Читать книгу Above and Beyond - J.S. Dorian - Страница 49

“Give us grace to listen well.”

JOHN KEBLE

We run into an old friend whom we haven’t seen for months. He is pale and seems far thinner than we remember. After we exchange pleasantries, he confides that he has been quite ill and is suffering with chronic pain.

Even as he speaks and tries to hold our gaze, we can feel our attention wavering. Questions, ideas, and potential advice for him crystallize quickly in our mind: How did they diagnose it? Did you get a second opinion? Anti-inflammatory medications don’t work for that. The things that helped me were meditation and yoga. I should lend him that book I like so much and put him in touch with my pain specialist.

We’re tempted to interrupt his description of the illness and its effects so that we can pass along our words of wisdom. But we stop ourselves. We remember what it felt like to be interrupted when we were telling someone about our illness. We remember what it felt like to be besieged with advice and admonitions, to be coaxed to do this and cautioned not to do that. All we really wanted was someone to listen to us, just to listen and let us talk.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

If there’s no listening, there’s no compassion.