Dear Inner Circle,
Every community has faultlines that threaten to divide us: the “old” and “the new”, young and elderly, I could go on. Our vision of Love Over Hate asks us to stand at those faultlines and invite healing, which is always a collective endeavour. To be part of that healing means learning the art of multivalent listening.
On Sunday at Wayside’s chapel services, Uncle Ray Minniecon spoke about how three voices interact: the powerful, the powerless and the divine.
The powerful speak as they always have. What has changed is that some now stand at the faultlines calling not for healing but for hate as a way to unity. It is as nonsensical as it is harmful.
The powerless – not meant badly, but as in people stripped of dignity and then choked by systems that strip them of agency – cry out for a listening ear. Yet that cry often comes with a target, and the target is often those trying their best to listen and care. Hurt people hurt people. It can be indelicate and attacking, easily confused with the voice of the powerful, yet it is utterly different.
The divine is more elusive.
At any moment on any day, someone somewhere can push an imaginary button and all of a sudden, it’s “Wharfie Time” at Wayside. If you don’t know what that is, that’s ok – just know it’s when, in a matter of minutes, calm turns to chaos. Sunday just gone was one of those times. After a beautiful welcome, someone quietly sniped at our welcomer, “You b*#ch!”. Not realising the mic was still on, our welcomer replied, “Say that again c*&t, I’ll end you, let’s go!” A few of us were a little bemused, as it is common for us at this point to collectively respond, “Thanks be to God!”
The third voice is the hardest to hear, because it is a whisper. ‘I have a dream, will you join me?’… Uncle Ray implored us to listen for it, and then to live ourselves into a new way of thinking, rather than think ourselves into a new way of living. Listening makes all the difference.
Our youngest, who helps at a Sunday School in the Inner West, told me about a student who was asked, “What is the biggest thing you can imagine?” The young girl, just eight years old, replied, “Physically? The whole universe. Emotionally? Tomorrow.”
May we all learn to hear the whisper and possess the wisdom of a child.
Thank you for being part of the Inner Circle,
Jon
Rev. Jon Owen
CEO & Pastor
Wayside Chapel