HOW TO LISTEN

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I’m not asking you
to come down here
and clean out the muddy
corners of my life.

I’m asking you 
to be a forest
where mud and leaves,
shadows and light,
growth and decay
all have their unquestioned
belonging.

I’m asking you 
to be an ocean,
where even great storms
don’t trouble the depths
and each tear is welcomed
as a homecoming.

I’m asking you
to be as spacious 
as the vast darkness
behind the sky,
which will never be afraid
of what I do
or don’t choose.

I’m not asking you
to hold me together.
I’m asking you
to open so wide
there’s room for all the ways
I come apart.

James A. Pearson

THE FIRST DUTY OF LOVE IS TO LISTEN

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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