This week’s Advent theme: Hearing God in the Silence
Today’s scripture: Luke 19:41-44 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (John Seksay):
How easy is it to listen? I do know that my hearing isn’t quite as sharp as it once was, and it’s certainly nothing like my partner Greg. He grew up on a farm and can still hear a gnat land in the next room. So I know his ears are always pulling in more information than mine. He’s sensitive to loud, noisy environments, whether it is the annoying power tools of maintenance crews or praise music played loudly to generate enthusiasm. He can literally get a headache from noise in environments I would find tolerable. For him the pleasure of any experience has a link to its loudness. Needless to say, he is a light sleeper who is easily awakened.
Since Greg works nights, I try to regulate my activities to keep our home quiet in the mornings. As the years have passed, the sound of me pouring a cup of coffee in the kitchen no longer disturbs him. I can read the paper and putter at my desk. His hearing is still sensitive, but some modest noises have been assigned to a category of “normal” that no longer causes him to be startled or disturbed. That’s because our minds are constantly filtering what the senses provide, separating what needs attention from what doesn’t. So listening isn’t just about hearing, it’s about the mind knowing what is important out of all the jumbled information being sensed. Beyond the physical inner ear is a critically important, non-physical inner ear.
The most important feature for listening is to filter out the distractions. Surely a well-rested, alert person isn’t easily distracted. But distraction has been the main tool of magicians, con artists, and pickpockets since these activities became part of the human experience. It is commonly used in the arts, medicine, and warfare. It is the root cause of some diseases, like Obsessive Compulsive Disorders. Apparently being focused isn’t automatic; it’s something we have to work at constantly.
We even use a positive-sounding term to describe some distractions: multitasking. I envision a person who is running on a treadmill and has gotten up to a steady pace, in equilibrium with the motion of the world under his feet. He has become interested in reading a news story flashing across the TV screens in front of him. So I toss him three balls to juggle and go to get the first aid kit.
On such a small scale I might find the situation comical, as long as his injuries are mostly to his dignity. But sometimes the outcome isn’t so small.
Two weeks before her wedding, my daughter Deborah encountered a stoppage in traffic on I-465 as she was driving home. She had brought her car to a full stop a safe distance from the line of traffic in front of her. The driver of the Mack truck behind her wasn’t on task; Deborah was in the first of the 3 vehicles smashed into each other like an accordion. Deborah valiantly worked through her pain and suffering to still get through the wedding as best she could with all the grace and joy she could muster. There were no traditional wedding dances because the act of dancing would have been too painful. I was proud of the strength she showed and how her new husband, family, and friends rallied around her to help her fulfill this dream. But what would that day have been like if Deborah had not survived that moment of someone else’s distraction? Such a delicate line between a wedding and a funeral!
This is the feeling of anguish I sense in today’s reading. The time of the Messiah, the fulfillment of the law, has come to Israel! But the chosen people of God are too distracted to step on the brakes. There are cultural standards, political concerns, traditions to defend — an endless, deafening clamor of conflicting purposes — and the Messiah knows he will be thrown under the wheels of the social juggernaut bearing down on Jerusalem, the “Dwelling of Peace.” Who among us would have the faith and courage to carry on undistracted?
Thought for the day: Lord, help my spiritual inner ear to silence the distractions of an ever-noisier world and give Your voice in my heart the priority it deserves!
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.
