From the Field: Bracket Your Inner Narrative [💭]

Aside from the sweetness of cookies and juice, the feeling I remember most from my years in Sunday School was the certainty that Jesus was the answer to every question. I remember the nervous feeling: a teacher’s question hanging in the air, 15 little bodies fidgeting, not understanding the question but knowing one of us would eventually shoot a hand up, say “Jesus,” and be right.

Oftentimes in ministry, we work from the answer outwards. We ask questions to confirm understanding, not to engage in open exploration, which builds relationships. Our congregants then learn from our modeling, and we end up with Christian education and formation groups focused on “getting faith right.” We model “waiting for the right answer” and miss opportunities to form church culture around listening to people’s stories. 

So, how do we listen? It requires lots of practice, but we can begin by humbling ourselves and making a commitment to practice.

First, humility. For most of us, learning to listen probably has to start with the confession that we don’t really know how to listen, and that we’ve been doing it poorly for years. That’s honest — and expected, right? No one teaches us to listen. We are taught to discuss, assert ourselves, persuade, and win arguments! We were taught to wait to speak, which is not the same as listening.

Second, practice. Listening requires a commitment to silencing (or “bracketing”) our inner narrative. To listen, we have to clear our mind space of things like assumptions, prejudices, identifications, personal connections, judgments, approval, triggers, and corrections. When we bring these with us, or become interrupted by them, listening suffers. When we pick them up and put them on a high shelf for the time being (we can always come back to them later), then we can really listen. And by really listen, I mean this: taking in people’s words as pure truth we’ve never heard before.

With our mind space cleared of clutter, we can be filled with wonder, curiosity, love, compassion, and enthusiasm as we receive our neighbor’s sacred words.