Caring Enough To Confront By David AugsburgerSample

Day Three

What Love Looks Like

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1

To love is to listen; to be loved is to be fully heard.

When I listen: I want to hear you—to hear deeply, to hear openly. To attend to what is said, how it is said, what feeling is conveyed, and what is wanted. I want to hear you with the inner ear that is attuned to the feelings, the joys, the hurts, the angers, the demands of another. I want to hear deeply, clearly, accurately enough that I am able—to some real extent—to feel what you feel, hurt where you hurt, and want for you the freedom to be all that you are becoming. 

When I speak: I want to speak simply—to say what I mean in the clearest, shortest, frankest words I know. I want to reach out with my meanings to meet your meanings. Knowing that meanings are in people, not in words, I want to be as clear and open about my meanings as I can. I will risk. I will reveal my true self. I will be increasingly vulnerable to you by respecting your perceptions equally with my own. 

I want to speak directly. I do not want to talk about people when it is possible to talk to them. Whatever I have to say to you, I want you to hear first from me. 

I want conflict to call out the best in myself and in you. I want to negotiate differences with you in clear, respectful, truthful ways of hearing, speaking, and acting. I want both the truth as I see it and my respect for your viewpoint to be clear in my responses—verbal and nonverbal. 

When situations of conflict become difficult, I want to listen in a way that validates your right to a different perspective. I may or may not be able to break through the walls blocking our mutual understanding, but I can express both love and truth best by refusing to get caught in the many communication traps, potholes, detours, and dead-ends such as the “whys” and the “it’s your faults” and the “you must change first” strategies. 

I want to love truthfulness in our relationship because only then can I truly love you.

Why does listening to someone else communicate love? Why does honesty communicate love?