So far this week, we’ve been talking about listening in the context of “another” – listening to each other’s voices and stories, really hearing what’s there, behind and underneath what we normally experience of each other in our busy lives. But another side of holy listening is (of course) listening to God and listening to ourselves – our own body & soul’s responses in the midst of our experiences. Brennan Manning says this: “To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)... The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.” What is it like to think of Jesus attending to his embodied emotional responses in this world as a way of listening for how his Father was at work? What is it like to think of you following Jesus in this kind of attunement – holy listening to what is *in you*, as a way of tuning in to what God is working in your life, too?

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2021-06-03 14:13:03 UTC