My Sabbatical is in its final month and I am currently spending the last month at the beach with my wife, Janet. It has been a time of renewal for us enjoying the beach and one another’s company.
The theme of my Sabbatical was learning and experiencing spirituality and hospitality from a Benedictine perspective. The hope, of course, is to integrate this into my life and find ways to integrate it into the life of my congregation. The people at St. Marks are reading and learning about Benedictine spirituality as well and have a retreat opportunity to experience it more fully. I hope everyone takes advantage of this.
Benedictine spirituality is remarkable ecumenical. There are non-Roman Catholic Benedictine monasteries and the majority of clergy who are Benedictine Oblates at monasteries are not Roman Catholic. Many of the Benedictine fit very nicely into the prayer life and spirituality of Protestant clergy.
There is much to this. One is praying the Psalms every day and one is reading and reflecting on Scripture. There is always one word, however, that keeps cropping up. The word is listen.
As the pastor of a church I have preached a lot of sermons over the years. I figure I’ve probably preached over 1400 sermons over the years. That is a lot of preaching and a lot of talking. Right not, however, I haven’t preached since the beginning of March. Often, on retreats, I would write sermons and get myself ahead. I have not written any sermons while on Sabbatical----though it has been tempting. The reason I haven’t written any sermons is that even sermon writing is ‘talking.’ This has been a time for listening.
Listening is difficult for me. I like to have opinions and share my opinion. Often when someone else is speaking, I am thinking of what I’m going to say in response more than I am actually listening to what the person has to say. I doubt I am the only one like this. We are a society that likes to talk first, listen second.
A significant amount of my time has been spent largely alone. I have had large amounts of time with no one to talk to. It has made me sit and listen. Not preaching has compelled me to pray the Psalms and actually listen to the words. Not preaching has compelled me to read Scripture and listen to the words rather than preach about it. Listening to God, who is still speaking, has become an interesting journey for me. A good one.
My hope and prayer is that I learn to maintain some sacred silence for myself and continue to listen.
2 comments:
Enjoyed your reflection. Last Sunday I quoted Stephen Covey "Most people do not listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply" which is so similar to what you were talking about. Showing interest in other people is a great gift to give them. For me, personally, I think of it as a spiritual disciple as I work on listening to others without adding my experiences/stories into the conversation.
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