Poor Listening

"We are poor listeners because we are afraid that there is something other than love in God."

-Nouwen, 121

At my last job, I have a very clear memory of sitting in a meeting where someone said something that annoyed me.  It more than annoyed me.  It made me mad.  It actually made me pretty furious.  And I sat in my chair silently fuming for I don't know how long before I realized that I hadn't been paying any attention to what was actually happening in the meeting.  Perhaps someone else in the room had disagreed with the speaker.  Perhaps the speaker later apologized or edited their previous remarks.   I imagine that would have been very satisfying to watch, but I have no idea if it happened because I was far too busy focusing on my own emotions and my own sense that a boundary had been violated to bother paying attention to anything else.  Furthermore, I have no recollection of what decisions were made in the meeting during that time...I lost out on my chance to offer feedback.  And it was all because I had this anger that was blocking my ability to listen.

Maybe you've had an experience like that.  Perhaps it was another kind of emotion that overwhelmed you.  I think anger is a common way to get to that point, and I think fear is another common way to get there as well...something Nouwen touched on in today's passage.

 I love the sentence quoted above for two reasons.  I'm interested in the question of what keeps us from listening to God, but I'm also curious about the idea that there might be something other than love in God.  The sentence rings true to me, but what other things do we think are in God?

Perhaps we believe that God may be judgmental or wrathful or disappointed or indifferent.  And there's certainly been enough bad theology combined with personal experience to lead us to that point.  But if we can't listen to God because of our fear or anger that God might be those things, then it's kinda like me having no idea what actually happened in that meeting.  If negative emotions block us from listening, then we can't hear the reality of what's actually happening - the truth that God is love.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.