Wesley Aitkin - "The Dangling Conversation" (March 23, 1969)
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| (liturgical organ music) | 0:04 | |
| (liturgical choral music) | 4:22 | |
| (cheerful organ music) | 7:30 | |
| - | Dearly beloved. | 10:50 |
| We are in need of the cleansing | 10:51 | |
| of our hearts and souls regularly, as much as we are in need | 10:53 | |
| of cleansing our physical bodies regularly. | 11:00 | |
| Because of the relative importance of the two, | 11:04 | |
| it is especially significant that we should set aside | 11:09 | |
| a time when we gather together for corporate worship. | 11:13 | |
| For each one of us individually, | 11:17 | |
| but all of us collectively to acknowledge | 11:20 | |
| before almighty God and in the presence of one another | 11:23 | |
| our guilt, our shortcomings, and pray | 11:27 | |
| for the forgiveness of almighty God. | 11:31 | |
| So may we join our hearts and our voices together | 11:34 | |
| in our prayer of confession and for pardon. | 11:38 | |
| Let us pray. | 11:40 | |
| Oh Lord most holy, God, most mighty, | 11:43 | |
| who has found us wanting and yet has not forsaken us, | 11:47 | |
| deliver us in these days of Lenten devotion | 11:52 | |
| from all the luxuries and comforts | 11:55 | |
| of smug private righteousness. | 11:58 | |
| Search us deeply, oh God, that in remembering the passion | 12:01 | |
| of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, | 12:05 | |
| our minds and hearts may be cleansed of all insincerities, | 12:08 | |
| of merely formal poses and dubious devotions. | 12:13 | |
| Oh God, we have failed to practice with diligence | 12:17 | |
| the elementary drudgery of training | 12:20 | |
| our souls to be spiritually competent. | 12:22 | |
| Forgive us, Lord, for words uttered without serious purpose, | 12:26 | |
| words that have helped us forget our need of thee. | 12:31 | |
| Help us now to turn again to thee with real hunger | 12:35 | |
| for thy righteousness through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 12:38 | |
| And now let us hear the words of scripture | 12:46 | |
| as they are recorded in First John, in the first chapter, | 12:49 | |
| especially written for people who | 12:54 | |
| are in the situation we now find ourselves in. | 12:56 | |
| This is the message we have heard from him, | 13:01 | |
| that is from Jesus, and proclaim to you | 13:04 | |
| that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. | 13:09 | |
| If we walk in the light as he is in the light, | 13:16 | |
| we have fellowship with one another. | 13:20 | |
| And the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. | 13:25 | |
| Amen. | 13:31 | |
| (liturgical choral music) | 14:04 | |
| Let us hear the reading of the Word of God. | 17:23 | |
| Paul's letter to the Corinthians, first letter, chapter 13. | 17:26 | |
| And now I will show you the best way of all. | 17:33 | |
| I may speak in tongues of men or of angels, | 17:38 | |
| but if I am without love, | 17:41 | |
| I am a sounding gong or a clanging symbol. | 17:44 | |
| I may have the gift of prophecy and know every hidden truth. | 17:49 | |
| I may have faith strong enough to move mountains, | 17:53 | |
| but if I have no love, I am nothing. | 17:57 | |
| I may dole out all I possess, | 18:00 | |
| or even give my body to be burned. | 18:03 | |
| But if I have no love, I am none the better. | 18:06 | |
| Love is patient, love is kind, envies no one. | 18:11 | |
| Love is never boastful, never conceited, never rude, | 18:21 | |
| never selfish, nor quick to take offense. | 18:29 | |
| Love keeps no score of wrongs, | 18:35 | |
| does not gloat over other men's sins, | 18:39 | |
| but delights in the truth. | 18:42 | |
| There is nothing love cannot face. | 18:45 | |
| There is no limit to its faith, its hope, its endurance. | 18:50 | |
| Love will never come to an end. | 18:57 | |
| Are there prophets, their work will be over. | 19:01 | |
| Are there tongues of ecstasy, they will cease. | 19:05 | |
| Is there knowledge, it will vanish away, | 19:10 | |
| for our knowledge and our prophecy alike are partial. | 19:15 | |
| And the partial vanishes when wholeness comes. | 19:18 | |
| When I was a child, my speech, my outlook, | 19:24 | |
| and my thoughts were all childish. | 19:27 | |
| When I grew up, I had finished with childish things. | 19:31 | |
| Now we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror, | 19:36 | |
| but then we shall see face to face. | 19:40 | |
| My knowledge now is partial. | 19:44 | |
| Then it will be whole, like God's knowledge of me. | 19:47 | |
| In a word, there are three things that last forever, | 19:52 | |
| faith, hope, and love. | 19:57 | |
| The greatest of these is love. | 20:02 | |
| (liturgical choral music) | 20:09 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 20:45 | |
| Let us pray. | 20:49 | |
| Heavenly father, | 20:59 | |
| we express our gratitude to thee in this hour | 21:02 | |
| for friends who encourage us | 21:06 | |
| and who recognize our strong points. | 21:09 | |
| We are grateful for friends who help us to see | 21:13 | |
| where we are wrong, where we have | 21:16 | |
| weak points and need to improve. | 21:19 | |
| We are thankful that evil is not so strong, | 21:24 | |
| but that we can rise above it | 21:27 | |
| when we surrender our wills to thine | 21:30 | |
| and seek thy divine grace. | 21:33 | |
| We bless thee for victories of health over disease, | 21:37 | |
| of love over hate, of unity over division, | 21:42 | |
| of understanding over confusion, of truth over error, | 21:48 | |
| of beauty over ugliness, for the victory of order | 21:55 | |
| over anarchy, spring over winter, and peace over war. | 22:00 | |
| We express our gratitude for seed time and harvest, | 22:10 | |
| for full barns and full employment, | 22:14 | |
| for the abundance of industry, for improved distribution. | 22:19 | |
| And for the beginning of a greater sharing | 22:25 | |
| of the fruits of honest labor. | 22:28 | |
| Oh God, we thank thee for pioneers who point the way | 22:33 | |
| to more Christian relationships, | 22:36 | |
| Christian relationships in the home, in the university, | 22:40 | |
| in the office, in the marketplace | 22:46 | |
| and in the halls of government. | 22:50 | |
| Most of all, we thank thee that while | 22:54 | |
| we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. | 22:56 | |
| And we bless thee for our hope of the final triumph | 23:00 | |
| of righteousness and the life everlasting. | 23:04 | |
| We pray, heavenly father, | 23:10 | |
| as we gather here in this sanctuary, | 23:14 | |
| that joy may come to unhappy souls, | 23:16 | |
| that illumination may dawn upon the uninspired, | 23:20 | |
| that courage may come to the crushed, | 23:25 | |
| and hope may come into the frustrated. | 23:29 | |
| We remember before thee, oh God, our friend and colleague | 23:35 | |
| professor Robert Smith, whose death we mourn this morning. | 23:38 | |
| We thank thee for his great contribution | 23:44 | |
| to his own discipline and to the university at large. | 23:46 | |
| We pray thine comfort and strength upon his family. | 23:52 | |
| And may we all now share the burdens which he has put down | 23:56 | |
| so that his good work may go on through us. | 24:02 | |
| Here in this time and hour and place of devotion, | 24:08 | |
| may we be equipped by thine grace, each one of us, | 24:13 | |
| to meet life or to face death, to fight the good fight, | 24:16 | |
| to keep the faith, to finish the course. | 24:22 | |
| Therefore do we beseech thee to clarify our sight | 24:26 | |
| so that we can see how small are the issues | 24:31 | |
| we sometimes mistakenly think are big, | 24:34 | |
| and how great are the issues | 24:38 | |
| for which Jesus Christ lived and suffered and died. | 24:39 | |
| Grant us who worship here a generous | 24:45 | |
| portion of his character, | 24:47 | |
| and give us his indignation against sinful living, | 24:50 | |
| and give us his unbounded love for sinners. | 24:56 | |
| We pray for enough of his grace | 25:00 | |
| to make us persuasive witnesses for his way of life. | 25:02 | |
| So from this time of worship | 25:08 | |
| do thou send us out to be better campus citizens, | 25:10 | |
| more understanding roommates, | 25:14 | |
| more respectful sons and daughters, | 25:17 | |
| wiser parents, true scholars, courageous prophets, | 25:20 | |
| responsible leaders, good followers. | 25:28 | |
| And most of all, faithful witnesses and disciples | 25:34 | |
| of thy son, Jesus Christ our Lord. | 25:37 | |
| This is our prayer, oh God. | 25:41 | |
| And we make it in the name of him who has taught us | 25:44 | |
| when we pray to say together, our father who art in heaven, | 25:46 | |
| hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, | 25:52 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 25:56 | |
| Give us this day, our daily bread, | 26:00 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses, | 26:02 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 26:04 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, | 26:08 | |
| for thine is the kingdom and the power | 26:12 | |
| and the glory forever, amen. | 26:15 | |
| It's not only my privilege to greet | 26:41 | |
| you this morning and speak to you. | 26:42 | |
| It was it also my privilege to travel here this morning | 26:46 | |
| on this glorious Sunday morning. | 26:50 | |
| So to those of you who sit before me, | 26:55 | |
| you share that privilege. | 26:57 | |
| To those of you who listen over the radio, | 26:59 | |
| I regret that you couldn't. | 27:02 | |
| The birds piped us here all the way, | 27:06 | |
| announcing the glory of spring. | 27:09 | |
| The beauty of nature embraced us. | 27:13 | |
| And we felt it's warmth. | 27:19 | |
| I greet you all. | 27:24 | |
| Recently, I heard a former clergyman tell of his work | 27:31 | |
| with rebellious youth in a large metropolitan area. | 27:34 | |
| He made the distinction that there were | 27:40 | |
| many young people who migrated to hippie type | 27:41 | |
| communities because of healthy reasons. | 27:44 | |
| The main one being the defiant effort | 27:48 | |
| to resist the dehumanizing process which exists | 27:50 | |
| in our different social and political systems. | 27:55 | |
| He was quick to admit that these unusual communities | 27:59 | |
| also attract youth who are seriously ill, mentally, | 28:02 | |
| but that the majority of them are conscientious, | 28:07 | |
| intelligent, and healthy young people. | 28:11 | |
| I recalled the incident of the parents | 28:16 | |
| who tracked down their teenage son to such a community | 28:18 | |
| in a large city and asked him to come home. | 28:21 | |
| The parents received a rather abrupt no, | 28:26 | |
| he did not want to go home with them. | 28:29 | |
| In fact, he did not even want to talk with them. | 28:31 | |
| The reason he gave was that he knew without question | 28:34 | |
| that his parents would want him to change. | 28:38 | |
| And he felt they not really taken time | 28:42 | |
| to find out who he was that they wanted to change. | 28:45 | |
| It seems almost impossible that a man and woman | 28:52 | |
| could give birth to a son and provide for him and live | 28:54 | |
| with him for 17 years and then not know him. | 28:58 | |
| Yet I have no doubt that there | 29:04 | |
| was truth in the boy's statement. | 29:05 | |
| At the same time, I am certain | 29:10 | |
| there was truth in the parents' statement | 29:11 | |
| when they said that they loved their son dearly | 29:13 | |
| and were utterly baffled by his behavior. | 29:15 | |
| The intimate trusting relationship that once existed between | 29:22 | |
| those parents and their son was left dangling somewhere, | 29:26 | |
| and it slowly died from neglect. | 29:29 | |
| The tragedy of all this is doubled by the fact | 29:33 | |
| that there is not only the shocking discovery | 29:36 | |
| of the great loss of intimacy and honest communication, | 29:39 | |
| but there is also the long tedious, painful struggle | 29:44 | |
| necessary to reclaim any of it, if such is even possible. | 29:48 | |
| The dehumanizing process that our youth rebel against | 29:58 | |
| suggests distance, indifference, insensitivity, | 30:01 | |
| absence of communication, loneliness, isolation. | 30:06 | |
| Certainly God did not intend this for his creatures. | 30:12 | |
| This is evidence of unhealth, not health. | 30:16 | |
| This is evidence of unrighteousness, not righteousness. | 30:21 | |
| I point to the way we talk to each other, | 30:29 | |
| or fail to talk to each other. | 30:32 | |
| Let's consider this. | 30:37 | |
| People of today seldom talk to each other | 30:40 | |
| about intimate, personal concerns, | 30:42 | |
| and when they do, they so frequently mask | 30:44 | |
| the concerns or skirt the real issues | 30:47 | |
| to such an extent that no one ever hears them. | 30:50 | |
| We can talk at length about ideas and about objects, | 30:54 | |
| but we seldom dare to get personal about life. | 30:57 | |
| The personal conversations about our deeper yearnings, | 31:03 | |
| fears, disappointments, differences, | 31:06 | |
| hopes are left dangling. | 31:12 | |
| They die on the vine so to speak | 31:16 | |
| for lack of a serious talker or a serious listener. | 31:18 | |
| I'm not suggesting that we strike up conversations | 31:26 | |
| with persons on streetcorners or in supermarkets. | 31:29 | |
| I have seen people attempt this out of desperation. | 31:32 | |
| I am referring to the conversations | 31:38 | |
| among us who live closely together, such as families, | 31:40 | |
| or people who work together, or people who worship together. | 31:43 | |
| The apostle Paul referred to the need we have | 31:51 | |
| to speak seriously to each other, | 31:54 | |
| and to be heard attentively. | 31:57 | |
| He stated that no matter how brilliantly | 32:00 | |
| and intelligently we might converse, | 32:02 | |
| if we do not have love, we are merely making noise. | 32:04 | |
| What must love be, or what must it provide, | 32:12 | |
| in order for conversations to be something other than noise? | 32:14 | |
| In my thinking, there are two imperatives to love. | 32:22 | |
| The first imperative of love is to respectfully | 32:27 | |
| take the other person seriously. | 32:30 | |
| Respectfully take the other person seriously. | 32:36 | |
| That is pay attention to him, and listen to him | 32:40 | |
| as if he deserves that kind of attention, | 32:43 | |
| regardless of what he's saying. | 32:46 | |
| When he's finished saying it, you may say | 32:50 | |
| I disagree with you completely. | 32:51 | |
| But pay attention to him while he's saying it. | 32:55 | |
| The second imperative for love is to reply in utter honesty, | 33:01 | |
| insofar is that as humanly possible, and respectful. | 33:07 | |
| These may sound easy to accomplish, but they are not. | 33:13 | |
| Evidence of the difficulty people have listening | 33:18 | |
| to each other attentively and responding honestly | 33:21 | |
| is seen in the fact that small controlled discussion | 33:25 | |
| or conversation groups are popping up all over the nation | 33:29 | |
| in various kinds of settings. | 33:32 | |
| They're called everything from discussion groups, | 33:36 | |
| tea groups, personal concerns groups, sensitivity groups, | 33:38 | |
| encounter groups, all the way to group psychotherapy. | 33:43 | |
| This is without even considering the thousands of people | 33:48 | |
| who daily seek out and employ individuals | 33:51 | |
| to listen to them attentively, take them seriously, | 33:55 | |
| and make honest responses | 33:59 | |
| in one form of private counsel or another. | 34:01 | |
| It is truly a sign of our time | 34:07 | |
| that we are unable to speak lovingly to each other, | 34:10 | |
| especially when we need to get intimate and personal, | 34:14 | |
| without hiring somebody to do the job. | 34:18 | |
| Let me reiterate that when I say speak lovingly, | 34:23 | |
| I refer to the imperatives of love I mentioned earlier. | 34:26 | |
| Loving a person must mean something | 34:31 | |
| other than just being nice to him. | 34:33 | |
| The delegates to our United Nations work overtime | 34:37 | |
| trying to be nice to each other, but you and I both know, | 34:40 | |
| and so do the delegates to the UN, | 34:44 | |
| that the verbal communications on the floor | 34:47 | |
| are frequently anything but honest expressions from one | 34:49 | |
| to the attentive, serious listening of another. | 34:55 | |
| Conversation which become vehicles for deceit, | 35:01 | |
| evasiveness, schemes, plots, or punishment | 35:03 | |
| cease to be conversations at all, | 35:08 | |
| and become destructive weapons, which, cleverly used, | 35:12 | |
| can only increase separation, mistrust and isolation. | 35:15 | |
| The hazard is that we have become so intellectually astute | 35:24 | |
| and sophisticated in our abilities to explain | 35:28 | |
| away rationally that which we see before our very eyes | 35:31 | |
| and to tune out mentally and cease to listen to persons | 35:38 | |
| who attempt to speak to us seriously | 35:42 | |
| that we do this and we're not even aware of it. | 35:46 | |
| Otherwise, the thousands of healthy | 35:51 | |
| and seriously motivated people who seek out these | 35:53 | |
| various group opportunities would not find themselves | 35:56 | |
| engaged in such lengthy difficult processes | 36:00 | |
| to achieve the imperatives of love I referred to earlier. | 36:04 | |
| If what I am suggesting is true, then those who sit | 36:12 | |
| at tables to negotiate by conversation, | 36:15 | |
| whether in our community of Durham | 36:19 | |
| or at the Paris Peace Conferences | 36:21 | |
| must admit that the task is not an easy one. | 36:23 | |
| I hope for the day when both black and white | 36:29 | |
| can sit down and be relatively free | 36:31 | |
| to discuss the written agenda before them | 36:33 | |
| without being so controlled or strongly influenced | 36:38 | |
| by the hidden agendas they carry, | 36:41 | |
| mistrust, fear, anger, guilt. | 36:45 | |
| Yet I know that much serious and attentive struggle | 36:52 | |
| must take place before that might ever be possible. | 36:57 | |
| Being under the influence of or control of hidden feelings, | 37:02 | |
| such as mistrust and anger, is not a problem confined | 37:06 | |
| only to the conference tables. | 37:09 | |
| It shows itself at one time or another | 37:12 | |
| in every important relationship we maintain. | 37:14 | |
| We might call it pouting, | 37:19 | |
| playing it cool, | 37:22 | |
| being bored, | 37:25 | |
| or any other rational explanation | 37:27 | |
| that we might attach to it. | 37:30 | |
| This is when honest conversations | 37:34 | |
| are left dangling in midair. | 37:36 | |
| Paul Simon of the singing duo of Simon and Garfunkel | 37:42 | |
| has written a striking poem which laments our inability | 37:46 | |
| to speak personally or lovingly to each other. | 37:51 | |
| They sing it in their own magnetic and piercing style | 37:57 | |
| as "The Dangling Conversation." | 38:00 | |
| This is the poem. | 38:04 | |
| It's a still life watercolor of an Adelaide afternoon. | 38:09 | |
| As the sun shines through the curtain lace | 38:13 | |
| and the shadows wash the room | 38:17 | |
| and we sit and drink our coffee. | 38:18 | |
| Couched in our indifference like shells upon the shore. | 38:22 | |
| You can hear the ocean roar in the dangling conversation | 38:25 | |
| and the superficial sighs, the borders of our lives. | 38:29 | |
| And you read your Emily Dickinson and I my Robert Frost. | 38:35 | |
| And we note our place with bookmarkers | 38:41 | |
| that measure what we've lost. | 38:43 | |
| Like a poem poorly written, we are versus out of rhythm, | 38:46 | |
| couplets out of rhyme in syncopated time. | 38:51 | |
| And the dangling conversation and the superficial sighs | 38:55 | |
| are the borders of our lives. | 39:00 | |
| Yes, we speak of things that matter | 39:04 | |
| with words that must be said, can analysis be worthwhile? | 39:06 | |
| Is the theater really dead? | 39:11 | |
| And how the room is softly faded, | 39:15 | |
| and I only kiss your shadow. | 39:18 | |
| I cannot feel your hand. | 39:21 | |
| You're a stranger now unto me, | 39:24 | |
| lost in the dangling conversation | 39:27 | |
| and the superficial sighs in the borders of our lives. | 39:29 | |
| The lack of sensitivity to each other's needs, | 39:39 | |
| with its resulting separation and loneliness, | 39:44 | |
| reminds me of the mother who sadly told me that there was | 39:48 | |
| nothing for her teenage son and her to talk about. | 39:51 | |
| He is only interested in sports | 39:56 | |
| and I don't know anything at all about sports. | 39:58 | |
| So there's nothing left for us to talk about. | 40:00 | |
| They certainly were existing | 40:04 | |
| in the borders of each other's lives. | 40:06 | |
| Conversations can be left dangling because one person, | 40:14 | |
| hearing the appeal from the questioning or hurting person, | 40:18 | |
| may be so engrossed in his own concerns that he will not | 40:23 | |
| permit the concern of another to penetrate his defenses. | 40:27 | |
| A good example of this was provided by Peanuts this week. | 40:34 | |
| I'm certain some of you read it. | 40:38 | |
| Lucy asked Charlie Brown, life is a mystery, Charlie Brown. | 40:42 | |
| Do you know the answer? | 40:48 | |
| Charlie Brown replied be kind, don't smoke, be prompt, | 40:51 | |
| smile a lot, eat sensibly, avoid cavities, | 40:55 | |
| and mark your ballot carefully, avoid too much sun, | 40:58 | |
| send overseas packages early, | 41:00 | |
| love all creatures above and below, | 41:02 | |
| insure your belongings, and try to keep the ball low. | 41:04 | |
| What can you do with that kind of response? | 41:12 | |
| I wonder how many little brothers feel that that is the kind | 41:17 | |
| of response they get from their older sisters | 41:21 | |
| when they ask questions. | 41:23 | |
| Or teenagers, | 41:29 | |
| if they feel they get that kind of response | 41:31 | |
| when they ask questions of their parents. | 41:33 | |
| Or I might add parents of teenagers. | 41:37 | |
| When parents ask their ask questions of their teenagers. | 41:41 | |
| Or a gentlemen of the choir, | 41:46 | |
| have you ever felt that you've got that kind of a response | 41:48 | |
| when you ask a question of one of your professors? | 41:51 | |
| We all are capable of it. | 42:00 | |
| And at times we can't avoid doing it, | 42:04 | |
| we are human, you know. | 42:06 | |
| It is important that we try to realize | 42:11 | |
| when we do it and admit it, and then try to get beyond it. | 42:12 | |
| Lucy's reply was great because she did not | 42:19 | |
| get trapped by the verbal barrage. | 42:22 | |
| Instead, she merely responded in terms of the emotion | 42:28 | |
| she felt as a result of what Charlie Brown had done to her. | 42:32 | |
| She said, hold real still, because I'm going | 42:38 | |
| to hit you a very sharp blow on your nose. | 42:42 | |
| We are too civilized to go around | 42:54 | |
| popping people on their noses. | 42:56 | |
| What we do is beat them over the heads with words, | 43:02 | |
| with a similar verbal barrage, or we pout. | 43:06 | |
| As I suggested earlier. | 43:11 | |
| Or we walk away carrying a king size | 43:17 | |
| load of anger inside of us. | 43:19 | |
| And we add one more stone to the Berlin Walls that we build | 43:29 | |
| between us and other people at times. | 43:32 | |
| If the abilities to be honest and to listen attentively | 43:41 | |
| to another, respectfully taking him seriously, | 43:43 | |
| our abilities we don't use as effectively as we should, | 43:48 | |
| how can we cultivate them or reclaim them? | 43:58 | |
| Must we all get into discussion groups, | 44:04 | |
| such as I mentioned earlier? | 44:06 | |
| Many will choose to do that. | 44:11 | |
| Some, because of the complex nature of their difficulties, | 44:14 | |
| will have to get into specialized groups. | 44:17 | |
| Most of us are already in groups, | 44:24 | |
| family groups, | 44:31 | |
| worship groups, | 44:34 | |
| and work groups. | 44:37 | |
| We should try to use them more effectively. | 44:43 | |
| What are the important ingredients | 44:50 | |
| for doing this on our own? | 44:51 | |
| First, we must struggle to put into words and say aloud | 44:56 | |
| what we really feel rather than dwell | 44:59 | |
| only with the ideas that are being discussed. | 45:01 | |
| People become insensitive because they cease to be aware | 45:06 | |
| of or alert to the emotional commitments and investments | 45:09 | |
| that are in the ideas that are being discussed. | 45:13 | |
| Feelings, our emotions such as joy, sadness, | 45:18 | |
| anger, frustration, fear. | 45:22 | |
| And at times, these feelings are so strong that they must | 45:27 | |
| be dealt with before the ideas can be discussed. | 45:30 | |
| When a person is uptight, the ideas he communicates | 45:36 | |
| may actually be of no value other than vehicles | 45:40 | |
| for communicating his uptightness. | 45:43 | |
| The second ingredient is persistent effort to understand | 45:51 | |
| the nature and the origin of the feelings | 45:55 | |
| that are being experienced and put into words. | 45:57 | |
| If Lucy had explained why she was angry enough | 46:05 | |
| with Charlie Brown to want to poke him in the nose, | 46:09 | |
| she would undoubtedly have to point out to him how arbitrary | 46:13 | |
| and insensitive he seemed to be as he answered her question. | 46:17 | |
| This then would free Charlie Brown to speak | 46:24 | |
| honestly about whether he was arbitrary | 46:26 | |
| and insensitive because he couldn't help it, | 46:30 | |
| or whether he was just prompted to be that way when Lucy | 46:35 | |
| came at him with some of her entrapping questions, | 46:39 | |
| as she can do so well. | 46:45 | |
| The third ingredient for achieving more respectful honesty | 46:51 | |
| and attentiveness in our relationships is time. | 46:55 | |
| Time seems always to be behind us, pushing us and saying, | 47:01 | |
| move on, get busy, keep going. | 47:05 | |
| But loving a person takes time with undivided attention, | 47:10 | |
| loving a person needs time, | 47:16 | |
| loving a person, except in principle, | 47:18 | |
| is not possible without time to relate. | 47:21 | |
| People who engage in the group experience I have mentioned | 47:29 | |
| repeatedly state that they find the experiences | 47:33 | |
| to be very meaningful and fulfilling | 47:36 | |
| and well worth the struggle and pain. | 47:38 | |
| Some say that it is a new experience for them. | 47:42 | |
| Others say it is a much deeper, richer, and more intense | 47:45 | |
| experience of what goes on in everyday living. | 47:50 | |
| I suggest that those persons have succeeded in discovering | 47:57 | |
| anew what it means to love and be loved. | 48:00 | |
| They ceased making noise and began talking to each other. | 48:08 | |
| We can realize this more in every | 48:16 | |
| important relationship we maintain, | 48:19 | |
| but we must struggle and pay a price for it. | 48:25 | |
| Let us pray. | 48:30 | |
| Oh God our father, grant us the courage to talk | 48:38 | |
| with honesty, to listen sensitively | 48:47 | |
| as if we who talk and we who listen are worthy of it. | 48:54 | |
| And will be blessed and fulfilled by it. | 49:05 | |
| Amen. | 49:11 | |
| (liturgical choral music) | 49:17 | |
| Eternal God, giver of every good and perfect gift, | 58:18 | |
| who seekest above all thy gifts to give thyself to us, | 58:23 | |
| grant that with these token gifts of our hands, | 58:28 | |
| we may more fully give ourselves to thee | 58:32 | |
| in joyous obedience and service | 58:35 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 58:38 | |
| And now may the peace of God | 58:47 | |
| which passeth all understanding keep our hearts and minds | 58:48 | |
| and the knowledge and love of God, and the blessing of God | 58:52 | |
| almighty the father, the son, and the holy spirit, | 58:56 | |
| Rest upon us and abide with us now and evermore. | 59:00 | |
| (liturgical choral music) | 59:10 | |
| (liturgical organ music) | 59:38 |