Listening is what I do best (First Person - Loving)

(First person – Loving, Kind – Present tense)

Listening is what I do best. I sit here in the twilight listening to someone I cannot see and who cannot see me. We are supposed to be anonymous, but that is a fiction. I usually know who is sitting there, and they certainly know who I am. In a sense though, I’m not me at all, but someone else entirely.

They come to me with their troubles and the things that are troubling them: the things that weigh down on their shoulders and make them sad. I listen to what they say, and give them relief for at least a little while. They come to me with their misdemeanours and I give them the means to wash themselves clean again. Like little children they will get dirty, but they will be clean for a while, and that is important.

Listening is one of the great services I provide. It is so personal, so private and so intimate. Of all my sacred duties, this listening is one of the greatest, behind that greatest service of all, when I am lost, transformed, transfigured and they are fed.

I have heard so many things here, from the serious to the trivial, but who am I to say what is trivial? That is why the listening is so important. It is important that they feel that someone has heard them, and I feel it is important that, through me, he hears them, that he hears their cries and, in his mercy, through his grace, grants them forgiveness.

Now I hear sounds from the adjoining space. What will I hear in a few moments? Yes, there will be the formula, and the excuses, but what will I hear? Perhaps I will become witness to some tragedy, or complicit in some felony, I cannot tell. These things I do know: This is important, it matters to them and it matters to me. It is important that listening is what I do best.

(9^th October 2016 – 348 words)