My husband and I have always loved learning about and exploring new places. We had heard wonderful things about the fine city of Seattle so, three years ago, we took a few days and went to see for ourselves. What we found was that Seattle is indeed a great city. It was a coffee lovers paradise! And, indeed, we are coffee enthusiasts. There was not a street corner without a coffee shop of some kind. It was awesome!
But like any city, Seattle also has its challenges. I remember being shaken by the large number of homeless people there. It was overwhelming and I struggled with knowing what to do with my feelings toward this heartbreaking scene. The young people hung together in small communities which was encouraging but the older homeless wandered alone on the streets. As we walked the city, I prayed that God would show me how to respond.
After walking a while, we ducked into a shopping mall to sit in the atrium, read and sip delicious coffee. My mind wandered to a book I had been reading earlier, Life Together in Christ, by Ruth Haley Barton. There, she explained about the power of listening to others. Too often in our culture it is believed that adding our “two cents” to someone else’s story might possibly be an encouragement to them. The book shared that interjecting one’s own experiences into someone else’s story could possibly have an adverse affect and cause a person to feel diminished. I was surprised by this and began to really think about how this might affect my future interactions with others.
As I sat and thought about this very powerful message, a homeless woman carrying several bags came and sat near me. She took out her newspaper and began to comment on the articles as if she was broadcasting the news. It was a little unnerving at first and everyone around her paid no attention. She just kept talking very loudly about things that did not make sense, mentioning Mao Tse Tung and Winston Churchill quite a bit during her discourse. It was very unsettling and I did not know what to do. Do I respond or do I pretend that I am not hearing her like everyone else? It just did not feel right to ignore her, so, I prayed. Then, I heard God speak, “Just look at her.” It wasn’t an audible voice but was spoken to my heart. I found myself thinking — Lord, I have managed to avoid her gaze in hopes that she would stop. This was a place of vulnerability to which I was very reluctant to travel. And God repeated… “Just look at her.” So, I did…right in the eyes. Her gaze was fleeting. She looked around as if there was a veil covering her eyes, but she often looked in my direction as if she knew I was watching. As she continued to talk about things that made absolutely no sense, I smiled and nodded my head as if I understood her, praying the entire time, “Oh, Lord, when will she stop?” Then, after about ten minutes of talking, she stopped as abruptly as she started. I was totally undone. I signaled my husband to walk with me so we could debrief this experience, asking for his response to what just occurred. He had no idea what I was talking about. At first, I thought he was joking with me. I wept when I realized that this moment was just for me. It was God’s response to my prayer. “Help me to know how to respond.”
I will probably never see that woman again, but God was doing something that day as I listened to her discourse. What she shared certainly did not make sense to me but the love of God was being expressed to her without my uttering a word. “Just look at her.”
How have you experienced the power of listening? What’s your story?
