Four Steps of a Powerful Apology:
1. Here’s what I did.
(Be specific.)
2. Here’s how I hurt you… is there more?
(Now listen.)
3. I’m sorry for…
(Name what you did specifically and how it hurt the person.)
4. Would you forgive me?
(Maybe it’s not today. But I am asking for your forgiveness.)
The first duty of love is to listen.
Paul Tillich
The first act of love is always the giving of attention.
Dallas Willard
Every real saint eventually left the system of possessions, privilege, and power, so that he or she could hear and speak the truth. In doing so, they were joining Jonah in the whale, Jeremiah in the cistern, Job on the dunghill, and Jesus on the cross. It seems to be the way.
Richard Rohr
Job and the Mystery of Suffering
The first task is to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening. Reproaches, reactions, defenses may be justified in terms of proportional justice. But perhaps they would prove to be unjust if there were more mutual listening.
All things and all men, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. But we can give it to them only through the love which listens.
Paul Tillich
Love, Power, and Justice
But me, I’m not giving up. I’m sticking around to see what God will do.
I’m waiting for God to make things right. I’m counting on God to listen to me.
Micah 7
The Message
Who are you?
Who am I?
St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis of Assisi would often go away to pray.
When he would return people would ask him, “Francis, what did you pray?”
This was his reply.
Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about - quite apart from what I would like it to be about.
Parker Palmer