Can you hear me?

Listening to understand is hard. Listening to respond is easier. We are all guilty of listening to respond. They are not the same thing.

I’ve had to turn off the news. I can’t listen to it anymore because it’s all pretending. They are all pretending they are telling the truth but they aren’t. What they say might be partly true but it’s not the truth because a half-truth is a whole lie.

I see it more clearly because I’ve been seeking sources to follow that give a bigger picture. Some of those sources cost money. Some of them cost time.

This one costs time and I want to share it with you. It’s not a short little clip but it’s worth the time invested.

This is from the YouTube post about the video below.

“Extreme listening are two words that don’t usually go together. But there is no other way to describe what Deeyah Khan does. A Muslim woman, she made a documentary, White Right: Meeting the Enemy, about spending time with white supremacists. Her results were so profound, it raises the question, what if we all had the capacity for extreme listening?”

At the end of this interview, the topic of loving your enemy came forward. As a follower of Christ, it’s what I’m working to do in the hope my enemy will become my friend or at the very least we can live together in peace. That we understand each other. We have to learn to live together in peace or we’re going to continue to burn it down.

Matthew 5:44
Jesus is speaking “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” There are lots more references to loving your ‘enemy’ and we are living in divided times but the interview above may show us a path to unity again. We are not all the same but we are all striving to live in peace, raise our families, and build a society based on justice.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Isn’t that the goal? I don’t see those as empty words. I believe it’s what we all seek.

If you’re interested, I’ve found her documentary referred to and included it here. It’s harsh and the language is not polite but I think it’s important if you want to invest a little more time. I was encouraged by the interviews between a Muslim woman and the White Supremacists.

I’m going to encourage conversation on this. It’s going to be posted on a few social media sites and comments are encouraged as long as they are in the vein of civil discourse.

This process is hard, it takes patience because it won’t be solved overnight but my hope is it gets solved. I’m reminded we are all in this together.

We are in the same boat. Drilling holes in the hull will not help. There are holes that need patching and some bailing out that ought to take place before we sink.

It’s my hope this helps us in that process.

Thanks for listening,
Jerry Robertson