2007 Theme
Listen with Love, Act with Courage.
Our world is a noisy place! Many voices and sounds compete for our attention and sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish what’s important from the trivial or insignificant. Listening to others, really listening, takes effort. Hearing what they say, observing their body language and “listening” to what they are not saying, are skills that we can easily forget as we move through our days.
When someone listens to us with all of their heart, we know it. We know that they have heard and understood something that is important about us and we feel special. We know that they have appreciated us for who we are, and we feel that we have been treated with understanding and dignity. We all love that feeling.
“Listening with love” is one of the greatest gifts that we can give to other people. Amazingly, this is true whether they are our family, friends, acquaintances or even strangers. Hearing another’s personal story and listening to their feelings not only makes the other person feel important, it gives us the understanding to see things from their perspective and to appreciate a little of what their life is like. “Listening with love” helps us to see others as unique individuals: special members of our community – another gift from God, born (like us) to bring love, goodness and kindness into our world.
When we “listen with love” we are always called to respond in some way: we can’t avoid it! Sometimes our response can be as little as an understanding smile or some quiet encouragement. At other times however, we are called to really step out and do something courageous: speak up for an injustice, be generous with our money or spend time doing something when we would rather be elsewhere. Oftentimes, our courageous response is threatened by those most close to us – those who expect us to behave in a certain way or respond in the same way that they do. It is at these times, more so than others, that our courageous actions can bring us discomfort and even hurt.
There are thirty-five references to “courage” in the Bible. For thousands of years, our God has been saying to us: “have courage, be strong, do not be afraid, I am with you!” Our Loving Father wants to help us “listen with love and act with courage”, because every time we do this, we become the ears, heart and hands of God in our world. This is a big job! Luckily, we don’t have to do it alone: we have each other and our God to remind us that our most important task for this year is to Listen with Love and Act with Courage.
