Listening

Lee Camp has been teaching our class this month. I hate to see him go--we change teachers every month.

He has been talking about the Rule of Benedict. It is hard for me to believe that my fellowship is so late in learning about spiritual people and topics that the world has known about for years. I actually had someone ask me last Sunday who Thomas Merton was. I am sorry he has not known him all these years.

Listening was the topic last Sunday and a very important one it is. Silence and solitude allow us to listen to the Spirit who may have been shouting at us for a long time, but we did not have ears to hear.

There are so many things to listen to these days which have no value morally or spiritually. If I see another person with that blue thing hanging on his ear, I think I am going to snatch it off. Think of the things he is missing--the perfect blue sky above, the conversation of his child hanging on his hand, the cries of help from so many around him, etc. I can't imagine filling my ear with music, no matter how grand, all the time. Time is too short and life is too precious. Is this a legitimate concern? Or am I just getting old and crochety?