April 21, 2025

• Sharing with and understanding someone whose views are opposed to yours

The God of life, the God of hope, the God of light, the God of strength, the God of resilience, the God of all creation belongs to the lives of you and all who exist. You share with one another your hopes, your concerns, your perspectives, your pain, and that process of sharing is crucial in your seeing God’s presence. You talk about the power of working together with shared concerns. That is, of course, so valuable and of the highest purpose, but we would like to explore more the subject of sharing when there is not unanimity of objectives.

You are confronted on a daily basis in one form or another with those whose perceptions and perspectives are wholly different from what you believe the truth to be. Yes, there is strength in being with others who share your beliefs, but it is in sharing concerns, sharing what you are worried about, sharing that creates fear and anxiety, even hostility that one finds a fertile ground for true growth, especially toward peace. We are not defining peace in military or political terms but rather a spiritual sense in which all parties are drawn to a recognition of the levels at which they are indeed the same.

If you are to understand someone whose views are opposed to yours, while it may be helpful to be with others who share your views, the peace that you seek can only be ultimately achieved when you and the other recognize the common bond that truly unites. Such recognition goes far beyond just knowing of the differences. It’s not a matter of letting bygones be bygones, for in such an approach you ignore the deeper understanding of another that is the true goal for the resolution of conflict.

Sharing with those you disagree with is never easy, for all who are present must ultimately be willing to be vulnerable enough to recognize the strength within another that is the true strength, that is the binding tissue connecting all. It is not a plan of weakness to express openly what it is you do not understand, what it is you may be vehemently opposed to. This kind of vulnerability that we think is so important is a vulnerability that allows you to acknowledge to another that your understanding, your views, are incomplete. Your vision is not necessarily 20/20.

In those opportunities you have to share conflicting views, the greatest challenge facing all participants is the willingness to simply listen and try as best as one can to understand what is truly being said. What is truly being said or meant is often far different from the specific words that are used. You cannot listen and then accept on face value all that is offered to you. Discernment, a seeking for understanding about the why of particular perspectives, is essential.

Your goals in life are primarily centered around a growing ability to understand what is meant as a reality more significant than words that are spoken. When many get together to share their worries and concerns most honestly, there grows a meaningfully deepening and broadening understanding of why someone thinks or acts in particular ways. You have taken stands on issues only to change those positions. The facts have not changed, but your understanding of those facts has, and each understanding brings with it an increase of closeness to what is being investigated.

Sharing of perspectives means listening to perspectives. The sharing is not “you tell me what you are concerned with, and I will tell you what I am concerned with.” True sharing is “you tell me what you are concerned with, and I will listen with a fully open heart. I will listen for understanding. I will listen for my own growth. But of all that I do, first of all I listen without judgment.”

No understanding, no profound exchange or sharing one with another is possible without that kind of listening. If one responds to another defensively, feeling one has been attacked in concepts, there is no true listening that has taken place. It is merely a waiting game through which you tell others of your own beliefs in the hope that your beliefs, your understandings will dominate. That kind of sharing is not sharing. It becomes a kind of competition, for engaging with another’s viewpoints can only become a positive effort when judgment is suspended, when you listen to intent, when you understand the context from which another’s perspectives are solidified.

True understanding means true listening. To understand fully you must listen fully. To understand in judgment means you are listening judgmentally. The only form of listening and sharing that reflects the reality of God must be built of perceptive listening.

Words, as you know, are incomplete representations of deeper truths. When you share an understanding with another nonjudgmentally and without a competitive agenda, another can grow in perspective. Perhaps as a result of that sharing, you come to a meaningful agreement with one another, but that is not the goal. Sharing does not seek agreement. Sharing seeks listening. Sharing seeks the objective of being heard, however that might be defined at any given moment.

A sharing heart is a listening heart. A heart seeking justice must be a listening heart. A heart seeking a loving relationship can only be through listening. It is through listening that perspectives grow and evolve and become deeper.

Yes, of course, it is satisfying to be with others who seem to be in full agreement with you. That is reinforcing. That tells you that you are onto something that seems right, but in that process, there is little chance for growth. Real growth occurs after listening when there is an “aha” moment. “Aha, I never thought of that before. I never considered that before. I never knew that was a concern. I never understood its essential importance to a person or a group of people or a society, yes, even a nation.”

When there is an “aha” moment as you encounter others with whom you disagree, it is a moment of significant growth, for that growth occurred because you were open in a nonjudgmental way to understand the perspective of someone else. It is in that understanding that peace, balance, justice, and fairness become acceptable, become reachable, and actually become reality. You evolve personally. You evolve spiritually through your own efforts. If you seek peace, be filled with peace. Be peaceful. If you seek true justice, understand what justice means to another.

Allow yourself the “aha” moment of acknowledging the validity of another viewpoint which initially seemed in opposition to your own insights. Sharing perspectives with those with whom you disagree brings you to a place of greater perspective, brings you to a place of more understanding. That new place may ultimately change your mind, but if your own perspective changes it is not because someone told you your perspective was wrong. It was because in careful listening you began to understand why another may have views wildly different from your own and yet be fully valid.

Spiritual growth is growth by listening first. That stage may then expand to be growth by caring and growth by doing, growth in understanding, and growth in the acknowledgment that all life has purpose. You pray to find strength and insight to deal with the challenges that are facing you. There is no simple answer of whether to turn right or left or go straight ahead or in reverse. The resolution to what you seek is more meaningfully loving nonjudgmental understanding of another’s perspective.

It is in the listening that you will find the answers to what you can do now. It is in listening that you understand what others may be fearing. Knowing that such fear can be debilitating, can interfere with an appropriate response to challenges that come forward.

For many of the concerns you have about where to go, what to do in the current crises that you experience, the goal is now one of listening fully with an open heart, for it is in listening that understanding is broadened. It is in listening that you are brought to an awareness of what unites you all, and when you feel united, then the agony of the separations that you feel are dissipated, and you begin to fully recognize that the differences you are aware of lie only at the surface. But that surface is strong and often seemingly impenetrable. Nevertheless, by using your heart vision to listen and then to know your view of where to move ahead and how becomes infinitely clearer.

Take away your sense of loss, and you will find a desire to reach out and embrace. It is loss that spawns anger and motivates behavior. You are no different from anyone else in the most significant ways. How your life plays out is different, of course, for your pathway is never identical with another’s. But in the sharing that takes place as you encounter others, you can be assured that through that opening, your response will be one entirely in keeping with the manifestation of God’s presence.

Pray for openness, openness of spirit, openness in attitude, openness in willingness to truly listen, not shying away through debate but embracing that debate with a wish to understand and not to prevail. Human life is indeed a life of growth. It is a life of engagement with the process of living with an open heart, with living without preconceived opinions of what is good and what is bad, what is godly and what is not.

Be open in all your encounters with others. Be slow to speak your mind and fast to hear the minds of others. Work on increasing your ability to just listen. Listen actively with compassion. Listen with a commitment to understand the bonds of spirit that unite you with all that is. In so doing, the peace you pray for will become the peace you witness. The balance you pray for will become the balance you feel. The insight you pray for will become the insight that directs you always on your pathway.

You’re blessed. You’re blessed as you listen. You’re blessed as you reach out to share, to fully be present. You’re blessed in all the ways that you express the loving spirit that lies within.

Amen.