Holding the Shell to Your Ear

Doesn’t this say it all? In a recent Letter to the Editor in the New York Times, a reader, commenting on a Ross Douthat take on Pope Francis as a way too progressive and, therefore, dangerous leader, included this anecdote: He and some of his fellow students at an all-male Catholic high school had noted a pressing need and asked why there were no typing classes offered. The (of course, male) teacher replied that there was no need for them to know how to type. The girls would do that for them.

Tiffany (Truth 1951), by Leslie Nichols. Typewritten Ink on Paper, 2015. Portrait of a student named Tiffany created on a manual typewriter with words Sojourner’s Truth’s speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

The reader ended the letter by noting, “I still type with two fingers.”

Alas, I think we sometimes forget, at least I do, the damage done to males as well as women in hierarchical structures with rigid gender definitions and intransigent roles. Why do we allow such crippling of each other? It makes me want to rant, rave, release all the bitterness and anger I have inside against male church leaders and then take up my ball of vitriol and go home, leaving this monstrous injustice behind.

Then I read another article, “Learning to Listen from My Son” by Viet Thanh Nguyen who is also Catholic and raising his son to be so. He reminded me of the great contribution men, boys, all genders, can make when all of us are willing to put aside the poisoning of our inner selves by our angry outer selves. I especially loved his solution for himself (and all of us) about how to do this: “I resolve to hold the shell of my self up to my ear every day, to listen to the sound of my own self, before I set out into the unsettled world, as I must.”

He is happy that the shell to his ear usually reflects at least this message from his Church – we need “to behave ourselves” – but he is even more grateful for what he learns from his relationship with his son, especially: moral discernment without demonization of others; standing up to those who misuse power without resorting to nasty jibes and negative epithets; connecting and supporting individuals and organizations that reflect his family’s values and help them grow stronger. Most importantly, he learns to hold up to his ear what is said and unsaid by those who are different from him: “I want to listen to strangers and I continue to listen to my son, knowing that if I do not listen to him, he will not listen to me.” Neither, of course, will the strangers.

He ends with an inspiring message for all of us, something we know but perhaps need to hear again: “Not everyone will listen, caught up in the noise, but enough might. Those who do not listen will never know what those who listen do: that it is the listening itself that matters, that listening is what connects us to others, and ourselves.”

Just think: If male Church leaders listened to us, and, yes, that means we would have to listen to them (With new ears maybe? I know, I know, but we can try!), and to our own selves, maybe we could forge a true renewal and re-energization. After all, we’d be unencumbered by outdated stereotypes and limiting definitions of ministry and leadership and by our own anger.

We’d actually be, all of us equally, typing with all ten fingers.