Listening - An Unconditional Surrender to Abba

For those of you who have regularly followed my blog over the past year and a half, you might have noticed that I haven't posted as much during the last month.  Part of my blogging silence is due to lots of work commitments going on, and part of it is due to the kids being back in school, and the activities that go along with that season of the year.  Another reason is that beginning last month, I began a two year program to be trained in spiritual direction.  Portions of the class are taught at the beautiful Benedictine Peace Center, located at Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, South Dakota, and the balance is online.  So, there has been a lot of other reading and writing on my plate during the last month.

Last week, one of the assigned readings dealt with listening.  In the midst of the "busy-ness" of my fall season, these words resonated with my deep-seated need to slow down, so that I can be aware of God's presence and voice in my life:

"Listening is that attitude of the heart whereby that which is deepest and most mysterious in us remains in loving attentiveness to that which is deepest and most mysterious in God.  By listening, we abide in the simplicity of being in love with our God. We remain loving our Beloved, with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:37) irrespective of words, thoughts and specific actions.

Listening is unconditional surrender to Abba.  Listening is a giving of our deepest to him whose depth has no end.  Thus, it is an act of abandonment in faith, hope, and love, a wordless, imageless, loving surrender of our whole being to God.

Listening is waiting upon God in watchful expectancy.  Not that we wait for or expect some-thing. Rather we wait for some-One: God himself."

(From "The Way of Spiritual Direction" by Francis Kelly Nemeck and Marie Theresa Coombs, pp. 62-63).