Had some ideas about listening over the weekend:  the necessity of it, as we enter a time in history when conventional religions and institutional frameworks may not be able to provide either security or coherence about human life, death and how we are to live.  We’re in a time where things-as-we-knew-them are disappearing.  Our world is being undermined due to economic, environmental and ethical collapse.  Atrocities, war, genocide have metastasized over the planet.

Exoteric, fundamentalist and dogmatic religions offer people a sense of security through belief systems and community.  But what happens when religions become corrupted by hatred, literalism, exclusion, or scandal?  Then we realize that they are MAN-made.  The bible and all the holy books are written by men, then interpreted for the next thousand years by a host of other men, each with their own agenda and choice of meanings in translations.  Religious leaders–those priests & preachers who mediate between the person and their god–presume to know what, by definition, is impossible and fruitless to know; i.e., the term “god” if it means creator or supreme being, is beyond our descriptions and concepts.

Here’s my question:  Can we turn to each other and see the “god” within the other instead of somewhere out there?  As things collapse, so will the religions and their institutional clones.  What does that leave us with?  Only each other.  But, how can we benefit from, and connect with, each other so that ALL OF US thrive, and not just a few dominant ones?  I think the only way is through listening, the kind Ed teaches:  a listening that is NOT just paying attention so I can feed it back, but a “you” (other) focus that censors my own reaction.  The kind of listening that Ed stresses delves into deeper & deeper levels of the speaker, to help her discover her inner vision, or that “longing of the heart” for something nobler, more compassionate and creative.  This deeper dimension of the speaker, when expressed, is a gift that benefits not only her, but the listener and the community.

Kathleen