Sagatagan Seasons Article

The Saint John's Arboretum asked me to write a "spiritual reflection on listening." This is the draft.

I was 20 years old, fresh from a shower and chatting with my roommate at Saint Ben’s. My phone rang and I picked it up. It was my Pa. “Listen, Kel. I need to tell you something.” He sounded serious, but Pa is the kind of man who always sounds serious. “Kel. Your granddad died last night.”

After I hung up the phone, I dressed found my way to a reconciliation service and while I’ve never really liked to go to confession, I was compelled to go talk to a priest. As soon as I saw him, I broke down weeping. I told him I feared that I wasn’t as good of a granddaughter as I had wanted to be, that while I was Christian I was still frightened by death and worried about what would happen when I died, I was concerned about my mother, and a million other things. Eventually, I couldn’t choke out anymore words and just sat there sobbing. When my eyes were so puffy I couldn’t cry anymore the priest said: “Are you familiar with the Rule of Benedict?” I replied that I was—I was thinking of joining the community in St. Joseph eventually so I was in the process of learning it. “Good.” He replied. “Then you know the opening line…Listen. I think that’s what you need to do now. You need to listen.” I followed his instructions and went upstairs to the empty Abbey Church and sat, silently, listening and crying.

I didn’t hear a darn thing.

But I kept listening. I listened during the viewing ceremony and again during the funeral mass. I listened while we were at my grandfather’s graveside and for weeks after. I waited and hoped for some sort of message from God—something to reassure me that my granddad was in heaven, that he wasn’t angry with me, that my mom would make it through this loss, that God still loved and cared for me despite my doubts. After awhile I became exasperated and stopped listening. I wasn’t hearing anything, so what was the point? It wasn’t until four years later, after another loss, that I really tried again. I was visiting Saint John’s during the spring and tramped out to my favorite spot on the Arboretum. “All right, God, I’m not moving until I hear something.”

I sat in that hill for hours—almost an entire day. Listening to the chickadees chirping, the trees groaning in the wind, and the soft rustle of a fox returning to her den. I listened and listened and listened, like that Benedictine priest had told me to do years earlier. Just as I was about to give up, it occurred to me—maybe this was it. Maybe in the face of loss, of huge emotional pain and heartache, God has nothing to say except for compassionate silence. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Had I heard anything from God during those first months of raw grief, it would have sounded like nothing more than a platitude. For my entire life I had been waiting to hear what God was saying when perhaps what I should have been listening for was what he wasn’t. I realized then that what I was given in the gift of silence was worth much more than any other response. It taught me to listen closely—with the ear of my heart, as Benedict says—for God’s instructions and love. It taught me that perhaps silence is something which should be pursued, cultivated, loved.

Since that day, “listen” has become something of a mantra for me. I repeat it when I’m frustrated with a coworker and need to look beneath her words to what she’s really saying. I repeat it when I’m stuck in traffic and need to be reminded of God’s presence. I say it quietly to myself when I’m out for a run and feeling exhausted. When I try to pray, I mutter it under my breath. Listen. While most of the time, I don’t hear a thing, I’m reminded that sometimes it’s just as important to stop and realize what God isn’t saying.