Generous Listening

(Photo by Martha Maloney)

Krista Tippett, interviewer for public radio’s On Being has been asking provocative questions of her guests over the years. Her concept of generous listening described in her recent book, Becoming Wise, keeps lingering with me.  There seems to be a deep desire rising in many of us to connect with persons on the margins of our everyday experiences… culturally, politically and in our dreaming. Currently our monastery campus is hosting, “Circles of Understanding” between our local Somali neighbors and interested people. Krista Tippett’s invitation to generous listening seems to describe exactly the qualities that might allow us to create an enhanced sense of somehow belonging to one another. She says, “Generous listening is powered by curiosity, a virtue we can invite and nurture in ourselves to render it instinctive. It involves a kind of vulnerability - a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. The listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other, and patiently summons one's own best self and one's own best words and questions.”

Each of us together is gradually finding ways to enhance our sense of belonging to those who once were strangers.  Their stories can teach us about their unique world and our common threads. According to Padraig O’Tuama, a poet, storyteller and theologian, “Creating a sense of belonging both creates and undoes us.” In this “belonging process,” who knows what careful questioning and wise language we may be learning?

Mary Rachel Kuebelbeck, OSB