My Watchword for 2024: "Listen"

Better than 2023's "rizz" or "authentic"

It is time to look back. Word of the year. Most read articles. Most listened song lists. Year-in-review. Retrospective of all the celebrities we ‘lost’ in 2023.

'Rizz' Is Oxford's 2023 Word of the Year or Authentic: Merriam-Webster's word of the year.

Do you agree or disagree with Oxford’s or Merriam-Webster’s word of the year? More interesting to me: what was your word of the year? If you had to fly a banner with one word on it over all of 2023, what would it be?

It is also time to look ahead. Resolutions. Weight-loss. Exercise regimens. Bible reading plan. Sobriety.

I have some looking ahead to do, but I am going to start with a watchword for 2024: Listen. Shema. Obsculta.

Self-Diagnosis: Too much talk, presumption, assumption, busy-hearted, loud-minded, and snap-judgement. Too little curiosity, quiet, questions, and grace. I listen too little.

David Brooks suggests good listeners, people who actually want to know a person, are not “toppers,” or people who listen just to respond with a story of their own. “Well, wait til you hear what happened to me…” Henri Nouwen calls it, “Paying attention without intention.” I want to try to do less of that. Brooks suggests asking good questions, or as he calls it, “becoming a loud listener.” He draws a distinction between diminishers and illuminators: “Diminishers make people feel small and unseen. They see other people as things to be used, not persons to be befriended. They stereotype and ignore. They are so involved with themselves that others are not on their radar screen. Illuminators, on the other hand, have a persistent curiosity about other people…They shine the brightness of their care on people and make them feel bigger, deeper, respected, lit up.”I plan to practice getting better at being a loud listener. Here are some of David Brook’s favorite collection of questions:

• “What crossroads are you at?”

• “If this five years of your life is a chapter, what is it about?”

• “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

• “How did you come to believe that?”

• “What is your favorite unimportant thing about yourself?”

• “Why you?”

Amanda Ripley writes about “conflict entrepreneurs,” who are individuals or organizations that boost their egos and/or pocketbooks by keeping others steeped in anger and hate. “Whether you’re a politician, a journalist, a pundit, or somebody who uses Facebook, there is a strong incentive and push to be a conflict entrepreneur,” observes Amanda.

In 2023, I decided I would give equal opportunity to CNN and FOX news—not the channel, but their websites. If I checked one, I would check the other. Not in 2024. Both incentivize anger and hate. Both present an uncomplicated vision of our fellow citizens and neighbors. So do a bunch of pundits, ecclesial and partisan. I plan to minimize the noise they and other “conflict entrepreneurs” create in my life.

So, does this mean I will just become a know-nothing or a luddite? Here is what I am going to try. LA Times. It is not perfect, but they write original articles, and they are local. I get the Sunday paper, and with it comes online access to the daily paper. I don’t miss Brooks and Capehart on PBS. The Bulletin and The Russell Moore Show from Christianity Today has been reliable sources of news related to the life of a disciple of Jesus. I have found Podcasts and Substack newsletters are more thoughtful and reflective than sound-bytes or attention grabbing headlines on other social media outlets.

The heart of Hebrew spirituality is the hearing life—shema Israel—hear, O Israel. The listening life is the life that takes seriously that God is a speaking God. In the beginning, God said (Genesis 1). In the beginning was the Word (John 1). It is not that speaking is an unfaithful act, it just can’t be our first act. Listen. Shema. This Sunday (First of Christmas), the gospel reading is from Luke 2.22-40. Simeon and Anna waiting expectantly in the temple for the messiah. The name Simeon comes from the Hebrew “shema-on” (שָׁמַע אוֹנִי‎). “Heard…” I want to be listening—paying attention like Simeon.

The Rule of St. Benedict begins, and begins the year, “Listen carefully (Obsculta), my child, to my instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart.” Sr. Joan Chittister writes, “Spirituality does not come by breathing. It comes by listening “with the ear of the heart.” (The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century. Crossroad Publishing, 1992, page 3-4).