Learning to sit

Guo Jun is a Chinese monk who made a fascinating observation--when we need to communicate most deeply with one another, we sit down to do it. Heart to heart conversations occur over coffee while seated at a table or in comfortable chairs. The meetings of the mind between parents and children occur when seated on the child’s bed or in the living room or in the car. When we pray in church, more often than not, we are seated (in our practice, we stand for the Prayer of Confession, which could lead to all sorts of reflection). When we pray at home, we usually find a place to sit quietly or lie down even. At meetings, we sit around a table. Guo Jun made this statement, “Sitting brings people together.”

With whom do you sit most often? What happens as you do so?

Something has happened to sitting in our increasingly digitized and electronic era--we sit, but we sit closing out the world around us as we fix on the screen before us of tablet, laptop, or smart phone. It is true even of family dinners, out or in. Folks gather around the table, but with their device near at hand, checking it throughout the meal or passing time between interactions with the server. A new sort of quiet accompanies meals.

Is it a good quiet?

One can be terribly lonely even in a crowd. The most alone I have ever felt in my life was in London. London is a massive, cosmopolitan city, full of interesting people from all over the world. There are very few spots where you can find yourself totally alone. Yet, if you do not know any of the millions around you, you might as well be in a room all by yourself. Cities can be anonymous in all the wrong ways. People can simply disappear in a city, even in plain view of everyone else. The blind beggar in the tube station is simply an obstacle to be overcome on the way to or from the train. You can walk the streets of an enormous city and no one will take an interest in you, look at you, or speak to you unless you have done something to annoy them. 

For me, I have to beware of having the same feelings while I sit working with my laptop. What I am doing--writing, studying, reading--can suddenly become all important and when someone speaks to me, I find myself irritated that I have to stop what I was doing an interact with them. 

What am I doing?

A mentor of mine long ago defined a peculiar art to being an effective pastor--”the work is the interruptions.”

Nothing is more important than that person before you. They need your presence, attention, and love even if it is a mundane request for a signature, just a “hello,” or asking directions. It is certainly true when the person needs to share their heart with you. Listening to them is the most important task of that moment. 

So, if we are seated with someone or several folks, note that it is important--else we would not be seated with them. Put down all else that might take away from being with them. Pay attention. Listen. Look at them. Act like you want to be with them. 

In such a simple way we can nurture and nourish love between us. As we nurture and nourish love between us, we find that the connection becomes powerful in the presence of the regular and ordinary stress and strife of being alive. We realize we are not alone. We realize there is reason for hope. We realize just how special those other people really are.

I need to go and sit with someone.