The Rev. Carolyn Schmidt will be here at Holy Communion to celebrate and preach this Sunday. I trust you'll give her a warm welcome.
God willing I will be returning from sailing in the Apostle Islands on Sunday evening. I'll be back next Wednesday for the job search training, which, by the way, has been going well. A small but engaged group, and one person got a job already! Don't think we can take much credit but still a nice sign of hope.
Read and Feed also went well last Thursday. Again a small but appreciative group. Thanks to everyone who helped.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Loving our neighbor well
So how do we go about actually doing it? How do we do it well and keep getting better at it? In order to love well it seems to me we need three things. (Which is appropriate for a Trinitarian church.) We need the right attitudes within ourselves. We need skill. And we need practices that improve our attitudes, increase our skills, and actually convey love to others.
One of the essential, foundational skills for loving well is listening. It is essential for two reasons. First listening in and of itself often helps people. It may in fact do more for the person than anything else we could do. Listening is a rare gift. To listen well requires focusing on the other with a genuine desire to know. Rather few people can actually drop their own agenda, suppress their desire to make wise pronouncements or share their own experiences, and just listen. Consequently there is a huge hunger among people simply to be heard.
Second, listening is essential because each neighbor is different. Loving our neighbor well requires responding wisely to that particular neighbor’s needs or joys. If you wanted to do something really nice for my wife, or for Rob, you might give them a really good role in a play. Me, not so much. To give me an outstanding gift you would have to provide a day of sailing—or a week. My cousin, although he likes sailing all right, would be much happier to have a carbon fiber bicycle.
These examples of course are more at the level of desire than need, but they serve to make the point. In order to respond to someone in love, you need to listen long enough and well enough to understand what would be the most loving thing to do for them.
Love well.
One of the essential, foundational skills for loving well is listening. It is essential for two reasons. First listening in and of itself often helps people. It may in fact do more for the person than anything else we could do. Listening is a rare gift. To listen well requires focusing on the other with a genuine desire to know. Rather few people can actually drop their own agenda, suppress their desire to make wise pronouncements or share their own experiences, and just listen. Consequently there is a huge hunger among people simply to be heard.
Second, listening is essential because each neighbor is different. Loving our neighbor well requires responding wisely to that particular neighbor’s needs or joys. If you wanted to do something really nice for my wife, or for Rob, you might give them a really good role in a play. Me, not so much. To give me an outstanding gift you would have to provide a day of sailing—or a week. My cousin, although he likes sailing all right, would be much happier to have a carbon fiber bicycle.
These examples of course are more at the level of desire than need, but they serve to make the point. In order to respond to someone in love, you need to listen long enough and well enough to understand what would be the most loving thing to do for them.
Love well.
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