Listening Lessons from a Buzzing Harp String

Listening

“Be a lamp, a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”— Rumi (1207-1273), Daily Quotes, inwardoutward.org.

photography by paula volpe

 If I were redesigning a program about spiritual direction, 90% of the time would be devoted to listening. My experience is that listening is one of the best tools of the Holy Spirit within us. I am talking about active listening, where we clear our heads of agendas and what is going on in our lives as much as possible.

We offer the gift of time for forty-five minutes or an hour to listen to someone else’s life. For this short time, we are given the privilege of caring for the soul of another, helping a person realize God’s never-failing presence in their own presence.

I sit, and all these great ideas come to me as I listen. “I think they would like this book. Changing to this spiritual exercise might be helpful.”

I am learning that if I interrupt with my ideas, they often fall on deaf ears, but if I wait until there is silence and speak, the person seems to see and hear better what I might suggest. As I wait, I sometimes realize, “No, this was not the right book or spiritual exercise.”

I have learned a great deal about listening from my harp. Perhaps you have occasionally noticed a loud buzzing sound when some harpists play. Buzz. One of the reasons for the buzz is that we have plucked a string that is still vibrating from a recent finger placement on that exact string. We must wait for the string to stop vibrating before we play it again, or this annoying sound interrupts us.

 My buzzing harp reminds me that I must wait for the person I am visiting to stop talking. 

I am learning to play fewer buzzing notes as I talk less and listen more. As a result, my buzzing harp string has become my icon for listening.

 Listening can become a “lamp, lifeboat, and ladder” to the Holy Spirit’s presence in our own lives as well as the lives of our spiritual friends.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Whyte: Spirituality at the Workplace

 Whyte: Spirituality at the Workplace

“The first step to preserving the soul in our individual lives is to admit that the world also has a soul and somehow participates with us in our work and destiny. That there is a sacred otherness to the world that is breathtakingly helpful simply because it is not us.”— David Whyte in The Heart Aroused, Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America (Crown Business, New York 2002), p. 280.

Former amazing partners at my work who continually supported each other and made all the difference.

In his book, The Heart Aroused, poet David Whyte writes about taking our spirituality to the workplace, where it is desperately needed by ourselves and others. He believes preserving the soul means giving up our desire in the scheduled workplace not to have unscheduled meetings. My experience is that God drops into my life with interruptions that are not on my agenda.

Whyte believes we must relinquish a belief that the world owes us a place on a divinely ordained career ladder. We have a place in the world, but it is constantly shape-shifting. Our profound struggles can be our most significant spiritual and creative assets and the doors to creativity. The Greeks said that if the gods wanted to punish someone, they granted them everything they wanted.

Likewise, the soul’s ability to experience joy in the workplace is commensurate with our ability to feel grief. We walk into corporate offices looking like full-grown adults, but many parts of us are still playing emotional catch-up from the suffering and traumas of childhood, which unconsciously refuse to grow any older until the trauma is resolved.  

The most dangerous time for a male is around nine o’clock on Monday morning, and then later the few months following his retirement when more injuries and illnesses occur. One is a death caused by carrying the burden, and the other is the ability to live without the burden.

Work almost always becomes a platform for self-righteous moralizing. Hurrying from one workstation to another, we hope the rushing can grant us the importance we seek. Whyte suggests that by slowing for a moment, we might open up to the emptiness at the center.

Whyte reminds us how astonishing it is to see how we shrink from the things nourishing our souls and take on every possible experience to quit it. I did this for dream work, as I became too busy with my “church work” to go to my long-time dream group. I also see this continually in my spiritual direction, where I have difficulty fitting my spiritual director into my “busy schedule.” I texted her recently on her birthday, and we hope to meet soon. Not soon enough!

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Learning from Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

“You let me sing, you lifted me up, you have my soul a beam to travel on. You folded your distance back into my heart. You drew the tears back to my eyes. You hid me in the mountain of your word. You gave the injury a tongue to heal itself.

You covered my head with my teacher’s care; you bound my arm with my grandfather’s strength. O beloved speaking, O comfort whispering in the terror, unspeakable explanation of the smoke and cruelty, undo the self-conspiracy, let me dare the boldness of joy.”―Leonard Cohen, “Poem 19,” Book of Mercy, 1984.

My husband and I recently watched a remarkable documentary about Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah and its 80 to 180 verses he wrote during his lifetime. Indeed, the music and its verses documented the Canadian poet and songwriter’s life. The story of the life of Hallelujah was just as fascinating. It took Cohen five years to write the song.

 Cohen initially released Hallelujah in an album rejected by a major record company in this country, and it was released only in England in 1984, where it was minimally successful. Only when other popular singers, John Cale and Jeff Buckley, began performing Hallelujah did its widespread popularity get its start.

Amazingly, the use of Cale’s Hallelujah in the animated movie Shrek in 2001 skyrocketed the song. Then, with Cohen’s death in November 2016, the music reached international prominence again.

I remember being moved by Hallelujah when k.d. lang performed it at the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, in 2010. She was dressed in white on a high stage, singing the anthem with all her heart.

Lang described the verses as the struggle between human desire and spiritual wisdom. The early verses have biblical references to Samson and Delilah, as well as King David and Bathsheba. Many see the music and lyrics swaying between blessings and losses. This history of the anthem and its lyrics seem to be a remarkable timeline for the spiritual autobiography of Cohen’s life.

What music could each of us write to share the timeline of our spiritual autobiography?

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/