What they taught us was a very simple exercise called the Wish List. Sharon had to verbalize something that she wished would happen in our relationship. I was supposed to listen carefully and, instead of reacting or becoming defensive, ask her questions about what she meant until I really understood it. Then I had to repeat the wish back to her in my own words and ask, “Is that what you meant?” When she agreed, “Yes, that is what I meant,” the round was over, and then it was my turn to do the same for her. It’s just a basic communication technique called reflective listening.

I recall that Wish List exercise being very uncomfortable for me. In fact, I couldn’t do really it. Sharon’s first wish was, “I wish that we — you and I and the kids — could spend more time together and do more things together as a family.” Instinctively, I reacted. I made some excuses for why I hadn’t been making time for our family to be together, and I tried to propose some quick-fix solutions. Then, when it was my turn to state a wish, mine was basically a retaliation. When the session was over, I felt very inadequate and embarassed. But it gave me an inclination that something was wrong, and as Sharon mentioned, it was shortly after that when things began to improve.

I was recently reading some of my old journals. Though our marriage was basically happy, I struggled a lot because of the dynamics that Joe mentioned. For the most part, I saw it as my fault that our communication wasn’t ideal(a habit of mine), and cried out to God to help me. It took a while for us to understand what was really going on between us. A major turning point came after we attended a training seminar for Marriage Savers several years ago(haha…we thought we were ready to teach others!). In the training, we did a listening exercise in which we each had a turn to verbalize something we wished we could see/or change in our spouse. Our spouse then was required to simply verbalize what he/she heard without judgment or interpretation. We stumbled with this, it was so new. But a few weeks later, I remember the very moment when Joe put this into practice in our relationship. I remember feeling loved as I had never been loved before. This was a major turning point. We could learn a lot from groups that have made the practice of listening a cornerstone for real ministry.

There’s another cultural reference that perhaps you didn’t get. “I triple-dog-dare you.” It comes from the movie A Christmas Story.

With regard to your first point: Don’t get me started. OK, you got me started. When one leader or a group of leaders believe it is their job to call meetings and set the agenda for a faith community, I think it is essential for them to provide opportunities for members to tell alternative stories, including ones that seem opposed to the community’s dominant story, and to listen carefully and validate those stories. If they fail to do so, they gradually lose the ability to see what God wants to do among them. I think that is what Bonhoeffer was describing when he said that not listen to one another eventually makes us deaf to God.

About your second point: This is what I’ve experienced. Whenever my wife brought up a difficult subject, I wrongly assumed that she wanted me to do something about it and fix the problem. So whenever she mentioned a problem, I felt burdened and tried to end the conversation as quickly as possible, which only made matters worse. My assumption that I was supposed to fix all the problems became a very serious barrier to listening. Where did I get that idea? Perhaps it came from misunderstandings about marriage and leadership. Somewhere along the way, I had picked up the idea that (a) the husband is always supposed to maintain a posture of strength and leadership over the wife, being something like a father figure, and (b) a leader is one who is always supposed to diagnose problems and prescribe solutions. The problem with that theology is simple: It doesn’t work! Gradually it dawned on me that my wife was not interested in sharing a home with a master-problem-solver. What she wanted and needed was a friend, someone to create a safe environment for her where she could simply be herself and express herself and say anything, even outrageous things, and be heard and accepted, not judged or corrected. Living with me year after year when I tried to be a master-problem-solver or master-thought-corrector must have been unbearable. It’s a miracle she didn’t leave me.

One thing I’ve observed about written communication is the value of questions. I’ve learned that if I don’t ask questions, I have no right to expect helpful responses. And if I ask too many questions, my thoughts become rhetorical. Sometimes rhetoric is powerful, such as in the last four chapters of Job where we find at least 77 questions– all with rather obvious answers such that no answer can be given.

So here is my attempt to listen to your article by reacting to your questions. By the way, I view dialogue as a sort of pinball machine. Someone presents an idea or concept and then various people react honestly. As the idea bounces around, we are all edified until the idea falls out the bottom of the pinball machine.

You asked some questions…

“Are you a good listener?”
> When I think of my teenage children, my answer is a resounding “no”! I think your suggestion is helpful– what do other people say? Throughout my life I’ve been told I am a very good listener, mainly because I had no voice to speak and rarely, if ever, spoke. One person got mad once and told me I had to at least say “hello” when walking by friends! But I consider myself in need of learning to really listen. I am finding that I need to “hear” the emotion in people’s words. Sometimes I ignore some words all-together and respond based on feelings. I have much to learn about listening. I now love to speak, in case you couldn’t tell by my 5 blogs :)

“Why do we stop being good listeners?”
> One reason I think is because we adults are told not to be emotional, and typically our churches have told us that emotions are bad. We’re told that anger is a sin, or that criticism is evil. I find such allegations unfounded in Scripture. Yes anger and criticism, and other emotions need to be checked from time to time.

“Does anyone have the right to impose that requirement on another person?”
> Another sobering point. I realize that just because I am comfortable airing my bleeding heart online, not everyone is. Many desire in person meetings. I wish I could oblige in-person meetings, but I’m so far away from nearly all of my old friends, and I’m hundreds of miles away from the people I really need to talk to.

“Isn’t it interesting how, when you read the Psalms, so many of these prayers are full of anger, vitriol and other unpleasant and raw emotion?”
> Yes! That is one reason I love reading “The Message” these days. I find that I cannot read the NIV without the words grating across my soul like a cheese grater. For several months last year I really hated reading the bible. But when I started reading The Message, I fell in love with Scripture once again. I found that my theology was like tinker-toys built upon specific phrases in the NIV. The Message shattered those weak constructs and the Spirit spoke God’s word like never before. Along with that, my emotions have started to grow back (after having been cut out of my by many life events). Someone recently blogged about an interesting observation: God is not a Christian. If we read the Scriptures and hear their tone and emotion, we find that God is very different from the type of person Christendom expects all of us to be. The Psalms are a great example. Galatians is another.

“Can’t you just hear my inner child crying out to be heard?”
> Yea. Well maybe. I’m trying to!

Also, my wife frequently tells me when I try to speak when she is talking: “I want you to listen to my problem, not solve it for me!” I realized that the problem isn’t the problem, but how she feels about it is the problem, and her solution is to voice her feelings. Once she feels that her feelings have been expressed and acknowledged, the actual problem is oftentimes resolved very easily.