On Saturday, the 13th of February, four days before the beginning of Lent, my friend Alan and I were talking on the phone about Christianity, Evangelical politics, humankind’s frail and flawed state, but on a lighter note the status of our beloved Chicago Cubs. Aside from the topic of baseball we were both tired of reading and talking about “bad news.”
Our stimulating conversation, however, led me to formulate a Lenten practice for 2021. I decided to commit to daily times, two fifteen-minute periods, of listening in silence. This, a risky tack, would be challenging to the doubting and questioning chatter I create. Though reflection comes naturally to me, I’m adept at filling the silence. I shape thoughts to fit my purposes instead of really listening. Persistence in silence, for comfortable and uncomfortable short periods, will be a stretch.
I’ve gorged and survived Fat Tuesday, embraced Ash Wednesday, and plunged ahead into the annual season of spiritual preparation for Easter, but I’ve done so with an exception. For me, giving something up, selective fasting, has always been a tolerated distraction from spiritual attentiveness rather than an inducement, its supposed intent. Therefore, this year my Lenten practice will not involve any of the formulaic fasting I’ve devised in the past, but will double-down on a disciplined effort to increase listening in silence.
I’ll light a large glass-enclosed votive candle each day of Lent to remind me of my commitment to live fully into listening, eschewing the jabbering of well-rehearsed doubts and questions about the presence or absence of the Holy One.
My plan gained traction when my friend and colleague, Gus, sent me the accompanying picture of a Barred Owl he’d taken. I was struck by the intense focus of the majestic owl’s eyes, the quest and hunger I saw in them as it perched on a fence-post in his family’s yard. Gus described watching the owl repeatedly dive into the snow but surface minus its sought-after meal. Undeterred, it would shake off the mantle of snow then return to its sentinel position to listen and silently wait.
Like the vigilant owl, I’m hungry this Lenten season, spiritually hungry. After lighting the candle this morning, I thought of Maya Angelou’s statement, “Listen to yourself, and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.”
As I repeated her words, thoughts of another, far less celebrated poet occurred to me. My maternal grandmother, Len Ofstie, a preacher’s wife, loved writing poetry, reading verse and rhyme. Though generations apart, she would have smiled and nodded in agreement with Ms. Angelou’s recommendation.
When I was a youngster, during summer visits to my grandparent’s home on Lotus Lake outside Excelsior, Minnesota, my grandmother would regale me with her latest poems and recite nursery rhymes to my infant brother and me.
The other day, February 17th, Ash Wednesday 2021, while looking again into the Barred Owl’s eyes, I recalled the English nursery rhyme, “A Wise Old Owl,” that she patiently helped me memorize:
A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?
My grandmother also loved the outdoors, it’s quiet stillness and beauty in equal measure. On late summer afternoons as dusk settled in we would often gather on their screened-in porch, look out over the lake, watch in silence, and listen for the sounds of nature. On one such occasion she leaned over and, placing her lips next to my small ear, whispered as if she and I were sharing a secret, “A Frenchman, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, declared that ‘nature never deceives us. It is we who deceive ourselves.’” I must have looked confused, then seeing my puzzled expression she continued to whisper, “We are listening for The Holy One.”
And so, as Lent proceeds this year with flickering candlelight, I embrace daily moments of listening in silence, practicing the vigilant patience of the Barred Owl, accompanied by two beloved poets, their encouraging words, and a wise old owl.
Barred owl photo courtesy of Gus
by 
Thank you for sharing these thoughts about listening. I had not thought about listening as a discipline, though I have worked to practice listening as a value. In addition to the two poets you share with us, I also thought of Mary Oliver’s poem “Praying” in which she says…”pay attention, then patch/a few words together and don’t try/to make them elaborate, this isn’t/a contest but the doorway/into thanks, and a silence in which/another voice may speak.”
Cindy,
Thank you for reading and commenting. Mary Oliver has a wonderful way with words and verse. My grandmother often criticized her own poetry, after a second or third reading, as too “gussied up.” Keeping it simple isn’t easy. I like your practice of “listening as a value.”
Roger
Listening. I love the sound of that. It feels like an elixir to the soul. What an amazing photo of the owl! His eyes look haunted, yearning, imploring. Your grandmother taught you a lot about listening, didn’t she? Was she the wise owl of your family? I’ll be interested in learning what you got out of this Lent season. Happy listening!
Jo Anne,
Thanks for reading and commenting. You capture in words what Gus did with his camera, and the owl gave us! She could listen and talk with equal skill, but the former impressed me the most.
Roger
I confess that I am not a good listener when it comes to myself and nature or myself and God. Most of my inspiration comes from listening to the sounds of the city and the sounds of other people, often other people in dire need. I am a good listener when it comes to other people’s voices, I hope. But last evening I enjoyed the discipline of my church’s monthly Taize service, which involves a lot of listening to chant, to Psalms, and to prayers. And following a spoken meditation there is a time of extended silence, but even then it is listening with a prompt.
Because the Psalmist says “May the mountains bring prosperity to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness,” I glance at the San Gabriel Mountains each morning to absorb their energy for the new day. (Psalm 72:3). But a mere glance would not serve the wise owl very well or wise Roger as together you practice your disciplines. I will learn from both of you and promise to become a better listener.
Bill,
I have doubts about whether we can be selectively good listeners. Sure, we close-off at times, but if we are attentive to ‘the sounds of the city and the sounds of other people,’ we/you are most likely good listeners across the board. Yes, the mountains bring us energy–something all of us need during these troubling times, and if not from surrounding mountains than from whatever lies before us to instill whatever energies are there to be tapped. I keep waiting for the wise owl to blink signifying that I get it, am okay, but all the owl does is hoot “not yet, keep trying!”
Roger
I love how you weave so beautifully together these pieces of you life: conversation with a dear old friend; your thoughts about how you will enter into a lenten practice this year; listening silently and lightening a candle; looking at another friend’s compelling photo of an owl; tying that to a poem by Maya Angelou, and a touching memory of your beloved grandmother whispering into your ear, “we are listening for the Holy One.” Such a gorgeous tale, full of grace and love. May you listen to the silence every day and feel god’s presence embrace you. Amen
Colette,
Thank you for reading and commenting–kind comments included! There’s a rich world ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered if we listen. Too often I’m tone deaf, preoccupied, or engaged in worldly awfulness and strife to listen–a work in progress–and when I do listen the reward surprises and comforts me. Maya Angelou’s words “…I’m trying…” always sustain me when hope and change [internal and external] seem elusive and beyond my grasp. Onward!
Roger