Download Listening as a theological basis

COMMUNICATION:
LISTENING AS A THEOLOGICAL BASIS
Michael Pascual, MA and Marissa Cornejo, MA
R210C
Originally for IPM PC 100 Pastoral Care
THESIS: LISTENING AS THE BASIS OF PASTORAL
CARE
•
GAMEPLAN
• Consider some general basics of communication theories
• Consider theological implications for ourselves
LISTENING KICKS OFF THE CONTEMPLATIVE
JOURNEY
•
As Pastoral Care agents, we listen to the other, but are also listening to ourselves and for
God.
•
Some models of communication can demonstrate…
POPULAR PERCEPTION OF COMMUNICATION:
LINEAR MODEL
•
Noise is what theorists describe as anything that would interfere with the intended
meaning of communication.
•
Model (originally articulated by Harold Laswell (1948)
ADJUSTED PERCEPTION OF COMMUNICATION:
INTERACTIVE MODEL
Feedback
•
•
Recognition that receiver gives back feedback (perhaps unintentionally!)
•
Bruce Gronbeck (1999)
ADJUSTED PERCEPTION OF COMMUNICATION:
INTERACTIVE MODEL
Feedback
•
•
But more!!! There are the fields of experience!!!
•
Bruce Gronbeck (1999)
UPDATED THEORY OF COMMUNICATION:
TRANSACTIONAL MODEL
•
The model was updated to take into account the dynamic reality of communication
• E.g. might happen at the same time…second date is more engaging than the first
date…
•
Then there’s the context of the communication…
UPDATED THEORY OF COMMUNICATION:
TRANSACTIONAL MODEL
Feedback
•
•
The reality of dynamic change especially in time and context
FILTERS???
 Everyone has them
 They are formed by our sociology
• (beliefs, values, life experience and personalities)
 In addition to ours, there are other filters
• Environmental
• Other people
 Any stories?
GOAL OF COMMUNICATION
 The goal of any communication is to minimize filters
SOME BASIC ELEMENTS
 Nonverbal cues
 Listening
 Reflecting
 Clarifying
 speaking
SUMMARY
 The non-verbal is very important
• 10% of communication are by words
• 30% are by our sounds
• 60% are by body language
PROPOSED FIVE LEVELS
OF LISTENING
 Ignoring
 Pretending
 Selective Listening
 Attentive Listening: Attention and focus on words being spoken
 Empathic Listening (next slide)
EMPATHY
 Being able to understand how another person is feeling, why they
feel that way, and what’s important from that person’s point of view.
 You’re in their shoes and see, think and feel as they do, while at the
same time remaining separate from them.
 It is not symapthy.
• An over-involvement in the emotion of another person.
SYMPATHY?
 Ever seen someone get so emotional over someone else’s feelings
that they lose themselves?
• Funerals?
• Best to avoid this type of listening…
REMEMBER
 While we see a person’s behaviors, the thoughts and feelings can
only be guessed.
Behavior
Thoughts
Feelings
 “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
 Our guide to empathic communication.
PURPOSE OF EMPATHIC
LISTENING
 Enables you to really understand how another person is feeling
and thinking.
 It opens the lines of communication and promotes mutual respect,
allowing them to better hear your message as a result.
 Enables one to respond appropriately by first listening effectively.
FOLLOWING SKILLS
 Following Skills are the skills which assure the speaker that the listener is
interested and concerned, and is following the conversation with the desire to
understand what is being said.
REFLECTING SKILLS
 Whereas Following Skills assure the speaker you are listening, Reflecting
Skills can assure that you understand the meaning of what you are hearing.
Understanding and using Reflecting Skills will help you to discover the thoughts
and feelings of the other person, which give meaning to the words and actions you
observe.
 Handout
REFLECTING SKILLS
LISTENING WITH THE LENS OF FAITH
• Listening is obviously a two-way street
• With the lens of faith, we know that God is present with us as
well…
• “God in all things, all things in God.”—St Ignatius Loyola
• Wilkie Au quotes Frederick Beuchner, who talks about the
power of memory, where we can listen for God in our own
stories.
FROM
FREDERICK BEUCHNER, LISTENING FOR GOD
FROM
FREDERICK BEUCHNER, LISTENING FOR GOD
FROM
FREDERICK BEUCHNER, LISTENING FOR GOD
• “As I see it, in other words, God acts in history and
in your and my brief histories not as the puppeteer
who sets the scene and works the strings but rather
as the great director who no matter what role fate
casts us in conveys to us somehow from the wings,
if we have our eyes, ears, hearts open and
sometimes even if we don’t, how we can play those
roles in a way to enrich and ennoble and hallow the
whole vast drama of things including our own small
but crucial parts in it.”
FROM
FREDERICK BEUCHNER, LISTENING FOR GOD
• “In fact, I am inclined to believe that God’s chief
purpose in giving us memory is to enable us to go
back in time so that if we didn’t play those roles
right the first time round, we can still have another
go at it now.”
FROM
FREDERICK BEUCHNER, LISTENING FOR GOD
• “Another way of saying it, perhaps is that memory
makes it possible for us both to bless the past, even
those parts of it that we have always felt cursed by,
and also to be blessed by it.”
FROM
FREDERICK BEUCHNER, LISTENING FOR GOD
• If this kind of remembering sounds like what
psychotherapy is all about, it is because of course it
is, but I think it is also what the forgiveness of sins
is all about – the interplay of God’s forgiveness of
us and our [sic.] received forgiveness [sic.]from God
and each other.”
FROM
FREDERICK BEUCHNER, LISTENING FOR GOD
• It is in the experience of such healing that I believe
we experience also God’s loving forgiveness of us,
and insofar as memory is the doorway to both
experiences, it becomes not just therapeutic but
sacred.”
THINK PAIR SHARE
•
What is your high, low or Muddy that you would like to share from this portion of
presentation?
SOME OBSTACLES TO OUR THEOLOGICAL
LISTENING
• The communication models talks about noise,
context, field of experience.
• What might our noise be?
THEOLOGY HAS A SOCIOLOGY
• Systematic Theologians talk about the social context of
theological understandings.
• That is to say that while dogma and doctrines are
uniformly the same, how an individual interprets and
expresses it is influenced by their culture, gender and
experience.
• Correlate this to Communication Theory, this can account for
the “Field of Experience” and “Context” of communication in
pastoral care.
THINGS TO CONSIDER…
• How might the gender, culture, experience (such as
education, generation) affect your pastoral care
situation?
• The caregiver’s context, the care receiver’s
context?
• Will “moralist therapeutic Deism” be an obstacle?
THE TEMPTATION TO CONSULT…
• The temptation in pastoral care might be to use this as an
opportunity to catechize…
• Best to just listen.
• This might be the “noise” in our communication, when we are
already thinking how we can be teach when we can better
listen instead.
SO REFLECT AND DISCERN…AND PRAY!
• For The Serenity to accept the things you cannot change…
• For The Courage to change the things you can…
• For The Wisdom to know the difference…
• And surely we can change our own personal habits in how we
approach pastoral care… to first and foremost work on our
listening…
WORKING ON LISTENING
• Listening to ourselves, Listening for God
• Listening to the care receiver, Listening for God
• Listening to God, listening to our response.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
• What are some of the communication obstacles that might
affect your ability to “LISTEN” in pastoral care? (“Listen” to
ourselves, others and God)
• Using Beuchner’s language about listening for God in
memory, what personal story of yours (or another whom you
listened to) can you describe as therapeutic to remember,
while altogether sacred?
• The last segment of the parallel between pastoral care and
lectio divina mentions “let go of the need to know the
outcome.” How might this be an obstacle for “Listening”? Is it
an obstacle for you?
SIDE CONSIDERATION
SUPERVISION AND CONSULTATION
• The scenario in which as minister might seek help from
another minister, likely more experienced. You might find
yourself doing pastoral care to assist a fellow minister in their
work with another care receiver!
• Even here, our temptation is to consult…when the best
approach is to listen…
PASTORAL CARE AND CONSULTATION
From
From William Barry “Supervision improves ministry”
SUPERVISION
• “The critical evaluation by an experienced therapist of the
clinical work of a therapist in training.” (ibid.)
• The goal here is to help the minister become more aware
(listening to themselves) in order to self-discover the factors
that might be hindering them.
• Consultation would directly make a “quick-fix”, but not
necessarily prevent any issues in the future…
WILLIAM BARRY’S ILLUSTRATION
WHILE IT IS IDEAL…
• To separate consultation from
supervision, there will be times you will
need to do consultation…
LECTIO DIVINA
•
Luke 5:1-11
•
Lectio – Open the senses – Read the story in God’s word.
•
Meditatio – Open the mind – Reflect and pay attention to what attracts your attention.
•
Oratio – Active Heart – Respond. Freely express what comes from your reflection.
•
Contemplatio – Passive heart – Rest. Let go of all reflections and responses and allow
God to speak to you in the mystery of silence and quiet presence.
THE CALL OF SIMON THE FISHERMAN. *
a1 b
While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the
Lake of Gennesaret.
2He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets .
3Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from
the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
4c After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a
catch.”
5Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command
I will lower the nets.”
6When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing .
7They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so
that they were in danger of sinking.
8When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful
man.”
9For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him ,
10and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon,
“Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”d
11When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything * and followed him.