LISTENING
The Art of Finding Your True Self.
‘Revelation usually begins……. by God’s revealing us to ourselves. Only then does God reveal the Divine self to us.’ (David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself)
Individualism, the guiding light prized by post-modernism and its sibling, personal autonomy promised their disciple’s unlimited progress. Seemingly a culture that advocated for the deification of the individual was to guarantee us all freedom, fulfilment, and happiness.
It should come as no surprise to us that our voyage has led us into the deep and cavernous recesses of a corporate mental health disorder called narcissism and is exemplified by our obsessing about personal identity, where ‘self’ is attributed an unquestionable iconic status. Just as narcissism affects the individual’s cognition, emotional regulation and behaviour, you don’t have to look far to discover the same signs of impairment in our collective psyche.
In our enlightened culture, truth is individual, it’s ‘my’ truth. In 2016, Post-truth was the declared Word of the Year by the Oxford University Press. They described it as an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. Seven years on, ‘feelings’ are most definitely the new truth. ‘Lived experience’ trumps facts, logic and reason. The malaise we are suffering manifests other symptoms - I am who I ‘feel’ I am. Our life’s guiding narrative is derived by listening exclusively to our internal voice. At its extreme this ideology is exemplified by the numerous videos posted by young girls identifying as cats on the latest of the toxic social media platforms – TikTok. Woe betides anyone who dares to question any claim to any felt identity even if it defies biological science let alone logic and reason.
To some degree this new era of listening to our inner selves is a pushback against centuries of a type of puritanical repression that sought to ignore and dismiss the need to learn to love ourselves and pay attention to our body, to its demands and rhythms. The art of listening to ourselves and learning to love ourselves that has now surfaced, is playing an important role in our becoming more fully human and is hugely beneficial.
However, increasingly, and worryingly, there is only one voice we are being encouraged to listen to, that which comes from within, the claims of the inner self. Culturally all truth is now anchored firmly in myself. ‘I AM WHO IAM’, once the exclusive claim of Yahweh, the God who transcends us and our material existence, the true I AM, has been usurped by one of the primary idols of our era, its name is Individualism. Idolatry has only one outcome – slavery. More about this on another occasion!
The overarching narrative of scripture is unquestionably counter cultural. Scripture is saturated with the notion of learning the art of listening not just to ourselves but to the transcendent - to God. Why? Because, fundamentally listening to a voice outside of our ‘self’ is the true path to emancipation. Knowing the truth and the accompanying freedom that is afforded by listening to a voice other than my own, is immeasurable. In his great little book, The Gift of Being Yourself, David Benner makes a profound observation in the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:7-30);
‘.. the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well, used to being an outcast to Jews, was astounded by how Jesus treated her, talking to her and even asking for something from her must have surprised her greatly. And still after He put His finger on her moral failure, the expected did not happen. He did not condemn her! He did not even tell her to go and sin no more. Instead, after revealing herself, He revealed Himself to her, disclosing His identity as the Messiah.
Revelation usually begins, as it did for this woman, by God’s revealing us to ourselves. Only then does God reveal the Divine self to us.’ (page 51)
The truth is we need some external help to fully know ourselves! The Samaritan woman’s willingness to learn to listen to a voice that transcended her own and that revealed the truth about her, was the route not just to her own liberation and transformation but that of those she shared her life with. Listening, as she did, invites us to relinquish, even renounce our will for that of another and as we respond in obedience, like the Samaritan woman, we become more fully human. In his Gospel John records her message to her fellow villagers, “Come see a man who knew about all the things I did, who knows me inside and out” (Message Translation). To be fully known and yet to be fully accepted for who we are is everyone’s longing, more than that, it is also completely liberating. Conversely, death’s all-consuming power lurks in the shadow of my failure to listen, its destructive power is unleashed by my unwillingness to respond to the ‘other’. My refusal to give myself, to renounce my will by heeding a voice other than my own can only result in my de-humanisation, I will be less than I was made to be.
St Benedict, the 6th century architect of monasticism had a profound effect on the chaotic world into which he was born. He developed a ‘Rule’ for living a balanced and fulfilling common life. An important part of this Rule included a requirement to listen- obsculta, a Latin word that means to listen to myself, to listen to others and to listen to God. Listening is more that an act of hearing connected to the dictates of my inner mantra, true listening in a Benedictine tradition involves listening to voices that transcend my own. This must involve listening to something that is disagreeable, even threatening. Failing to do this means we turn away from the ways both God and each other are trying to reach us. Sadly, often, we are unable to fully give ourselves to someone other, our ego is so powerful we are drawn back to self.
The apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Philippi writes his magical hymn of the birth, life and death of Christ and he points us to the ultimate human being.
‘And being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.’ (Philippians 2:8)
Christ in his human form gives himself wholly to someone other, he is unswervingly obedient even to the point of death. His birth, death and his life are the outcome of pure and holy listening. In his listening, Jesus makes a way for us, his birth, life and death enables us to live out the counter cultural narrative of the Gospel, that suggests that in losing yourself you find your true self.
Our glorious hope is that the call of Christ is an invitation to freedom and as we respond we will truly be finding ourselves, in a story that transcends our own. Our obedience is the door that unlocks our emancipation.
Prayer - Lord God, patient and steadfast you wait for us until we open to you. We wait for your word, help us to hear your voice. Speak and bring your Son, Jesus the word of peace. We wait for your word, Lord God, patient and steadfast.