Thanksgiving: A Day to Listen

Thanksgiving: a Day to Listen

“To listen is very hard because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.”—Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).

As we gather today, sometimes with fewer family members than usual, this is the perfect time to sit back and listen. Having smaller groups to listen to will make this easier. Listening is at the heart of being a spiritual friend. Thanksgiving is a day to pay closer attention to the person or persons with whom we have the privilege to celebrate the day. Even if we are alone, we can call someone and listen.

Nouwen reminds us that listening does not mean waiting for our turn to talk. Instead, it is letting someone else know you are offering the gift of your energy and time to be present and attentive.

Some think it may be easier for introverts, but in reality, introverts may still be processing what they want to say while others are talking, and therefore, they are only pseudo-listening. On the other hand, extroverts may have difficulty responding directly to what they hear, as they process it more on the outside.  

The answer is simply to practice listening, even for a few hours daily. It is an art form that must be repeated consciously every day until it becomes as unconscious as brushing our teeth. Thanksgiving is a good day to start.

We have grown up in a multitasking world where we learn to do many things simultaneously: eating while we work or watching television, working on several projects, attempting to solve multiple problems simultaneously, glancing at emails, texting, or searching on our phones while we are sitting down to meet with others. While someone is talking to us, we may think about how we will solve another problem as soon as we move on to the next person or meeting.

Living in the present and active listening are becoming lost arts. We must practice them intentionally. My experience is that making eye contact helps keep us focused on the person or people we listen to. We are actively “seeking” Christ, both visibly and invisibly, within others, who can be revealed only as we begin to realize Christ within ourselves.

The art of listening is a gift to ourselves and all we know and meet. Margaret Guenther calls it Holy Listening. St. Benedict calls it “listening with the ear of our heart.”

This is my Thanksgiving Prayer: that each of us can begin “holy listening with each other with the ear of our heart.”

Anne Frank: The Remedy

Anne Frank: The Remedy

Attic Anne Frank House

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy, is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God.”—From Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1947).

Anne Frank House Annex

Anne Frank hid in a cramped, secret upstairs annex of an office building for over two years with her parents, sister, and four other Jewish people: Hermann and Auguste van Pels, their son Peter, and Fritz Pfeffer. Otto Frank’s company owned the building; a bookcase concealed the entrance. Anne and the seven other people could never venture outside. A small window in the attic through which she could see a chestnut tree was her only chance of getting fresh air. In a powerful reflection in her diary, she calls it “the remedy.”

Anne was fifteen when her family was discovered and sent to Auschwitz’s death camp. Later, she was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died weeks before British soldiers liberated the camp.

Today, we thank Miep Gies, one of Mr. Frank’s employees, who helped the Frank family hide and later retrieved Anne’s diary. Otto was the only member to survive. He received the diary from Gies on returning to Amsterdam after the liberation.

Every day, I know that I take Anne’s “remedy,” the world outside my window, for granted. So, I am putting Anne’s picture on my desk, hoping to honor her brief life and its truth. I also hope I can always hear Miep’s call to reach out to those who desperately need our help.

Anne’s remedy was the remedy for so many during this pandemic who felt like the Franks, trapped in a smaller world. People were walking, sitting, biking, and running outside. Like Miep, we were also given a chance to care for others in some small way by staying socially distant and wearing our masks. We did this to care for ourselves and showed that we cared for others, one person at a time. What amazing remedies are we charged to continue! Enjoying and caring for nature and ourselves is also a way to care for our neighbors in the present and for our neighbors who will come after us.

How My Father Survived the Holocaust

   The Story of How My Father Survived the Holocaust

 Guest Writer Alan Schlesinger

Now that I am retired, I have finally had the opportunity to write my father’s memoir more than thirty years after his death, and almost fifty years since he told me about his experience during the Holocaust. I have titled the book Resilience: The Story of How My Father Survived the Holocaust.

My father, Joseph Schlesinger, had a remarkable life. Born in Hungary in 1910, he survived two world wars and the Nazi Holocaust, emigrated to the United States, and started a family. While anyone’s survival of the Holocaust is a miracle, my father’s story is in many ways even more incredible. He survived the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

Still, before that, he endured seventeen months of forced labor during the Russian invasion by the Axis armies and the Soviet offensive that eventually expelled the invaders. Few forced laborers survived the atrocities at the eastern front and the brutally cold Russian winter. Yet my father endured returning to Hungary just before the mass deportation of the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.

After six months in Auschwitz, where his parents were victims of the Nazi extermination plan of the “final solution,” he was eventually transferred to Nordhausen concentration camp, where he worked as a slave laborer building underground tunnels to produce the V-2 rockets.

After escaping during a British bombing raid, he began his harrowing escape from the Nazis and the advancing Russian Army to reach the American occupation zone at the war’s end.

Alone (an only child) and weighing under 100 pounds, he began rebuilding his life. He was placed in a displaced person camp in Eschwege, Germany (“Displaced person” or “DP” was used by the American government for the refugees after World War II). As a physician, he started a medical practice in the self-governed DP camp, caring for the other DPs.

While beginning to heal physically, he realized that to survive emotionally, he needed to let go of his anger, be grateful for his blessings, and build a new life with hope for the future.

The book has many examples of my father’s choices to live a grateful life rather than harbor resentment. Perhaps the most moving was the following story told to me by my mother (they met in the DP camp) after my father’s death. Once my father established his medical practice for the other DPs, the American occupation government decided that the US Army doctor would care for all US Army personnel at the Army base in town. The local German civilian doctors would care for the German civilians in the city, and my father would care for the DPs in the camp.

 A problem arose when the local physicians in town did not want to treat those civilians who were former Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, or suspected Nazi sympathizers. They asked the Army doctor to treat them, but the Army would not allow him to do so. My father volunteered to care for these people, stating that they would have defeated him if the Nazis could take away his humanity and make him break his Hippocratic oath. He had decided that to move forward and fully heal, he must not seek vengeance, but instead try to forgive.       

Among the many stories of survivors from the horrors of the Holocaust, I believe my father is unique. Beyond his physical survival, his emotional survival and ability to start a new life, celebrating life with optimism and joy represent a remarkable triumph of gratitude and forgiveness over anger and resentment.

 This photograph, taken on our boat in New Hampshire in 1968, reveals his complete physical and emotional survival. He had been swimming in Lake Winnipesaukee and climbing the ladder to return to the boat. Someone said something funny, and my father laughed so wildly that he was falling toward his right and almost out of the photograph’s frame. He is filled with joy. Despite the number tattooed on his arm being clearly visible and the loss and pain it symbolized, his joy cannot be contained. He has healed—healed completely and will enjoy every moment of the rest of his life.

* https://www.amazon.com/Resilience-Story-Father-Survived-Holocaust/dp/B091F5SLP3/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Alan+e+schlesinger&qid=1620837617&sr=8-1

Alan Schlesinger

Joanna joannaseibert.com