Too Busy to Listen

When I first began writing this blog, it grew out of my own spiritual practices. Reflections that came to me as I read the Daily Lectionary and spent time in prayer formed the basis of most blog post, and, to a large degree, continue to do so. But "going public" with these reflections changed them on some level. Not only are there some personal things that I'd rather not share, but just knowing that others may read them changes the process.

Just as teaching and preaching are often the most beneficial to the one preparing to preach or teach, writing this blog often opens my eyes to something or provides me with a helpful spiritual insight. But the blog also intrudes on my time of reading scripture and praying. Too often, I find myself thinking about what I might say in the blog as I am reading the lectionary. I am formulating my post even as I read, as well as when I "pray," and as I imagine many of you have discovered, it is quite hard to listen when you are talking. That's just as true for the mental talking I find myself doing as I read.

When I read today's gospel about Jesus welcoming the children and saying, "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it,” I found myself thinking about how I would need to explain that children were viewed very differently today than in Jesus' day. People might not hear Jesus anything like the people in the day of Mark's gospel without knowing that. But of course I had stopped listening at that point. I was so busy thinking about explaining what Jesus meant that I wasn't actually hearing him at all.

One of the great spiritual discoveries for me was learning the ancient practice of lectio divina, a prayerful reading of scripture that does not so much seek to understand it as to hear where and how it is speaking to me at that particular moment. It is so different from traditional Bible study or from methods of exegesis I learned in seminary to help me dig into a passage of scripture. Those have their place, but they also can sometimes encourage me to hurry to an understanding rather than simply to listen.

I read somewhere that the typical attention span of American adults is less than 30 seconds. That probably explains the way my mind can wander even in the midst of reading a passage from the Bible. But how are we to hear God speak to us if we cannot listen for more than 30 seconds without beginning to formulate our opinions and responses, or just letting our attention wander off somewhere else?

Sometimes the greatest spiritual gift I can receive is the ability to listen. That is why both lectio divina and contemplative prayer have been so helpful to me. (They were also something of a revelation to me in that I was unfamiliar with either a decade ago.) And my own spiritual life never gets so askew as when I am "too busy" for such practices, "too busy" to listen.

What is it that helps you to listen? What is it that keeps you from listening? Lord, help us to listen.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.