7 Listening Takes
International Women's Day, Bad Therapy, A Negative World, SCOTUS, Good Therapy, Reading Vs. Listening, and Sermon Listening with Children
Happy International Women’s Day to all who celebrate! It’s the end of our spring “break” which means that I’m still straggling into the day and wondering what sort of takes there might be out there to tempt us all.
One
Several weeks ago, I happened to see someone on X explaining that listening to books on an app like Audible or Hoopla should not be counted as reading. Reading and listening are two different things, this person explained, and it is a sorry state that we have come to that people claim they have “read a book” when in point of fact they have only listened to it while they were driving or carrying on with their lives. The person had a great deal to say on this subject, and many people chimed in to agree. I, essentially a lurker on that app, was conflicted in my soul.
I suppose that is true. Reading and listening are not the same, and if you want to be pedantic about it, it’s fair to say that listening to a book is not the same as reading it. As far as that, though, I feel like, on International Women’s Day, that’s exactly the sort of thing a man with a lot of quiet on his hands might think was a sign and portent of the end of all things. Speaking as a female-identifying birthing person, if it weren’t possible to plug in my headphones and listen to books, I would not be able to engage meaningfully in the world of ideas.
Heretofore, in bygone ages, if I were rich enough to employ servants to sit by me as I desultorily bent over my sewing, reading out the news of the day and such improving literature as might be suitable to my station in life, I bet I would still have said that I “read” that book or pamphlet. Being on the downward economic spiral out of the middle class and peering into the gaping maw of the gig economy, I have to scrap as I can. Being able to listen to books—both old and new—has been an immense blessing to my overall state of well-being, as well as giving me interesting things to write about—which I don’t have to do with a quill and a bottle of ink.
Two
Which is an excessively long way of saying that I “read” the whole of Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy: Why The Kids Aren’t Growing Up yesterday while folding laundry, scrubbing my floors, and sorting the huge pile of paper that has been looming over me for many a long day. I don’t want to gush, but goodness, what a book. If you have a few bucks or an audible credit lying around, or can even shell out for a real copy, I commend this seminal and eye-opening work to you.
In the first place, it will make you shudder down to the depths of your shoes. You know how you can sort of sense that “things”—all the things—are not going along in a good way, and you may have some vague ideas about why, but not quite be able to put your finger on it? Well, this book will take your finger and put it right on it.
If I get to it this coming week, I might try a real review, but honestly, you don’t need me to work through this material, you just need to read—or listen—to the book. Shrier reads it herself and, truth be told, her moving account at the very end of why you should have children if you can, and what it means to be a parent, made me cry, in a good way.
Three
Speaking of children, our church is stuffed with them right now, and we’ve been experimenting with a variety of different tips and tricks to make the service, not easier exactly, but more “accessible” for them. Being a liturgical church, there is plenty to see and pay attention to until we come to the sermon. Many liturgical churches adopt the ten-minute sermonette and call it good, which is why the mainlines collapsed, I’m convinced. Not wanting to go the way of all flesh, at least not yet, we have a hefty portion of biblical exposition on Sunday morning, lasting up to 40 minutes. Those children who are antsy and whose parents desire for them to have room to squirm, go downstairs for what we’ve been calling “sermon listening.” Obviously, everyone should be listening, but when you’re three or four or five, you might find it more pleasurable to keep other people from listening than to listen yourself. So away they go to a place where the sermon can be heard, but where it’s fine to talk out loud. There they are given something to do with their hands, and are free to ask questions and try to grapple with the strange business of someone talking for such a long time who isn’t them.
One thing we’ve been trying is to have the kids listen for three or four words, and make a mark or raise their hand when they hear them. Being in the book of Acts, words like “circumcision” and “Gentile” and “Holy Spirit” are getting to be old hat, so I asked Matt what he suggested for this week and his first thought was “demons, slave, and damned.” Ha Ha, I said, can we have something nice too? So then he said, “Claudius, Diviner, and Magistrate.” Guess what chapter of Acts we’re in, and maybe comment with more child-friendly word suggestions.
Four
Speaking of therapy, I loved this article. The authors essentially describe Family Systems theory, without calling it that. It’s a What Edwin Friedman Would Do kind of thing. After describing how a couple managed to solve a relational issue that was causing them both to experience depression, the writers say this:
Julie’s depression was reframed and treated as a relationship issue. This meant that both people became patients, not just Julie. One side effect of this way of working is that the depressed person is de-stigmatized. They are no longer seen as having something wrong with them that needs to be fixed, but in fact, they are more like a lighthouse, signaling that all is not well in the land where they live.
This stands in sharp contrast to the prevailing “brain chemistry” model of depression and other syndromes of distress. When a depressed person, or anyone with psychological symptoms, is isolated from their natural habitat and treated with medications, it reinforces the idea of an illness belonging to only one person, rather than the relational system. This is one way that a family avoids knowing about itself and its dysfunction. This person may become the scapegoat for the family disturbance. When that person is reinforced in his or her role as sick, this in turn absolves the family from having to address its own underlying problems, reinforcing a dysfunctional family homeostasis.
The language of modern psychotherapy provides a powerful tool in selling the idea of a “brain chemistry” problem. It suggests the promise of certainty, declaring a biological basis for our moods, our distress, our distraction. The problem with the “chemical imbalance” metaphor is its persuasive power, which is intimidating and represses imagination. It implies that no one should feel powerless. No one should suffer or feel mental pain. The sophisticated scientific pretense of psychiatric language creates an illusion that human experience can be quantified or measured. When we believe we can measure experience, we feel smarter and more self-assured.
Seriously, read the whole thing. It is a positive example of what is possible in our increasingly anxious and psychically painful time. The other thing about it that struck me is that the therapist helped these two people solve a problem and then, amazingly, stopped seeing them. Shrier insists that the first question you should ask a therapist is about the duration of the treatment. If there is no fixed end, you might not be dealing with someone who really knows what they’re doing. In fact, especially when seeking help for children and teenagers, you should be as careful about choosing your therapist and choosing your surgeon.
Five
Speaking of books, I also started listening to Aaron Renn’s book, Life in the Negative World. I haven’t gotten very far, having become distracted by Bad Therapy, but so far, it’s excellent. I have found it an immense relief to be given words and images to describe the world we live in now. I’ve said this before, I think, or maybe I’ve only thought it, but I think one reason I always hated having to come back to the US for furloughs as a child (they’re not called that anymore, isn’t it something like “Partner Development” or some other euphemism?) is that what Americans were saying about their world was manifestly and visibly not true, even at the time. All you had to do was go away and come back to see the spiritual and civilizational cracks—even in the 80s.
My other thought, so far, is that if you’re wondering about the motivations and inclinations of narrative setters—the people whose historical myths are gaining ascendancy today—all you have to do is glance at the direction of the larger culture. If someone is rattling on about power and influence, but blaming Christians for being wrong about everything, you must at least be allowed to wonder if they are making bank, or at the very least attempting to save their own skins.
Six
Watched part of the State of the Union last night and the only response I have is (though it is two weeks early for me to pull this out):
That, for those of you who don’t know, is the old Good Shepherd. Our old Youth Minister took that picture as we were packing up to leave having lost our property to the Episcopal Church. Whoever put up the song took his picture, not knowing what it would mean to me year after year to look at that golden light and hear Connor Burrowes singing these necessary words:
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.
If you’re tired of listening to an old man rage and shout, you can just listen to this on a loop.
Seven
This Sunday I plan to resume all my regular blogging efforts. The lections are a bit peculiar—the Destruction of Jerusalem at the end of Chronicles, one of my favorite bits from Ephesians, the gorgeous Psalm 122, and the Feeding of the Five Thousand. I’m not sure how exactly they might fit together, but I have all day to mull it over. Next week my hope is to return to posting first thing in the morning, with an audio version available. We’ll see how it goes with the dreaded Daylight Savings looming upon us. It shouldn’t have to be this way. If only the Lord would have mercy and return before then.
Have a nice afternoon!
My feelings of guilt for listening to (not reading) Anne's Demotivations posts, occasionally: begone!
LOVED how you dispensed with that pedantic nitpicking in take One.
And I appreciate your church's effort in take Three. I've long bravely (foolishly?) asserted that churches need to balance the needs of adults to hear and contemplate during services and the needs of children, well, to be children. But stating that will get both venom and sentimental claptrap thrown at you as I've discovered. ANYWAY, I appreciate your church being creative in finding a good balance. That's the first time I've heard of that provision.