How did they tell the story later, Peter, James and John, I wonder, Good Jewish men, they’d been raised on the story from centuries earlier about Moses going to a mountaintop and hearing Yahweh himself establishing his covenant with Israel.
There the three humble fishermen were, on another mountaintop when they witnessed Jesus, joined by Moses and Elijah, transfigured in divine light. They heard God’s voice from a cloud saying “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”
I wonder if Peter described the experience by pointing out that he was focusing on the mundane, suggesting that he and the guys could put up tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Then God shushed him — Matthew’s Gospel says “while he was speaking” is when the voice of God overwhelmed Peter’s well-intentioned chatter.
We only heard that portion of the mountaintop experience in the reading on the Second Sunday of Lent, but there was so much more for the disciples to absorb that day, with Jesus telling them about the suffering and death ahead for him.
The concept of listening had been on my mind so that’s the focus I took away from Mass that day. Wow, Peter, just think what happened when you went silent. Did the Aramaic language have a word more profound than awesome when you fellows relived the incident in later years?
It so happened that that particular Mass wasn’t a great opportunity to listen or absorb much of God’s word because of the distraction of a child who ran about 20 laps around the baptismal font during the consecration while his parents sat and watched. Since the font is at the front of the church, the rest of us were trapped into doing the same. But that’s fodder for another column. Any input is welcome.
Thinking of Peter, I did my best to shush myself when I visited a friend after Mass to bring communion. It’s our weekly time together during which I invariably blather relentlessly, trying to bring the liturgy, sightings of people she’d know and anecdotes from the week with me as entertainment in the quiet afternoon at the care home. Truth is, clean and bright though her environment is, it’s a fate I dread for my future. When I chatter away it’s my version of the song: “Whenever I feel afraid … I whistle a happy tune so no one ever knows I’m afraid.”
Anyway, it was a wonderful experience to hear how much my friend has to say, if I just pause and give her a chance. She’s well-read and widely traveled and witty. I am the beneficiary of her viewpoint. And I hope her children and grandchildren absorb it while they can.
Engaging in a deliberate and focused form of listening reminded me of an ongoing teasing point in my family. Living far apart and not being fluent in texting, we in the older generation rely on phone calls with the teenagers. Lots of questions, brief answers. A complaint to the parental generation in the middle brought the enlightening answer: “But Mom, they never give me a chance to talk!” We’re working on our skills at pausing!
Listening is an act of love we can bestow on family and friends. That same old story for the umpteenth time? Oh, relax, and let it roll, it’s his triumph, or embarrassment or punchline; he’s defining himself every time he tells it. Another rerun of lingering hurt or anger after all these years? Well, let the words flush the poison out … again.
Are you ever so wound up in the lively debate that you have to finish the other guy’s sentence — every time, again and again? Did you ever notice how people get bossier and more opinionated as they age? Have you witnessed that lineup on the other side of the conversation, composing profound remarks in their own heads, while letting your soundtrack play out. At the end of a gathering, are you remembering what the other folks had to tell you, or just relishing what a marvelous load of wit or wisdom you just dumped on others?
Silence isn’t necessarily a void
If someone just doesn’t feel like talking, it’s not rejection for the willing listener. And silence isn’t necessarily an emptiness requiring filling.
“If people don’t want to talk, leave them alone,” is what Father Jack Ryan told chaplains in training when he headed the diocesan hospital ministry.
It wasn’t so unusual to flick on the “chatter” button for a visit to someone sick or hospitalized. But “that’s not always what a person needs or wants,” advised Father Ryan. The skill of listening and of discerning when it’s best to be compassionately quiet is a lesson that chaplains learn, one that friends could emulate.
Another situation when the chatter button gets switched on is at funerals. “People insist on giving their own version of theology” trying to console mourners, said the priest. Platitudes and well-meant predictions about all will be well in heaven and on earth “can be the last thing anyone needs to hear. When someone tells you ‘I know how you feel’ it may be upsetting rather than soothing. No, you don’t know. I tell families to hear the good intentions,” said Father Ryan.
Priests practice the fine art of listening at its best in the sacrament of penance. “People need to tell someone what they did. Once they do, it’s lifted from them,” said Ryan, pastor of the Newman Center at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Sometime during Lent, at a parish near you, there will be a penance service with an array of priests offering the opportunity of that blessed relief of knowing God’s there, listening to you through the priest.
One of my favorite things about the Lenten liturgies is that we prepare to hear the Gospel reading by singing an acclamation more subdued than the usual alleluia.
My favorite acclamation is this one: “We have stilled our hearts, and now we listen to your word.” I’ve carried it around for years as a prayer for all seasons.
As exciting as it is to imagine being one of the disciples who witnessed the Transfiguration and heard the thundering voice from a cloud, it’s not my favorite Bible passage about listening.
For years, and during bad, sad times when I doubted God’s voice was even there to be heard, I had a bookmark in an old Bible at the 1st Book of Kings, chapter 19. It’s near the end of the strife-filled life of the prophet Elijah who sought to escape the tension of encounters with King Ahab and Jezebel and unrepentant, hardheaded Israelites.
It takes place on yet another mountain top. It brings tears to my eyes every time because I can imagine myself there:
“Then the Lord said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, the Lord will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord — but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake — but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire — but the Lord was not in the fire.
“After the fire, a light silent sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, why are you here, Elijah?”
A reminder to listen. During Lent. For a lifetime.
