Three Things I Liked This Week

Here are the three things I liked this week.

First, I liked Luke Faulkner’s “Reflections.” It’s a meditative piano piece I listened to while thinking, journaling, and turning through the pages of a notebook I use to catalog words and phrases I want to incorporate into my writing.

Second, I liked Malcolm Guite’s poem “Exalted Manna,” which you can find here. This one repays slow, careful reading. Here it is:

I love to lift you in the Eucharist,
For you descended to the depth for me,
You stooped beneath the whole weight of the world,
And held it as the nails drove through each wrist,
You held us all through your long agony,
Held all the taunts and curses we hurled
Held all our hurts deep in your heart for healing.
And when we lifted you onto your cross
You lifted all of us up to the Father
And made your outspread arms a sign, revealing
God’s all-sustaining love, that bears our loss,
Becomes our daily bread, calls us to gather
Each love, as manna in the wilderness.
So lift me as I lift you, lift and bless.

Third, I liked this observation made by Christian psychiatrist Curt Thompson in his book The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves. In context, he’s elaborating on how shame interferes with good listening. (As someone who wants to improve his listening skills, I found myself lingering over this):

Shame interferes with good listening at every level and every opportunity. How many times have I, while in conversation with someone, found myself only superficially attuned to what he or she is saying as I prepare what I want to say, sensing that if I do not get to offer my contribution I will feel a lessening? We all know this moment. We do not realize that shame is at work via the sensory networks by which I feel the urgency to speak rather than listen. In this way, shame is a shared process whose mission is to disrupt connection between people (88–89).

One might initially balk at Thompson’s observation, and think, My desire to contribute to a conversation isn’t necessarily shame-driven. But it’s also true that such a response could be shame-driven.

Here’s the question I’m left asking myself: Might it not be the case that the underlying feeling that I must say something, or I must contribute something valuable to a conversation stems from a sense that if I do not, I will become less valuable?

I’m wondering if somewhere along the line my nervous system learned that I have to be interesting, funny, insightful, knowledgeable, or impressive in order to secure my place in relationship with others. I think it did. Which indicates that shame has lassoed me in its grip somehow.

If that weren’t the case, then I would approach my conversations with the intent to encounter the other person, rather than seek to establish my worth.