Exploring the Future of Listening
8.7 Exploring Future Experiential Learning Activities for Listening to the Divine
I build on selected parts of Chapter Six on listening to the Divine to explore additional experiential learning activities.
Holy Listening
Reflecting on consolations at the end of the day is part of the Ignatian method of listening to the Divine described in Chapter Six. Some of these consolations are framed by researchers as expressions of gratitude.[1] I narrate a particular type of gratitude practice from Rachael Naomi Remen’s talk to health professionals on the Art of Living.[2] We can sometimes become so distracted and numbed by the pace and intensity of modern technological life in industrialized countries that we lose sight of life’s larger significance and meaning. Spirituality provides a portal to view and appreciate the significance and meaning of life. Remen’s gratitude practice focuses on the meaning and importance of our lives through a holy listening practice. Remen describes this spiritual listening practice as “looking for holy moments.”
Practicing Holy Listening
I paraphrase Remen’s instructions for holy listening.[3]
- Before bedtime, review the day backward from the present moment to the morning rising time.
- Ask three questions.
- For each question, begin with the present moment and review the day backward until some experience answers the question.
- Briefly describe the answer in a journal, then move to the next question.
- Again, review the day backward until an answer is found.
- The asking, reviewing, finding, and writing occurs three times, one for each question.
The three questions are:
- What surprised me today?
- What touched my heart today?
- What inspired me today?[4]
Remen has used this “listening to holy moments” as a gratitude practice in her workshops with medical doctors for many years. Medical students who practice holy listening often discover Divine refreshment among the hard realities of medical school. She finds that for seasoned doctors, the practice of holy listening develops capacities to see the sacred, the mystery, and the beauties of life as they unfold in ordinary moments of their daily practice. I invite you to discover greater meaning and purpose through holy listening to the everyday moments in your life.
Meditation as Listening to the Divine
There are many resources on meditation that could be used to inform our listening. An Amazon book search on March 27, 2023, using the keyword “meditation,” shows 60,000 results that could potentially be harvested for listening insights. I do not attempt to do so here, but perhaps someone else might.[5] Instead, I write from what I’ve read and have been taught by my teachers on meditation. I hope these mediation resources serve as entry points into listening to the Divine.
Marcia Nelson’s Come and Sit describes meditation from the perspective of several well-established meditation traditions: Christian Centering, Zen Buddhist and Tibetan Buddhist meditation, and Hindu, Sufi, and Judaic forms of meditation.[6] I recommend Goleman and Davidson’s Altered Traits [7] for those who desire a more scientific view of meditation, and Stephan Schwartz’s audio Meditation for Modern Minds [8]
Additional Resources for Listening to the Divine
In addition to the methods of listening to the Divine covered in Chapter Six, there are many other methods for listening to the Divine that I introduce in the Listening to the SONG of Life course through home study[9] resources, and through class activities and discussions. Some of these additional ways to listen to the Divine are as follows. Gabrielle Roth provides instructions for embodied listening to the Divine as a dance that she calls “dancing the five rhythms” of flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and silence.[10] Robert Gass and Kathleen Brehony provide another embodied way of listening to the Divine through chanting from the world’s religious and spiritual traditions and faiths.[11] Another way to listen to the Divine is to practice chanting an elongated hum (like a bee buzzing) while exhaling with closed lips.[12]
I find two other resources helpful in learning how to listen to the Divine. Medical doctor and psychologist Robert Walsh spent a lifetime studying the world’s religious and spiritual traditions and faiths. He brings together what he considers the essential spirituality practices in Essential Spirituality.[13] Matthew Fox explores spirituality’s delightful, playful, and mystical side in his classic, WHEE! We, Wee All the Way Home.[14]
I end this section on listening to the Divine by recommending Kay Lindahl’s The Sacred Art of Listening.[15] Lindahl founded the Alliance for Spiritual Community and the Listening Center before the turn of the millennium.[16] She is still active in these spirit-filled organizations over twenty years later. Lindahl’s creative writing process provides a model of the sacred art of listening. She describes her writing process as “. . . inspiration, reflection, and meditation.”[17] Posing a question before her daily practice of centering prayer and then again before her daily run, she allows ideas to percolate during the day. Sitting at the computer the next day, she lets the ideas flow. On the third day, she reviews the work to see if any changes are needed. In this creative writing process, Lindahl embodies the sacred art of listening. Her descriptions and reflections on the sacred art of listening evolve from this creative writing process of listening to the Divine.
Lindahl’s book holds forty reflections about the sacred art of listening. Each reflection is accompanied by beautiful mandala-like artwork by Amy Schnapper as a visual meditation alongside the text. Some of the forty reflection topics are qualities of deep listening, using silence, developing communion, enacting rituals, cultivating presence, creating harmony, slowing down, and contemplative prayer. These reflections, when viewed as listening to the Divine, have the potential to “. . . create more peace, harmony, and love in your life and the world.” [18] For those who desire an extended immersion into listening to the Divine, I recommend meditating on one reflection per week, allowing the practice to organically permeate one’s life before moving to the next listening reflection.[19]
- Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough. The Psychology of Gratitude (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). ↵
- Rachel Naomi Remen, "The Art of Living Every Minute of Your Life," University of California Television. Recorded on 3/20/2008 [Show ID: 14533]. https://www.youtube.com/watch. ↵
- Remen, "The Art of Living Every Minute of Your Life." ↵
- Ibid. ↵
- My point is that there are many resources available on the topic of meditation, and a perusal of your own Amazon search (or AI, or Google Scholar search) for "meditation" or "how to meditate" will show that some of these titles are related to listening to the Divine. ↵
- Marcia Z. Nelson, Come and Sit: A Week Inside Meditation Centers (Woodstock: SkyLight Paths, 2013). An internet search using the keywords for these meditation traditions will show many resources with which to experiment. ↵
- Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Mediation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body (New York City: Avery, 2018). ↵
- Schwartz's audio contains four parts, an introduction, the why and how of meditation, a guided track, and a drone track, https://www.nemoseen.com/meditation-for-modern-minds/. ↵
- I prefer "home study" to "homework" due to the often negative conditioning associated with the term homework in the U.S. public education system. ↵
- Gabrielle Roth, Sweat Your Prayers: The Five Rhythms of the Soul--Movement as Spiritual Practice, (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee, 1998). These five movements form a "wave" that begins with the slow rhythmic movement of flowing, then builds to staccato, becomes the wild abandon of chaos, settles into a playful lyrical rhythm, and finally ends in silence and stillness. Roth compares this wave of motion to many aspects of daily life. I emphasize that the five rhythms are bodily expressions of the Divine. We can discover which mode we embody in any given moment through listening and transform our lives from one rhythm to another through conscious choice. ↵
- Robert Gass and Kathleen A. Brehony, Chanting: Discovering Spirit in Sound (New York: Broadway Books, 1999). The authors describe many physiological and psychological benefits of chanting and provide instructions for different kinds of chanting techniques. Several of the chants have an explicit spiritual or Divine theme. ↵
- Jonathan Goldman and Andi Goldman, The Humming Effect: Sound Healing for Health and Happiness (Fairfield: Healing Arts Press, 2017). ↵
- Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1999). The seven spiritual practices are transforming motivation, cultivating emotional wisdom, living ethically, concentrating and calming the mind, awakening spiritual vision, cultivating spiritual intelligence, and expressing Spirit in action. ↵
- Matthew Fox, WHEE! We, wee All the Way Home (Minneapolis: Consortium, 1976). The play on words in the tile can be translated as "WHEE," the exciting and fun part of spirituality, "We," the interrelational part of spirituality, and "wee," the dragons or obstacles that inhibit spiritual growth and development. I appreciate his distinction between the quick-fix techniques that provide a short-term feeling of being "high" and the more stable and reliable kinds of spiritual practices that lead to an abiding sense of awe, wonder, joy, and peace. ↵
- Kay Lindahl, The Sacred Art of Listening: Forty Reflections for Cultivating a Spiritual Practice (Woodstock: SkyLight Paths, 2001). ↵
- Lindahl describes the Alliance for Spiritual Community as ". . . a grassroots interfaith organization . . . to promote mutual understanding and respect among people of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds" and the Listening Center as a place, "where people learn the sacred art that is listening . . . [through] workshops, retreats, and classes around the world . . . to provide men and women with an experience of the value and importance of deep listening . . . [that] cultivates a spiritual practice." ↵
- Lindahl, The Sacred Art of Listening, 136. ↵
- Lindahl, The Sacred Art of Listening, 3. ↵
- Lindahl's second book continues the theme of the sacred art of listening and includes additional listening practices. Kay Lindahl, Practicing the Sacred Art of Listening: A Guide to Enrich Your Relationships and Kindle Your Spiritual Life (Woodstock: SkyLight Paths, 2003). ↵