What it Means to Listen

Jan 22

Written By

In an interview, Mother Theresa was asked about her prayer life. She told the reporter she prayed an hour she day. He said, ”Well, what do you say?” And she replied, “Mostly I just listen.” The very natural follow up question was, “What does GOD say????”

And she said, ”Mostly he just listens.”

This morning I was drinking my coffee during my early morning reflection time by the fire (invaluable), and I asked myself the question: What would I do if I didn’t have to DO the stuff I have to do? (In my case, run a business.)

And then I listened.

The thing about my early morning coffee/fire listening ritual is that I’m half listening for my own heart, and I’m also listening for a beautiful invitation from spirit. It’s half me and half other. It’s hard to explain, but I sometimes I think I need spirit to explain myself to me. There some kinds of prayer that is like launching a laundry list of complaints and requests. I think that is all well and good, but what is more powerful for me is the quiet, emptying kind of prayer.... And watching for what bubbles up.

Full disclosure, I’m an Enneagram 3, an achiever. If you're not into the Enneagram the takeaways are that 3s are motivated, ambitious, and driven… but sometimes they can be chameleons, and not true to their own hearts. Sometimes I can get carried away by what OTHER PEOPLE want and like, and its hard to even hear where I am in there. Because the call in my heart gets drowned out by what I think other people want. Or what I think I need to do to be successful. Because of all the “busy” that gets tangled in to an average hour/day/week. I can throw A LOT of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, to see what moves the needle…. But I’m guessing that most of that spaghetti is fluff and not substance.

So how do I get to the substance???

So that was the question. Like Mother Theresa, I listened. I tried to not think of shoulds and maybes, but instead watch for the things that bubbled up with some persistence. Here’s what I heard:

Long walks in the park. Work in my garden. Listen. Work on one particular back-burner painting project that I haven’t been able to fit in.

And here’s my very real question: why CAN'T I do those things? What is preventing me from an hour walk (which by any metric is a good idea)? What is preventing me from some time in the garden? Is it e-mails? TikTok? Seriously????

If I have access to phenomenal, cosmic, divine power (and I believe I do, see Mother Theresa story), why wouldn’t I spend a devoted amount of time trying to access it, in any imperfect way I can?

I think it’s a little like plugging in to charge up. When I plug my phone in, it sits there, inert. It doesn't look like anything’s happening, but I know that the power it is getting is what propels the whole, powerful machine. We can run on steam and 1% spirit battery power for a while, but eventually we need to get plugged in to the source.

Now, this is just ME, but I know instinctively that I can get plugged in to source by gardening, walking, and doing a completely private just-for-fun painting project.

Here's the question for you and for me: What if I don’t have to work for EVERYTHING? What if I don't have to hold EVERYTHING together?? What if I can do some things that restore my soul and trust that God will take care of the lose threads?

For me there's a reason why they call it a DISCIPLINE of spiritual practice. It’s discipline for me to not DO everything else. I want to DO the dishes and DO my work and DO all. The. Things.

To stop all the things that "must be done" and engage in a spiritual practice, which by its nature doesn’t result in “accomplishments” (that can be measured in the usual way), takes an IMMENSE effort of will for me.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you have a spiritual practice? How does it work for you? What spiritually replenishes you? Comment below!