Immersion: Part 2

My wife and I like to eat out... that's an understatement. We like to eat out so much that I think if we could, we would eat out for at least one meal every day, maybe more.

Yesterday for the first time in weeks, my wife and I were both home after taking the kids to school, with no where to be! A great feeling by the way. I was sitting on the couch enjoying my regular morning news updates, browsing Facebook and enjoying the quietness of the morning when I heard a deep long sigh, followed by a quiet, but just loud enough, "We're out of eggs... I wonder what I am going to eat for breakfast?"

10 minutes later we are sitting at a table at the Cracker Barrel located conveniently down the street from our house, drinking coffee and enjoying the sounds of discovery our 4 month old Maggie is making. The morning being a little too blissful, I should have seen what was coming next. As we sat talking and laughing, out of the corner of my eye I see one of the serving staff walking towards me and Maggie who is now sitting on my laugh flirting with the entire dining room. As she approached, she never made eye contact with me, but was locked into the gigantic baby eyes that seem to mesmerize middle aged female servers at early morning breakfast joints. Much to my dismay, she walked right up and started handling Maggie as she sat on my lap. She was touching, tickling, and talking in an annoying baby voice to Maggie while I sat there being ignored, and feeling as though my existence had now been minimized down to, "That blob that's holding a really cute baby." I smiled awkwardly trying not to let her see that on the inside I wanted to smack her and say, "Who do you think you are? Get off my daughter, I don't know you!"

I'm not sure which bothers me more, the feeling of being totally overlooked, or the spacial violation of having your infant child handled by a perfect stranger, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that what really bothers me, is that my feelings, and life were a complete after thought to this probably very nice and harmless waitress. What got me was the reality that she decided to interact with Maggie and I 100% on her own terms without a tiny thought to who we were, and what was best for us. What we wanted, and needed were not even so much as an after thought.

The second aspect of the value of immersion is called

Listening

“Listening is watching and sensitively responding to the unspoken and spoken needs of sojourners in ways that demonstrate sincere interest.

- Hugh Halter

As Christians we have become a lot like our waitress at the Cracker Barrel. We see people, we notice people, we interact with people, but it is always on our terms. Most of the time we look at people and make judgements about who they are, and how they are living based on surface stuff like, how they are dressed, what words are coming out of their mouths and what activities they are participating in. Most of the time this leads to a mostly apathetic approach to anyone who is remotely difficult or outside our bubble of interest. The best case scenario coming out of the church is an attitude that approaches the world as a project, which ultimately has the same impact of making people feel de-valued by the church, and by association... God.

The value of immersion has to take into consideration this incredible problem. People do not feel valued by the church, and the people who most closely associate with it simply because we have become like the waitress who is so totally consumed by self that she couldn't, or wouldn't, or didn't know how to approach us with unselfish, listening motives.

There may not be a more honoring and value-giving thing to do than to simply listen. To shut our mouths, and listen a persons heart, words, body language and passions. It says I care.. I care about what you care about. I want to know you, learn to love you, and see the world through your eyes. I want to be your advocate, I want to understand you, I want to be your friend.

this was Jesus style. He approached hurting and broken people with love, understanding, and a desire to show them honor. He listened as often as he spoke. He connected eyes, shared life, and in that vain offered a new approach to life, a freeing, god-seeking, peace-giving existence.

We have to start listening, and by listening I don't just mean, the decoding of information spoken by another persons mouth, I mean looking into people's souls, seeing hurt, acknowledging that often times the true feelings and heart of a person are never spoken in word form.

Listening takes time, energy, and intentionality. It's hard, time consuming and messy. We cannot be in position to listen and connect with people unless we are ready to hear their language and begin speaking it as well.

My 4 month old daughter makes very strange noises, and I have seen this value of listening on display with her. When she starts jabbering on, I have noticed that she is, through her built in desire for relationships, calling out to connect. She wants to connect with people, she is not just screaming because it sounds good, but she is, in her own way saying, hey! listen to me! I know this because I have made a point to listen to her, and respond appropriately. So I echo back her noises, and we go back and forth making completely senseless noises, but as we do, I sense our connection growing deeper. I listen to the subtle changes in her noises, and attempt to echo them back. It's almost as if she senses my desire to understand her. What a blast.

The interaction is dependent on 2 things, the listening and the appropriate response, If I listen and then start quoting Shakesphere to her, I will watch the connection begin to fail, She will ultimately lose interest, because I am no longer approaching her in her context, I am now relating in a selfish context.

This is at the heart of immersion. We start by getting into other people's context, then we choose to listen, and sensitively respond to the felt needs of the individual. Does God need us to do this? No, of course not, but these kind of relationships are such a power vehicle for extending the grace of God to our world. What a joy to begin relating to our world in this new way.

To be continued...