Apprenticeship
in Shared Living (ASL) program, listening has
been the rugged path into understanding this culture
and language that are so different from my own.
Not only does listening help me to understand this
new world around me, but also the world within me.
And, listening has taken on the prayerful role of
revealing to me the God that fills both.
Since I arrived here, it has been a constant struggle
to explain my experience to others. To family and
friends back home, it must seem as if I’ve
fallen off the planet. I’ve wanted to write,
but what I’m experiencing is so big that it’s
been all I can do to understand it myself. I’ve
had to accept that this is not a time for speaking
but rather for listening. I’ve had to understand
that before I can give this experience a voice and
share it with others, I have to let the voice of
the experience speak to me. And I can’t do
that if I’m busy talking!
And the experience is speaking to me. I hear it
in a language that at first was foreign and new
but is now slowly taking on form and meaning. It
starts every day at 5:00 a.m., as the countryside
comes alive with the sounds of goats, roosters,
the crazy donkey next door, and folks beginning
their day. I hear the voice in the sounds of nature,
the thunder of the rainy season, rain on a tin roof,
and the thud of fruit falling from tree to ground.
But I hear it most profoundly in the joy and sorrow
of the lives around me and of the country that has
somehow become my home. I sit with folks in my village
on porches, under trees, around piles of laundry,
or around the rice and beans being cooked for dinner
on an open fire, and I just try to listen. There
is so much to learn here… so much here to
hear.
But
what has struck me, too, is the importance of listening
to what is coming from within, the many things constantly
surfacing from the inside. I get very lonely sometimes.
Being so far away from anything familiar has caused
a lot to happen internally; the voices of fear,
doubt, and insecurity speak to me daily. I have
to remind myself that it is hard to embrace life
so directly with others and that I need to be patient
with myself. And, in an experience like this, there
are always more questions than answers. What does
it mean to be with the poor? What does it mean to
recognize my own poverty? What does it mean to live
in a world with such violence and disregard for
the suffering innocent? And how might we respond
to that pain and poverty with compassion and hope?
But
the struggles and questions have offered me a unique
opportunity, too. I’m learning a great deal
about myself— about my strengths and abilities
and about my fears and insecurities. I’m learning
to lean heavily on my spirituality, in ways I never
had to before. I’m hearing and experiencing
God in new ways. I’ve never felt such a need
to just sit in silence and seek God’s voice,
to offer up all of my fears, doubts, and heavy questions
that are too huge to figure out on my own. It is
a real test in listening, letting go, and trusting.
And
what I’m finding in Haiti as I move through
this experience is the notion that listening is
prayer. The more we sit with a true desire to hear
and know the voices around us and the voice within
us, the more we will hear and know God’s voice,
and the more life becomes a living prayer. And what
is prayer, if it is not trying to listen to God’s
voice in our lives? And if we believe that God is
revealed through each living being, then what better
way to know God than to embrace all people, including
ourselves, with love, respect, and a willingness
to listen?
