offer my wife and me,” said the delighted dad, “my son is 16 months young.”
Above all, love your wife with joy, freedom and courage. This will reduce and deflect loads of the anxiety that naturally tries to derail all childhoods.
Lavish your baby, then young child, then pre-teen and teenager with affirmation and affection. No matter what you and your wife face, when you come home from work, or he returns after time away, or when he wakes in the morning or in the middle of the night — baby or teenager — be glad to see him, and, say so. Verbally express the joys your son brings you, to each other, and to him.
Teach him to talk Joy.
Regard the ages 5, 8, 12, 14 and 16 as transition ages. At these times discuss with him your parental plans (your mutually agreed upon plans you’ve made as parents) to do less and less for him, while expecting more and more from him. Yes, even at 5 — point out that he can make his own, age-appropriate decisions. Include him in planning and establishing his growing independence. Plan your parenting so that by his eighteenth year your parenting roles are accomplished and he has all it takes to be an interdependent young adult.
Hold in high regard the beautiful idea that you parent (the verb) for his sake and not yours.
Our new painting will go up in my home-office this week….. from Friday this week, both of my adult sons are launched and living independently of me. Oh the joy; oh the niggling pain. #graceupongrace
My head is full of experiences where I’ve been subjected to the innocence random people frequently display for the country of my birth (South Africa) and, when I’m abroad, my country of residence (the USA).
Regarding the land of my birth it may go something like — and both occurred — “Who helps you write good English?” and “Do you know my exchange student who was also white and from Africa?” It was once suggested I claim to be African to garner sympathy. Regarding the USA, it may be “can you see Hawaii from New York City?” or “do you see movie stars every day?”
Having spent ten days in India I more than doubly confess my ignorance regarding this vast sub-continent, its billions of people, thousands of languages, beautiful expressions of cultures that would take multiple decades to read about, explore in order to begin to understand and appreciate.
But, in ten days, it’s clear and tangible that the people I’ve met and gotten to know, as well as one can in a few days, are kind, gentle, generous. They are people who are deeply interested in the world beyond their borders. They are committed to loving their elders and respectful of the accomplishments of prior generations.
“Chased,” he said, “I’m being chased, haunted by my past, my past of multiple addictions, — they follow me.”
“Like dogs?” I asked, “I have wild dogs too.”
“No,” he said, “large lions, and a tiger, coming from behind, waiting to pounce, attack. To scorn, belittle me.”
“How do you protect yourself?” I asked.
“I outrun them; get ahead. Do heroic things to prove them wrong. But, they follow, catch up, then I have to do it all again. What about you and the wild dogs?” he asked.
“I tried to ignore them,” I told him, “but they don’t like that. They squeal, bark louder. I tried to get ahead, outrun them as you do with your pursuers, but that’s temporary relief.”
“I know,” he confessed.
“I made a decision that made a big difference,” I said, “when I was at my most desperate when they were chasing me through dark hallways of my mind, barking at my heels, I stopped, slowly turned, faced them. Told them they were right, looked them in the eyes, gave them attention — then, they withdrew, got quiet, behaved as disciplined guide dogs. Now, they do their jobs.”
“Can I train my lion? My tiger?” he asked.
“You’ll never know,” I said, “until you look them in the eyes.”
I was in the Western Cape these last two weeks. It rained and rained and rained even more.
When I tell you the following I’m telling you because you know, those among you who read my posts, that it is you, not me. It is you who have empowered me to do this. I’ve said a hundred times, I’m the bridge and not the giver.
I was able to give (“Targeted Giving” – I call it) to 5 individuals and families I know, people I trust — $2500.00 ($500 each) to boost their good works and enhance their impact where they work.
For one family: it was a very cold and windswept afternoon. I called and asked the mom to meet me on the sidewalk at her address.
She was suprised to get my call — I do live 8000 miles away.
Dressed for the weather the whole family (I think I’m recalling correctly) came out.
I requested she and her husband get out of the weather and into the car and that we take them to their bank. The young son and dad joined us and they were able to deposit a large sum of Rands – they were not anticipating a gift — which I’d already exchanged on their behalf.
This gave the family what appeared to be an unimaginable boost!
Fewer than 24 hours later the mom sent my sister, not me, a photograph.
The family fed a huge crowd breakfast of porridge and bread the very next morning — because now they had extra.
Can you imagine the joy of getting such a call when it’s unexpected and the weather is pounding. Oh the stories that will be told of your generosity for ages to come.
How nice it indeed was to be the bridge (5 times) for your gift, your generosity.
You know who you are.
Thank you.
Let it be known we were also able to give $1000.00 to a local (in my town) safe house for young girls and women and send a local (from my town) boy or girl (I requested not to know who) to Summer Camp with Young Life. Cynics will often say and correctly say — “we have enough needs right here in Indiana.” I will assume they are giving handsomely to a local fund offering assistance.
Contact me if you’d like to help me repeat this community act of Grace.
I want my life to count, make a difference, contribute to the greater good, to have MEANING.
I cannot exist in a vacuum, but in a community with persons of similar desires to create something beautiful with the skills, resources, and years that we have at our disposal.
I want to serve a cause that is greater than my own fulfillment.
I want to plant now, so people I may never meet or know or hear of me, may harvest something rich and rewarding in their futures.
The only photograph — I’m aware of — of my mother and me.
I want to LISTEN as if I am studying fine, complex, beautiful art, a masterpiece, rather than as if I’m engaged in a hard game of competitive verbal tennis.
I want to listen as one who has much to learn rather than hide behind a secretly held belief that I’m the one with much to teach.
I know arrogance neither hears nor listens well, or accurately, but hears what it wants to hear. Arrogance reshapes what’s said into what the listener wants to hear or wishes was said.
I know that if I think I’ve “heard it all before” then I’m not listening.
Listening, really listening, can open new worlds for those who speak and those who listen and lead both down a path of brave discoveries. It’s a risk both parties must take if their communion is to improve.
I know the loving listener listens to what is said, listens to what is unsaid, and does so without rearranging either.
The authentic listener is capable of leaving the world of another admired and untouched – no matter how beautiful or how troubled that world may be.
Deep down where soul, spirit, will, heart, mind, meet, I have a magnificent gift – the instinctual, God-given, desire for INTIMACY.
Togetherness.
It comes wrapped into my humanity. I want to be intimate, to belong, to be part of a family, groups, teams, causes.
I don’t want to be alone.
I want to know others and be known by others. This desire usually whispers, but must sometimes yell, for recognition, especially when my equally powerful instinctual desire for autonomy has enjoyed its pleasures.
I want to be heard and treasured as a companion and friend. I want to be an integral part of the lives of close family and friends.
I want to be fearlessly open with a handful of loving friends and for them to be similarly open with me. If I repeatedly ignore this primal desire, I place my emotional well-being and physical health at risk.
I was not designed to be alone. I am designed for connection with others.
Acknowledging this essential part of who I am, respecting it, enjoying it, enhances my capacity to love myself, love others, and become fully, and more beautifully human.
*to be read in tandem with A is for Autonomy
My 1st born son and I enjoying our beautiful connection which is as meaningful today as it was the day of his birth…. He’s 26 now!
I am convinced that there are always reasons to HOPE.
No matter how dire, or conflicted the circumstance, no matter how bleak the prognosis, while there is life, and even beyond it, there remain reasons to be hopeful.
I’ve seen hope in action.
I’ve seen painful family scenarios, the most estranged of siblings, the most obstinate of personalities, turn, then find previously unimagined degrees of humility, and move in healthier directions.
But, of course, evil abounds. It tries to rob people of hope. Sadly, we all know men and women who are capable of inflicting much hurt and destruction.
Nonetheless, I will continue to believe that good far outweighs evil.
Goodness, kindness, benevolence, empathy, are latent in every man, woman, and child, and such qualities exercised by individuals, squelch humanity’s sometimes crazed desire to spread hate and destruction.
While I am well aware my ideas will be considered absurd in some circles, heresy in others, I’d suggest that when a lonely woman reaches again for alcohol, or a depraved man engages in illicit behavior, or an adult or teenager self-destructs, these behaviors are desperate acts of prayer, desperate attempts at sanity, desperate attempts to relieve pain and restore hope.
I will be an agent of hope to those who feel hopeless, abandoned, or aimless. Having seen my own life change, and an occasion, my own difficulties diminish, I know others can successfully face fearful, problematic situations, and emerge with increased hope. I will live a hopeful life and spread hope wherever I go.
Today I’m headed, not to Windhoek, but to Cape Town #graceupongrace
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