The Art of Christian Listening

I read this for class. There is some real good here, but also it is a bit dated.

These are pieces of discussion posts I wrote for class instead of a review

The Art of Christian Listening starts with exploring the concept of the sacrament and the helper as a sacrament. I wonder at using the word sacrament when Hart, on page 6, suggests that incarnation and sacrament are roughly equivalent ideas. Hart develops the idea of helper as sacrament over a couple of chapters, but he does it as I would typically think the word incarnation/incarnational. When, on page 11, Hart references the helper as “embody[ing] the presence of Christ,” I understand there is likely a distinction there in Catholic theology that I may be ill equipped to understand the nuance of.

However, my Baptist background frequently has taught that we are, as the church, the incarnational reality of Christ on earth today, roughly similar to how I understand Hart to be using sacramental language. However, the continuation of that quote on page 11 is “yet may lack many of the virtues of Christ.” That tension of being a representative of Christ but not having the virtues of Christ captures the responsibility and trepidation that I feel like I need to keep ever in front of me, especially as we talk about discernment.

This does raise one more issue in these chapters. Helper tends to mean ‘assistant' and lower status or unskilled laborer in English. In some sense, that gets at our servant status in relationship to God (although the Hebrew term is translated into English as helper frequently references God.) The question I have of the helper concept is whether this is solidarity in the sense of equality and a lack of hierarchy, as is referenced in chapter 4. Or if it is a helper, as in helping professions like medicine, education, or social work where the ‘helper' is the skilled person in the relationship, as the ‘director' portion of Spiritual Direction suggests. The Camus quote on page 17 suggests solidarity in the sense that Shawn Copeland's book Enfleshing Freedom advocates for Christians standing in solidarity with the oppressed.

Chapter 4, in its discussion of Vatican II and Jesus as a model, resists the tendency to create a hierarchy between the spiritual director/helper and the person they are listening to. But I think our sinful nature, and the world, tend to want to push us in the direction of seeing ourselves as the ones with the skill and doing the imparting of that skill. It is a challenge to think in other ways.
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In this section's readings for Hart, he speaks about the misuse of discernment as a form of divination, which I think is related to my discomfort with discernment as decision-making. While Hart uses imagery around literal divination, I think this applies to several different ways that we attempt to manipulate God, including the section on page 68 that details how we tend to create systems of law as a protective barrier. This barrier, designed to keep us from sin, I think, also inoculates from the ability to have a real relationship with God.

Hart continues in chapter eight to illustrate the Ignatian process as pray for freedom and guidance, assess the data, and seek confirmation from God. But he calls it “discerning God's will, or making choices in the Lord.” (p79)

I know I am getting bogged down on this point. But we are in a pragmatic culture. If we value discernment because of what it can do for us to get us to right decisions and to be “better used by God” and not to bring us into a deeper relationship with God and to become more like Christ in our actions and perceptions of the world, then I think we are just putting Christian language on the coaching movement to make people more productive and valuable (marketable). I am not opposed to people improving themselves, but we are limited, created beings, and part of what I find so encouraging and helpful in Christianity and the way of Christ is a grace to be limited.