Recently I have been re-reading and re-savoring the Journal of John Woolman (Gentle Reader I invite you to seek out this wonder-full journal and I invite you to read and savor its contents). For those who are familiar with Woolman’s story there is a well-known scene which takes place in an Indian village in Pennsylvania. John Woolman was a Quaker. During a religious meeting in the village Woolman rose to pray. As Woolman prayed an interpreter began to translate his words into the Native language. The Chief, Papunehang, motioned to the interpreter to cease translating. After the meeting the Chief approached Woolman and through the interpreter said that even though he did not understand the English words that ‘I love where words come from.’
Perhaps if I-You-We would develop the art of listening which the Chief alluded to then I-You-We might find a pathway to understanding searching conversations and to find a pathway to deep prayer and to find a pathway to what Quakers call ‘Concerns.’
For more than twenty years I have relished searching conversations with my friend, Tamyra. We would literally sit for hours and allow our searching to guide our conversation. We would, at times, find ourselves saying things that astonished us. At other times what we came to call ‘throw away lines’ would open a pathway to a deeper search.
We gave one another a gift of listening – a pathway to clarity often opened before us as we listened rooted in curiosity. At times I would find myself ranting against ‘them’ and because of Tamyra’s deep listening I began to realize that I was actually describing myself; ‘them’ became ‘me.’ When this insight occurred to me I was reduced to silence. ‘Silence.’ During our long searching conversations we savored the silence. We did not feel a need to fill the silence with ‘noise.’ We consciously strove to hold Greenleaf’s challenging question: ‘When you speak, how will your words improve on the silence?’
I have also had a different experience (I also believe, Gentle Reader, that you, too, have had the following experience). I have sought to speak to a person about something that was burning me from within and I wished to share it so the listener might also feel my burning, my pain, my wound. As I shared my burning I came to realize that the other was not ‘present’ with me. The person was not an evil person. The person was not a cruel person. The person was not able to embrace me nor my ‘Concern.’ I left the experience, not angry, but sad. The experience also helped me remember when I was such a listener and this realization added to my sadness.
Then, of course, there is the listener who listens in order to give his/her own opinion or listens in order to defend or in order to refute or in order to provide a solution. Listening with undefended receptivity in order to understand and in order to search together is a challenge – for me and I assume, Gentle Reader, for you too at times.
This morning I am remember and relishing the deep searching conversations that I have been able to experience. I am also, once again, recommitting myself to strive to be a person who seeks to listen with undefended searching receptivity and to become aware of the pathways that open when I-We listen in this way.
Searcher-Seeker 