The Gift of

Listening

Robert Brizee

St. Louis, Missouri

© Copyright 1993 by Chalice Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission for Chalice Press, P.O. Box 179, St. Louis, MO 63166-0179.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Cover Art: Glenn Myers

Art Director: Michael Dominguez

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brizee, Robert.

The gift of listening / by Robert Brizee.

ISBN 0-8272-1237-2

1. Listening—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.

BV4647.L56B75 1993 242 92-32061

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 A Longing to Be Heard

2 Blossoming from Bud to Flower

3 Walking in Another’s Garden

4 Seeing in a New Light

5 Hearing the Becomings

6 Imagining a Listening Church

Acknowledgments

While this book is a creation of my own imagination, I was deeply influenced by others. I wish to acknowledge them and express my deep gratitude.

Dr. David Ray Griffin suggested that I write about listening. My pastor, Dr. Mary Ann Swenson, and my friend, Connie Nelson, R.N., offered pivotal proposals that made the story I have created more genuine. My wife, Adrienne Brizee, M.S., has thought out ideas with me, co-led seminars on listening, encouraged me in difficult moments, and carried extra household burdens as I processed words.

I am particularly grateful to two groups of people who helped to make the listening dialogues throughout the book more realistic. They marked up, red-lined, and edited the words I had written. The first group was made up of those who participated in our church family life seminar on the gift of listening in the winter quarter of 1992.

The second was the staff of the First United Methodist Church of Wenatchee, Washington, who carefully reviewed the dialogues in chapter six, “Imagining a Listening Church.” I considered them eminently qualified to improve my presentations because of their daily involvement in a local congregation. I thank Dr. Mary Ann Swenson, the Rev. Ed Branham, Ms. Mary Gates, Ms. Jackie Griffiths, Ms. Melissa McCormick, and Mr. Al Skelton. Their suggestions were invaluable.

My sincere gratitude goes to Dr. David Polk, my former classmate, colleague in process and faith endeavors, and now my editor. I am grateful that he and his editorial staff saw an important message in something that I have held dear to my heart for years.

Introduction

Listening is a gift. My deeply held conviction is that to listen to another is to offer that person a gift. I affirm that all of us yearn for this gift, and nearly all of us can offer it. Every person is called to be a listener. It is healing to be heard and accepted just as we are. My own experience of thirty-five years in a profession of listening convinces me of the truth of that healing.

The gift is even more deeply enhanced ...