On Listening

The theme of Listening has shown up in a variety of arenas in my life recently.

The most obvious was of course in the Deep Listening Walks, because they focus on heard experience.  They are a version of Mindfulness exercise.  They ask you to be attentive to the present, to the entirely of the soundscape that surrounds you.  You don't produce sound, you don't compose sounds, you don't think about anything but present sound, you open yourself up to the immediate aural experience, immerse in it, explore it, adventure in it, be in it.

But the same theme came up in the Labyrinth Walk.  You'd think that would be more about journeying, but Missy, our facilitator, suggested that we Listen during the walk, with just the same instruction as in the Deep Listening Walks, to the birds, to the wind, to the surrounding soundscape, to our own feet walking, to our neighbors' feet walking.  But beyond that, the Labyrinth Walk, when done in a Christian context, also included the element of listening for what God is telling you.  This is not done with the ears.  The meditative state of the walking, the arrival at the center, the sending up of prayers (in our case, in bubble form), all prepare you, quite inside, to receive messages, or Calls, or reassurances or whatever.

And then at church, I'm about to start a six-month program that is all about discernment.  The term "Discernment" comes up a lot in Christian contexts, especially when a parish is going through a search for a new Rector, as we just were.  Being in the middle of a Job Search - a Search - it has been very interesting to me to contrast the language.  The job seeker searches, goes out, looks, tries to find, tries to uncover, has to go out of there way, join groups of people in new communities, doing things that are currently hidden, has to find a way in, uncover, unlock, find.  The ordained Priest who is looking for a new job instead goes through a period of Discernment, trying to clearly see what is already there, right in front of them.  The Search Committee at a church looking for a new priest also describes their activity as Discernment.  The process, which took more than a year, involved looking inward, including the whole parish, to find out who we are, who we have been, who we want to be, what we want, what we need.  Then when the committee received the candidate's applications, they had to discern who would be on the short list.  In the interviews, we had to discern who we were called to call, as it were.  Not choose, not pick, but see, but hear.

In this series of workshops in which I'm about to participate, we're focusing on discernment with a small "d".  It's not the formal process one undergoes when called to ordination, as a Deacon or Priest in the Church.  It's for anyone who is trying to figure out a path.  Not seek a path, but discern it.  So this is all about listening too.  Being present to what's already here, quieting oneself inside, and trying to see and hear what's there, right in front of us.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development requires me to continue Searching, and applying for at least four traditionally described jobs per week.  So, inevitably, both processes will be going on at once, for me, for a while here.