We Are Listening...

HAPPENINGS LEAD ARTICLE FOR 10/21/2025

My brother recommended a book called Nonviolent Communication. I haven’t read it yet, I still need to get it from his home in Duluth. But this past week I have heard the word nonviolent in many different ways and I am realizing I need to listen more intently.

The book, Nonviolent Communication, written by Marshall Rosenberg, seeks to teach us how to foster empathy, understanding and cooperation. How do we express ourselves honestly and listen with compassion therefore reducing conflict and raising up personal connection in our networks of relationships.

The book works to create a mindset of compassion in its readers, a mindset that shifts how we speak, how we think and how we act. I am often torn when I see all that is going on around us. It seems the only reaction we can truly have is a similar judgemental, violent reaction to the actions that demean and belittle our neighbors.

During the protests on Saturday I watched people walking down streets, middle fingers raised, yelling curses at people who were peacefully assembled to express their right of free speech and express their displeasure. Most of the time these people inserting themselves in different situations were looking for someone to express violence, they were looking to start a fight.

Many of you who read these words will remember vividly the civil rights movements of the sixties and seventies, the violence and hatred used against protesters at the time, and you may think we aren’t much worse than that. But that is also a form of harmful communication, diminishing people’s experiences and placing one's own assumptions and standards without listening to the fear and anxiety in the hearts and minds of the millions of people who were born long after the Civil Rights Movement.

I find myself in love with this congregation and the listening work we are doing. Listening to our own struggles and joys, listening to others visions and dreams and listening to how the Holy Spirit is moving among us. Marshall Rosenberg said, “What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.” This is what happens when we listen, to our own hearts, to one another, and to the community around us.

At its heart, Nonviolent Communication invites us to replace judgment with curiosity, accusation with honesty, and reaction with empathy creating communication that connects us. I hope you will join me in continuing our work together to listen to the Spirit and to one another as God dances with all of us in this beautiful world.

Be well,
Aron