pass the lettuce

Originally published in the South Jetty Newspaper

Every year our church board (and this year we were joined by our day-school board) go on retreat just down the road at Mustang Island Conference Center. The food and hospitality are always wonderful, and it's far enough away without being too far away. At the beginning of the retreat, we spend time checking in, and talking about our lives. A big part of the retreat is to get to know one another better, which improves our work together to serve God through our community.

Since our culture doesn't place a high value on listening (instead teaching us to be preparing a response or defense even while another person is speaking) we spend some time on our retreat learning and practicing listening. Listening to one another intentionally helps us all to have clear conversation. It also helps train us to listen to God.

We use a tool to help us remember who's turn it is to speak. Sometimes it's referred to as a "talking stick," but we use a plastic head of lettuce. It's a bit silly, too, which helps us keep a playful and open attitude, another counter-cultural learning.

As we introduce ourselves we know exactly who to listen to, because we can see who has the lettuce, and we watch the lettuce go around our meeting table as we practice really listening. When we have topics later in the retreat that we need everyone's input on, sometimes we use the lettuce again.

In our day-to-day lives, we typically don't have a plastic head of lettuce handy to pass around, but I hope that the practice teaches us all to listen deeply. Learning to listen to people has helped me in my practice of listening to God. In my prayer life, I mostly listen now. I don't tell God what to do, when, and how. Usually when I pray, I just sit and listen. I open my heart and wait.

The word "obedience" comes from the Latin word meaning roughly, "to listen in the direction of." If I hope to be obedient to God, I have to learn to listen. Usually the language of God is more like a sense of hope, direction, or sometimes for long periods of time, just a fog. Those are times to keep listening; to wait in the in-between until God's voice emerges.

Perhaps the most challenging thing about listening, is that it means we have to wait... I used to pray to God for patience, but that took too long. (That's a joke.) The only way to listen, and wait, is to sacrifice some of our precious time to be still. "Be still and know that I am God." (Ps. 46.10) Between meetings, the plastic head of lettuce sits on my desk as a reminder to me to listen. Or sometimes even an invitation from God: "lettuce pray."