The Art of Presence
If I was still living in Nashville, ministering in Nashville, pressed by the crazy schedule I worked on staff at the megachurch, with that corporate mentality, with the agenda generated by other paradigms, I would never have witnessed what I just experienced.
I was walking from the kitchen to my study in the Grace Community training site, when I saw one of our older parishioners out for her morning walk. She lives about a mile from here.
My to do list is long today, the pressure is mounting to get stuff done before leaving town on a family holiday, I need to do some planning … etc. But I decided to get off my timeframe and just go say “Hi” to her, coffee cup in hand.
She is approaching 90, has a husband she cares for. She’s an amazing woman with a tender heart. She has weathered the difficulties in re-birthing this local congregation.
I was able to just listen, and learn, and give a hug. I stood there for about 30 minutes in the coastal Georgia heat (sipping my cup off Starbucks brew, which added to the sweat factor). All she wanted and needed from me was to be present and listen. I learned so much about her life story, her extended family, her outlook on life.
I wonder if I was blessed more than her by our conversation.
It’s an art, you know … being patient enough to put aside mental pressures and just focus on someone talking to you. It’s an art I’ve been trying to practice more these days. I find myself changed somehow each time I practice it: a bit more humble, a bit more patient, a bit more about others, a bit less about me.
What a great part of my day … seeing Jesus in the presence and words and history of this woman.
SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
In what ways are you practicing the art of presence?
——
Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
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husband, father, philosopher, thinker, writer, listener, storyteller, creator, teacher, equipper: (pastor) husband, father, son, philosopher, thinker, writer, listener, storyteller, creator, teacher, equipper, pastor Read more from this author
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By Mark
, June 25, 2008 @ 9:23 am
Trying to resist the notion that presence also includes all the right answers
By Brian Niece
, June 25, 2008 @ 9:29 am
@Mark: Yes indeed. The art of presence is the polar opposite of Willimon’s assertion of a “quivering mass of availability.”
We can be present. We cannot be embodied answers.