Lenten Listening

I talk for a living. I write some, too, but that’s just another way of talking. I also do some planning, of course – planning for the talking and the writing.  Mostly, when you see me, I talk – teaching Bible, in sermons, in prayers, in this blog.  When House United work takes me to seminaries, churches, or corporations, it’s usually to talk. I’m the Loudmouth at Large, the Holder Forth for Hire. Talking – audibly and on pages – is what I do.

Lent is a tough time for talkers. I love Edmund Morris’ Pullitzer-winning biography, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. A force of nature, our 26th president.  And the man could talk! His assistant, John Jay, once noticed that in a two-hour dinner party at the White House, guests offered 4.5 minutes of the conversation. Teddy handled the other 115.5. Don’t get me wrong: I would love to have been at that table! Marvelous mind, maybe more learned than any of our presidents, active, creative, and curious. But he did love to be heard. One of his daughters teased him for needing to be “the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.” Teddy talked. Lent must have been tough for him, too.

Talkers steal the show…but not in Lent. Lent, you see, is for listening – an extrovert’s nightmare.

Just before you introverts turn smug, though, let’s notice that listening alone will not satisfy Lent’s demand. The old adage says, “God gave you two ears and one mouth. Use proportionally.” But silence is not enough for Lent. The silent one, whether at a dinner party or a church meeting, is no better than the talkative one, as such. Listening is purposeful, or it’s not Lenten, so motive matters. Why are you listening? Are you silenced by fear? Or silently superior? These still serve the self, even if quietly, so neither is particularly Lenten.

Lent is for listening. It’s everyone’s nightmare, in a way. It humbles us. It de-centers us. When ashes are fixed on the flesh of our foreheads, we move momentarily from the center of the universe, so there’s space there –

for the One whose cross the ashes trace,
for the One Who was and is and ever will be,
for the others that One loves and the creation that One sang into being,
for all that is not us, for the still small voice we lean to hear.

 In Lent, we listen for a living, and that is hard. God help us all!