He was talking, but I couldn’t hear him for the light. 
That’s right -- for the light. A big window behind him turned him into a silhouette, a black cardboard cut-out. I could hear his voice, but I couldn’t see his mouth, his eyes, his face. And so I missed a lot of what he was saying.
Listening doesn’t depend only on ears. Granted, my ears are not what they used to be. (Nothing about me is what it used to be.) A few years ago, I got hearing aids. They help -- if I remember to wear them. 
Rather, listening is a multi-sensory experience. I need to supplement the sounds of speech with other clues. The look on a person’s face. The twinkle in her eyes. What he does with his hands, how she holds her shoulders. 

Means of communicating
Students of communication claim that less than 10 per cent of a message comes through the actual words used. Another 40 per cent or so comes from the voice -- its tone, its pitch, its melody or dissonance. The remaining 50 per cent comes from non-verbal clues, what we commonly call body language. 
That’s why a face-to-face contact is always more persuasive than an e-mail or a text message; why a phone call can resolve differences that even the most carefully crafted letters seem to exacerbate; why television can sell useless products more effectively than radio or print. 
We are whole body creatures. We communicate with our whole bodies. We listen with our whole bodies. 
And perhaps with more than our physical bodies. 
I have only twice seen a person’s aura. But that’s enough to convince me that humans do radiate something. Even if I can neither define nor measure that emanation, I’m sure it influences me. 

Those inaudible voices
Listening is a skill. It needs to be practised, like any other skill.
In a workshop on congregational renewal, Bruce Sanguin suggested that the first thing a congregation needs to do is to learn to listen to each other. Not to offer answers. Or judgement. But to listen. 
Sanguin suggested that, instead of seizing a silence to insert my own words of wisdom, I should first summarize what I heard the other saying. Partly to be sure I heard them right. Partly to reassure them I really had been listening.
Because, honestly, sometimes I haven’t been. I have merely waited for a break in the flow of words so that I can offer my own view. Or rebuttal. Or, I regret, a vaguely related joke.
Listening is not egocentric. I need to set aside my own agendas.
I wonder what would happen if we really learned to listen to other humans. And beyond humans. If we unplugged our earbuds, if we turned off our cell phones, could we hear the inaudible voices of trees, flowers, and grasses? Could we hear the earth through the soles of our feet? Could we hear the atmosphere with our noses?
Perhaps, if we emptied our minds of our incessant busy-ness, we might even be able to listen to that still small voice beyond nature, within nature, that some of us call God. Instead of trying to tell God what we think God needs to know, could we hear something we didn’t know was there? 
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Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
        To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN

On the subject of talking to toads -- or, more accurately, of talking in general -- Don Schau wrote: “Thanks for provoking some thought on passing on wisdom through written and oral history. While there are some obvious advantages to written history I think it also has some disadvantages. In particular, once written it seems to be set in stone. Even though the words may mean something different to a later age, we still tend to read them literally. I’m not suggesting we stop writing things down. Only that we need to read critically things written in a different time.”

Dale Perkins referred to “a book I'm now reading - Robin Meyers ‘The Underground Church, reclaiming the subversive way of Jesus’  I think it's terrific.  One point he's raised is how important poets are for interpreting the essence of life, and especially the Biblical narratives.  Meyers quite rightly downplays the importance of theological, academic writings, and listens to what the poets are saying --  he quotes Crossan - ‘It is only the poets who know that metaphor is destiny and that literalism has sapped our metaphorical imagination.’ Meyers loves the poets and makes the claim that ‘without them the world becomes a benign parade of disconnected and meaningless objects and events that we process but do not reflect on.’ ... and, ‘without poets, language becomes a bag of Snap-on tools. Everything reads like a recipe or an owner's manual. Life is lived entirely in prose, which is, after all, the root of the words prosaic.’ 
“I've decided whenever I'm given an opportunity to lead a worship service, I will invite a poet to speak and read from her/his material. My theological studies have almost destroyed that part of my brain/heart which I really need if I intend to convey meaning to others. Story-telling comes close, but poems really ground me in that other realm. (That's why, incidentally, that Trump would make a lousy President.) 
“I went back to those sections of the book after reading about Oliver's poem - Toad - in your column. Maybe that's why I love Mary Oliver's stuff so much.”

Cliff Boldt hs a knack for seeing a different viewpoint: “I wonder if that toad worried about that poor two-legged creature making those funny sounds that didn't make any sense to it?”
Beside, Cliff wondered, how did Mary Oliver know “It was a ‘he’? I was taught how to sex chicks, but never toads. Besides, you have to kiss a lot of toads before you find the prince.”

On the subject of language, Wayne Irwin wrote, “Many years ago I was on a tour in Israel and went out for an early morning walk in the region east of the old city which would have been the Bethany of biblical times. And I heard a baby crying in one of the houses I was passing. My thought...that has remained with me since...the cry of a baby sounds exactly the same in Hebrew as it does in English!”

Charles Hill offered “An Addendum! You are writing from the male viewpoint. Men rarely identify feelings. We have a ‘logical’ reason for everything we say or do. I work with sex offenders. I believe that most of the males in my therapy group wouldn't recognize or admit to a feeling if it slapped them in the face. Feelings are stolen from men by societal pressures for rough contact sports in which you have to be willing to hurt somebody or be hurt, military service where you have to be willing to kill some stranger without sorrow, and spankings with the warning that, if you cry, you'll get more. 
“I also believe that females have historically used feelings more than ‘thinking/logic’ to make important decisions. That is, however, changing very rapidly and is less true than 15-20 years ago. Before I incur the wrath of your female readers, however, I didn't say that women don't think. Until recently, even in marriages, there was a price to pay if they thought through a problem and then disagreed with a husband or male employer.”

Isabel Gibson had a different perspective about feelings: “I'm not crazy about toads, although talking to something not quite inert but that can't talk back does have some appeal.
“As for talking about feelings, I often prefer to write about them, but to the same effect of changing open wounds to something less nasty. Or -- more happily -- of changing evanescent moments of joy into something I can experience again and again. Anais Nin said, ‘We write to taste life twice’."

I would normally have cut off comment about how one choose to die -- in company or alone -- but the subject seems to have touched something deep, and the letters keep coming. 
Jack Dreidger wrote, “My wife definitely wanted to die alone. She had health problems for more than thirty years and was often hospitalized for varying lengths of time. Her health continued to decline until she finally died. 
“The day she died went something as follows:
“I arrived at the hospital around 4 p.m. when my wife told me not to leave her beside. I promised her I would stay with her. When it got close to supper time, I told my wife I would quickly eat supper at a cafe and come right back, which I did. My daughter joined us when she got off work. I was sitting at my wife’s right and daughter sat at my wife’s left holding my wife’s hand.
“We were silent. At one point my wife squeezed my hand as hard as she could. 
“Around 10 p.m. my wife told us we may as well go home. There was really no need for us to stay. I said to myself, ‘Oh yes, Irene. I know you want to die alone.’ 
“My daughter and I left. Around 6 a.m. my daughter phoned the hospital and asked about her Mom. The nurse returned to tell my daughter that her mother had unexpectedly died.
“I was not the least bit surprised. I KNEW she would die when she was alone because that was her wish.”

Alison Playfair wanted to respond to Peter Scott's letter, which said, “The corollary is let them die when they choose as well. I realise that the church and the medical profession have resisted that thought with all their might".  
Alison noted, “While that may be true of some churches and some medical professionals,  I would like to say that as a  member and now a Minister with the United Church,  I have always advocated for a person's right to choose -- in life and death.  I have great passion for life and support choices that are 'life giving' and sometimes that means choosing to die on one's own terms. It is up to loved ones, the medical system and yes, the church, to give each individual the best possible care as long as is desirable and possible, but it is also up to all of us to respect the dignity and wishes of our loved ones even unto death and beyond.”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

I looked at the paraphrases I had previously written for Psalm 32, and didn’t feel satisfied with them. Like most of my earlier paraphrases, they visualized the psalm’s message in purely human terms. This time, I wondered how a river might express the psalmist’s intent. (A brief note -- in this paraphrase, I have not attempted to parallel the verse structure of the original.) 

I am a river; you cannot drink my water. 
I wish you could. 
While I ran silently down to the sea, humans and their machines dug mines into my hillsides. Now toxic metals leach into my current.
While I ran silently down to the sea, corporations built pulp mills, and discharged their effluents into my flow. 
While I ran silently down to the sea, acid rain fell from the skies and changed my chemical composition. Trout no longer leap from my pools; salmon no longer spawn in my gravel beds. 
I wish some external power existed, that could flush me clean, that could banish the poisons I carry, that could render me pure again. 
I have wisdom that I could have imparted to you, O humankind, O human-unkind. 
There is no “away” for your wastes to run away to. Day and night, your successes damaged me; now your short-sighted achievements harm you too. 
You cannot drink my water. 
If I could be pure again, we could all jump for joy. 

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah – the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Alan Reynold's weekly musings, punningly titled “Reynolds Rap,” write reynoldsrap@shaw.ca
Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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