Listen, Learn, Love - Ethan Moore
Listen, Learn, Love
As a teenager once said a few minutes into one of my talks, “heavy alert!”
Speak-Up Reach-Out is our valley’s suicide prevention non-profit organization- a wonderful group of people doing very difficult and profoundly important work. Each fall they host a memorial service to remember loved ones lost to suicide in the past year. This year’s gathering was last Sunday, and at the end I was privileged to briefly speak and offer a benediction prayer. Here’s the essence of my remarks.
Over the past few years I’ve led six memorials where the cause of death was suicide, and two of these were for close friends. These impacted me greatly, and across these experiences three words- three concepts- continually came to mind. They are listen, learn, and love.
Listen. This is a recurring theme here in our chaplain daily reflections. To truly listen is to validate a person’s lived experience, to impart respect and meaning. Truly listening can also be quite difficult, as it takes time, sometimes sacrifice, and great humility. But when we really listen to a fellow human – with open minds that desire to hear- something essential will happen. We will learn.
Learn. In the case of suicide, it’s not uncommon for much listening and learning to happen after the event. This is important and often healing. It’s also essential to proactively learn where people are coming from, and what they are going through. This doesn’t have to just be about serious emotional or mental health issues. When we learn about another person, who they are, their story, it helps us to understand, and understanding helps us to love.
Love. Love is the greatest motivator to listen and learn, and listening and learning helps deepen and give greater focus to how we love. A few years ago I lost a dear friend to suicide. This led me to intentionally listen to a person with his shared life experience. This helped me learn, and begin to understand, a whole new community of wonderful people I had never known, which led to new friendships and a love of people I had never understood. Love, broadened by understanding, a door opened by listening- it’s a powerful thing.
Listening, learning, and loving may save a life. It will almost certainly make a difference. It has the power to change a person, and the person changed just might be you.
Listening,
Chaplain Ethan
Vail Health|Patient Experience