Listening, Learning as Anglicans
Episcopal News Service. May 6, 2005 [050605-4-A]
“Listening encompasses much more than words,” writes Anglican author and interfaith leader Kay Lindahl. “Listening is a way of being in the world.”
Such is the depth of listening to which Anglicans -- particularly those in Canada and the United States -- are called by the recent Windsor Report and Primates Communique – and as these processes unfold, a new on-line resource has been launched to reflect and to document the richness of this learning.
Available at http://www.anglicanlistening.org, these new postings will grow weekly under the title “The Episcopal Church: Listening and Learning as Anglicans.” On-line resources will expand to feature a variety of materials, including upcoming reports to the Anglican Consultative Council when they are released in June.
The resources will grow with the season of Pentecost, which begins May 15 with a feast day on which Christians across denominations celebrate the gift of God’s Spirit to the Church.
Resources on-line include links to Lindahl’s recent book “The Sacred Art of Listening” and her work as founder of the Listening Center. Lindahl is a parishioner of Faith Episcopal Church in Laguna Niguel, California, and a leader in local, national and international ecumenical and interfaith forums.
The on-line resources are organized around concepts inspired by 16th-century English theologian Richard Hooker and titled “Listening in Scripture,” “Listening in Reason,” Listening in Tradition.” A fourth section is titled “Listening in Communion.”
As one of 38 member provinces of Anglican Communion, the U.S.-based Episcopal Church has reaffirmed -- through recent actions of its Executive Council and House of Bishops -- its commitment to listen deeply to the experience and understandings of fellow Anglicans around the world. These actions come as part of the Episcopal Church’s response to the Windsor Report and Primates’ Communique.
New postings to the site will also be carried by Episcopal News Service.