LISTENING
These days we hear a lot about ‘listening
skills’. Many businesses
and offices encourage their employees to develop ‘listening
skills’. Listening to others
is much harder than we may think.
It is very easy to miss what another person is trying to say.
It may be because our mind is elsewhere.
Perhaps we are preoccupied with anxiety about someone who is close
to us. Perhaps we are expecting
a phone call or a ring at the door.
Perhaps we are bored or depressed – more concerned about
ourself than about whoever is speaking to us.
To be a good listener makes real demands on
us. We need to give our wholehearted
attention to whoever we are meant to be listening
to. We need also to be willing
to hear ‘home truths’ that may not be at all welcome.
We need to be patient and
not interrupt whoever is speaking – unlike most TV and radio
interviewers. And we need to
put our own concerns to one side. When someone is talking to us, we mustn’t
just be waiting for an opening to sound off about ‘when I had my
operation’ or ‘when my luggage got lost at the airport’.
Getting better at listening to other people can help us in another way
too. As all the shop windows
now remind us, Christmas is not far off.
Christmas is the time when God speaks to the world in a special
way. At the first Christmas,
God sent his Son Jesus, ‘the Word of God’, into our
world. It’s only too easy
to miss what Christmas is really all
about. It’s only too easy
to miss what God is tying to say to us.
In the Christ Child, God speaks to us his Word of
kindness. He tells us ‘I
am with you’. Am I
able to hear his Word?
Father Denys Lloyd
Parish Priest of the Parish of Our Lady and St Joseph,
Sheringham and
Cromer.
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THE HEART OF THE MATTER
We hear a lot these days about ‘hyper-active’
children. But children are not
the only ones who try to do too much. Very many of us find ourselves bound
to a kind of treadmill. So many
claims are made on us – work, parenthood, caring for elderly
relatives. The list appears to
be endless. We never seem to
stop.
It is very odd, but the advances of new technology do not
necessarily help. In fact, the
more wonderful the technology at our disposal, the more we find to
do. It is a kind of vicious
circle. And at work life for
many people seems to get more and more
impersonal. We may wonder who
really is in charge. Even in
the voluntary sector, there is often a complex network of committees –
so that deciding to make a comparatively small change uses up a vast amount
of time and energy.
Being too busy, getting caught up in
‘management-speak’, losing out on ordinary human relationships
– these are all symptoms of something seriously wrong in our
society. To put it rather bluntly,
we know we are meant to be persons and not
machines. Yet we find it very
difficult to break free from our circumstances.
This month, on September 8th, many Christians keep a Feast that
speaks very directly to our condition.
On September 8th, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians
and Anglicans celebrate the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. This day reminds us of
the importance of Mary. Twice
in the early Chapters of his Gospel, St Luke writes of how Mary ‘pondered
in her heart’ the amazing things that God was doing in her and
through her.
Seen in this way, Mary reminds us of the need to stop being so busy
and instead spend time
‘pondering’. Mary
calls us back from our hectic, superficial, over-active
lifestyle. By looking to her,
we can find how to get back in touch with ourselves again!
THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
The beginning of November is marked by the festivities we call
‘Hallow’en’.
Lots of witches and turnip masks!
We might well be forgiven for thinking
‘Hallowe’en’ is some sort of pagan
festival. But what
‘Hallowe’en’ really means is the
eve (or evening) before the Feast of All Saints (or, to use the old English
word, ‘All Hallows’), which the Church celebrates on November
1st.
So how do all the witches and other pagan trappings get brought
in? It is presumably because
on this night before the Feast of All Saints, there has always been a sense
that the veil between this world and the world beyond becomes particularly
thin. We sense especially at
this time our closeness to those who have died – the Saints, the ‘holy
ones’, all those who have hallowed God’s name and been made sharers
by God in the ‘Communion of Saints’, the
‘Community of All Hallows’.
Dressing up as witches and playing ‘spooky games’ may not be a
very good way of celebrating our closeness to those who have ‘passed
on’. But one can see how
it has happened. This month,
which begins with the Feast of All Saints, is traditionally the time when
we think especially of the departed – and of the mystery of
death. We have a kind of
instinct that this is the time of year for us to think with gratitude and
respect of those ‘on the other
side’. And we have a kind
of instinct too, that this is a good time for us to think about the ‘moment
of truth’ which all of us will face:
the moment of our own death.
How can we best prepare for that
moment? For each of us
the answer will be different. But
a very good starting point is simply to face up to the truth that I will
die. As
one of the characters in a novel by Iris Murdoch puts
it: ‘It’s acceptance
of death that alters the soul’.
‘THE EARTH IS THE
LORD’S…’
In the last couple of weeks, many of us will have been thanking
God for the harvest. Now we are
into October. But it is perhaps
not too late for us to spend a bit more time reflecting on the earth, the
natural world and all the good things it produces for us.
Of course, human effort – a lot of hard work – is needed if the
earth is going to feed us and sustain us.
But all the same, we need to recognise what a gift it is that
we have in the natural world and its
resources. The amazing processes
of the natural world invite our reverence and
respect. Today, people –
and by no means only religious people – are generally much more aware
of the responsibility we have for the natural world. We are responsible for
safeguarding and carefully husbanding the natural resources that we have
at our disposal.
In the Gospels, we hear how Jesus often pointed his followers to the
wonders of the natural world. In
his parables, he spoke of the seed growing secretly, so as at last to produce
a great crop. He called his friends to rejoice in the beauty of the lilies
of the field – more splendid than the glories of King Solomon!
For some people today, though, reverencing and respecting the natural world
as God’s gift to us is not enough.
They believe you can’t distinguish between God and the
natural world.
Some at least of those who go along with the so-called ‘New
Age’ outlook see ‘Mother Nature’ as
itself divine – even a kind of
goddess. This is of course
nothing more nor less than
paganism: men and women making
themselves the slaves of ‘nature’, instead of being nature’s
stewards and guardians. We must
never forget that only men and women have the unique dignity of being created
‘in the image and likeness’ of God.
Father Denys Lloyd
Parish Priest of the Parish of Our Lady and St Joseph,
Sheringham and Cromer
