The Challenge of Listening, Hearing and Connecting

I used to live in a small community that was strongly evangelical Christian. Whenever asked about my religion, I said I was a Christian Scientist. And usually the conversation went “thud.” It was like the atmosphere changed. There was a sudden coolness. A tight smile came across people’s faces. “Oh really?” they said. “Isn’t that some kind of cult?” Despite my denials of this misapprehension of my faith, the door of understanding was closed. So I rarely spoke about it.
One day, however, the father of my son’s best friend said to me, “Anna, what church do you go to? I have been watching you and wondering for weeks. I figure you are a thinker, so you can’t belong to a cult.” What was so interesting here was that, unbeknownst to me, he had been listening underneath my words. I then realized, with a pang, that I had not honored him the same way. I had pegged him as a rough-neck sports fan who went to an evangelical church. In neither asking, nor listening at a deeper level to him, my own inner door had been shut – while his was wide open. This was a very humbling experience for me and taught me to listen more rather than to judge. [Read the rest of this entry...]



