How Can I Listen?

At my high school we were required to do a Senior Service Project. A lot of girls didn’t take it seriously, went to camp for a week during the summer to get it over with, washed dishes for the required one hundred hours and happily professed to not having gotten anything out of it. To be honest I wasn’t that excited about it myself. I contacted a local senior services center, Sheltering Arms, because I thought it might be fun to work with the elderly and listen to their stories. They told me they really only had work in the administrative offices, and I was less than enthused. Making phone calls, answering e-mails, and filing papers?? What was that really going to do? I joked with my friends that I had become an annoying telemarketer for senior citizens, most of whom couldn’t hear me anyway! But I was uncomfortable with my job to be honest.

I felt almost like I was providing an annoying disservice.

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/4860285/telemarketer_Full.jpg

My main task was informing them about the DTV transition switch. “Hi,” I’d say. “My name is Katherine Kling. I work for Sheltering Arms, and I just wanted to inform you about the DTV cable transition that will be occurring in February. If you just give me your information, I can send you a rebate for a....” “DTV, what?!” they’d usually say, and instantly the phone call became more personal, with me trying to explain something that I honestly hardly understood myself. Half the time, after I muddled my way to an acceptable explanation, they’d turn to other topics. “You work for Sheltering Arms, right?” they’d ask and launch into question after question about whether they could get help with groceries or a ride to the library or anything else. I would try to refer them to any of Sheltering Arms’ departments, but I couldn’t do much: after all, I had barely arrived there and knew little to nothing about the organization. I tried to keep my distance and not overstep my bounds. I didn’t know if it would be ok to get personal with them, to ask them how they were doing or offer any consolation. In this way I felt trapped by the system and myself, in Dass’ “helping prison,” unable to provide the true help I knew these people needed: a sympathetic, listening ear that wasn’t going to cut the conversation short to say, “Well, I can refer you to [X department] which may be able to help.” Once a woman began crying to me over the phone: “We don’t have any air conditioning,” she said. (Mind you this is during a Houston July) “And my mother and I are just too hot. Is there anything you can do?” I could only say that I could transfer her call to my boss and that I was terribly sorry. Honestly this job was getting me down. I didn’t really feel like I was doing anything for anyone, especially myself. But then I made a call to one man. We got through the DTV cable schpiel, and then he began to talk about other things. I really liked this guy. He was very funny and endearing, and we had a nice, simple—albeit short—conversation about his day and mine. When the phone call had come to its end, he thanked me for calling and I replied that I had a very nice time talking to him. “It’s just so nice to talk to someone,” he said. “I get so lonely here by myself.”

I finally felt like I was making a difference, simply by listening!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59477083@N00/498493120/

That struck me. I had actually been doing something for this man, simply by listening. The DTV instructions were nothing, peripheral and relatively unimportant information. By limiting my service to “the DTV phone call” I was blocking out all potential to help these people in a deeper way, simply by letting them know that I was really listening to them, that they actually mattered. After all, as the book says, “a situation defined is a situation confined.” (Dass 122) I realized that I had been like the doctor who witnessed the monk in action and knew that though he had “palpated a hundred thousand pulses,” he had “not felt a single one.” (Dass 119) I had been simply going through the motions of “service.”After I opened myself to the possibility that my phone calls could be more than I had defined them, I enjoyed what I was doing more and felt that I could help in a much more substantial way. I asked everyone how they were doing and meant it and realized that I didn’t have to have an answer for everything immediately as long as I was there to listen to what they were going through. I could “hear into their pain” (Dass 114) and really want to help them in a personal way. It’s interesting what a big difference truly listening made.

This picture made me think about how truly isolated you can feel when you're supposedly being helped. This man lacks a personal connection with his "helpers."

http://www.wagneropera.net/Images/MarthalerTristan3akt.jpg

Reliving this experience while writing my DB and reading over How Can I Help? really made me think about what true charity was. You can’t just throw money at a cause and expect everything to get better. Sure anything is helpful, but it’s the personal connection and attention that make a lasting difference. Who hasn’t been helped by a nasty store clerk only to wish that they hadn’t even been helped at all? I hope I’ll remember the dedication and awareness necessary to real help in the future.

I sometimes sing this song to my sister whenever's she's not listening to be cheesy, but Beyonce's really showing how much she needed to be listened to!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj8bsHOKKzY