On Slowing Down Enough to Listen

I feel the tremble in my belly, in my heart, as I am about to speak about Palestinian liberation and Jewish liberation, about Israel and Palestine, about the freedom and dignity of all peoples and all land.

I feel the parts of me come up that are worried about getting it wrong, causing harm, mis-representing, over-simplifying.

And, for the sake of our learning and growth, I am going to go there anyway, with so much humility, with openness to compassionate correction, and a commitment to life-long learning and unlearning.

Because I want to share a story with you.

Over these last several years, particularly since Oct. 7, 2023, I have heard from and worked with so many groups and organizations and individuals for whom the violence taking place against Palestinians and the violence taking place against Jews, the disproportionality therein and the incredibly painful polarization surrounding these experiences, has totally torn apart communities, relationships, collaborations.

Probably you and yours are touched by this, too? Sending hand-on-heart care for however this is living in you, your body, our collective body right now. ✋

Several of the groups I have worked with have been in the thick of navigating this kind of polarization as it shows up in very close in, day-to-day relationships. Where it’s impacting day-to-day ability to work together, be in settled connection, feel trust, collaborate. And where new layers of hurt/news/etc keep unfolding, so it feels like there’s never time to fully tend the last wound before the scab is torn off again.

This imagery is graphic, but this is the level of raw and hurt and intensity I’m hearing and feeling people in.

So amidst all of this, I want to share some small glimmers of hope.

Not in a way that minimizes or invisibilizes or glosses over the very real ongoing violence and harm and genocide and disproportionality. But in a way that might point us in directions, give us some places to experiment and explore…

What I’m finding even here is that there is space for repair when we slow down enough for deep, intentional listening.

I’ve been working with an organization in which there has been conflict and harm across the polarized identities of Jewish and Muslim communities, and as it relates to the polarized politics around folks who identify as Palestinian Liberation activists and folks who identify as Zionists.

In a handful of instances where there has been enough trust and pre-existing relationship to get people in the door and to the table, sitting down with these folks for facilitated dialogue has actually created opening and healing and greater understanding.

My co-facilitator and I have used a light touch, and employed the brilliance of the Beginning Anew process (which I learned from my collaborator, Felise Nguyen, and the Plum Village Buddhist lineage she is part of), which invites us to start with gratitude, and then move to expressing regret/taking accountability before getting into how we have been hurt by the other.

There’s a deep and impactful wisdom in this sequencing (more to unpack there for another time!), and it supported us repeatedly to open compassionate space, slowed down enough to really check that the message sent was the message received, to support people to actually hear each other, and to have the felt experience of actually being heard.

When our bodies can actually take in that the other did hear what we meant for them to hear, there’s a palpable softening. Something can break open.

Even if the opening is small, it makes space for something new to grow, for even a small seed to put down roots, for a new trajectory to emerge. Even if the new trajectory is only ever-so-slightly a pivot from the current direction, over time, this makes a difference. This is the math of angles and degrees and stuff, right?!

Over and over again in these supported dialogues, people named that this sort of opening and softening was happening.

That they felt heard in ways they hadn’t yet. And that hearing from the other things they hadn’t known was deeply helpful, informative, softening and connecting in its own way.

Sometimes requests or strategies emerged for how to support the connection going forward. Sometimes deeper mutual seeing and understanding was enough of an “outcome.”

And repeatedly, both parties named that part of what they thought would help them stay in better relationship going forward and avoid more harm and conflict was simply more connection, more relational time, more getting to be humans together and see each other as the individuals they were beyond their group identity.

Many of the next steps were things like setting up regular walks or coffee dates or check-ins.

Of course none of this “solved” all of the problems. Nor were all impacted parties even willing to come to the table.

But for those who were able to find the capacity and willingness to enter into dialogue, coming with enough openness to see and be seen, and to genuinely be stretched, some healing was able to happen.

And even though it’s small, I do believe this healing can ripple.

Just like with the ritual at Camp Friedenswald, which I shared about last week, so often these small acts of healing and repair can serve as a fractal of the bigger picture, and the impacts can ripple out like a balm of possibility.

• What seeds might this kind of listening plant for others to move through deep othering, to actually make space for connection across incredible pain and polarization?

• How might this be a fractal of relationship, supporting us to cross lines and borders and walls of all kinds that would have us think they are impossible to cross?

I’m grateful for this opportunity to facilitate this kind of healing listening space, and also feel the ripple effect of healing it has on me, getting to be witness/party to this repair/healing/connection.

And I’m honored to be invited in and trusted to hold it. Particularly as a white person of Christian descent/lineage, when the metanarrative of my people is being weaponized to further a genocidal program (read Christian Zionism), I am also culpable and thereby humbled to be able to contribute to repair even in this small way.

May we all keep leaning into finding moments to slow down and listen just a little more deeply, invite ourselves to stretch and make space for a little more understanding, a little more seeing and being seen in the fullness of our complexity, even across what can feel like insurmountable divides.

Where might you even try this on in your own life this week?

Wishing you many micro-moments of repair and that you feel the balm of the ripple.