Opening Words and Chalice Lighting:
To listen well is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is
essential to all conversation.
--Proverb
Check-in: You may share names, Covenant Group Ministry experience, something you put aside in order to be fully present here, and, if you are comfortable, a significant joy or sorrow, a new beginning or ending in your life.
Reading:
"Listening is one of the most profound compliments that you can pay to another person. To truly listen. And to feel that you're heard is deeply fulfilling in a deep, human way... We hear sometimes, but we don't really, actually, listen... And when we do start to listen, it's the beginning of a deeper awareness."
--Gabriel Byrne (interview on NPR- WHYY Fresh Air program)
Deep Sharing and Listening: Take time to think about the reading. Feel free to write notes. Each group member will have a chance to share their thoughts. Consider times in your life when listening benefited you, or perhaps when you should have listened and did not.
Have there been times when you felt that you were not being listened to (on a personal level, or on a more general level - ie. you felt your political views were not acknowledged by those in power)? How did you react? Did that lead you to action?
Have there been times when you felt you could not listen? Times when you may have shut someone out?
Do you feel that our society values listening? If not, are there ways positive, active listening can be encouraged and fostered?
Discussion: Respond to what others in the group have shared.
Housekeeping: Discuss meeting times/dates, look to the future to plan holiday meeting times.
Likes and Wishes: Was there anything you particularly liked, or did not like, about the session or Covenant Group in general.
Closing Words:
We must love them both,
Those whose opinions we share
And those whose opinions we reject
For both have labored in the search for truth
And both have helped us in the finding of it.
--Thomas Aquinas