I have found myself thinking a lot about listening, and relationship lately, but these thoughts have tended to be separate from each other. Today’s reading helped me more clearly connect them in a theme of listening in a relationship of love. This comes to mind particularly when, in discussing Jesus’ healing. Rather than saying hear and speak, Jesus says be opened – talking about hearing and understanding. Many of us may have thought of this is we have ever been encouraged to listen for understanding rather than to respond. It makes me also think of how much preference is God’s not ours – God wants us, God talks to us, through nothing that we do. For example, the tribe chosen by God isn’t because of behavioral merit but because God prefers and loves them. In thinking about the underlying narrative across Old Testament readings of God’s abiding love for a people, and thinking about listening, I notice the deep connection between a love relationship and listening. I am reminded of a phrase my kids often hear from MiSTER B as he closes out songs – especially his “Good Morning Song” – to the Beehivers in his “Learning Hive”: “Remember, MiSTER B loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
With this relationship of love from God, I am again reminded of the teaching that we are made by love, for love, and to love. How much of God’s relationship with us is God wanting us to “hear my voice,” as the responsorial Psalm repeats, and how much of our relationship with God is being open to hearing God, with a real relationship being rooted in that listening. Even in the reading about Jesus’ healing today, the specific word said is not hear and speak, but ephphatha – be open (which also connects to understanding). It seems that actually listening, if done in the ephphatha way, is our proper loving response to the God who loves us – putting us in real relationship.
As I think about ways this takes place in everyday life, I am led to think about the Ecumenical Legislative Briefing Day happening on February 14th in Lincoln, Nebraska, as people gather from across the state and across denominations to learn about this year’s legislative session. It is a day of community and relationship, but particularly a day of listening. I love the way people are making time for this kind of listening, especially at critical junctures as questions about human dignity, rights, and democracy are discussed around the world and in the U.S. I ask myself how often I make the same kind of time for really listening – ephphatha listening – to God, and make sure I am aligning myself with God’s will as well as being open to God’s love in my life, and in my family and communities.
Laura Roost
Dr. Roost does research on care ethics in transitional justice, ethnicized/racialized violence, human rights, international law, African philosophy, and civic engagement/service learning in the classroom. Roost is a Resident Assistant Professor and Internship Director in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, and currently serves as the Faculty Associate for Academic Service Learning in the Center for Faculty Excellence. At the American Political Science Association (APSA), Roost has served on the executive council of the Political Science Education section, and on the board for the APSA Human Rights section. Roost earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with graduate specializations in Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs (Ph.D.), and Women’s & Gender Studies (M.A).