"If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James 2:15-16
Sometimes, I feel like the buzzword in any type of social service work is listening. I hear it all the time: we need to listen to those most impacted, we need to listen more deeply, we need to listen with our hearts. That's all well and good but too often, I feel that it's left as just that: listening as a passive, performative act.
People who work abroad in nonprofits or as missionarries talk a lot about how much it impacted them to listen to the stories of people who live difficult lives. Who hasn't heard the person come back from a trip and say "Listening to their stories of ______ made me realize just how lucky I am!" Of course, self reflection and awareness are important, but it's often left me feeling unsatisfied.
Listening is a powerful tool because it gives us access to the information that we need to make a difference. It can teach us that our assumptions are wrong or misguided, and more importantly, it can show us the way forward. That's where I feel like we're getting lost sometimes: either we listen and do nothing or we listen and do what we were thinking of doing anyway.
The thing about asking people about their struggle is that usually they have a solution to offer; they tell you what they need. When that happens, the next step has to be helping them achieve the goal they've identified. If we don't believe people to be the experts of their own lives, we cannot claim to be helping. At that point, we are just imposing.
For me, that means helping a young woman access the contraceptive method of her choice, even if maybe I think another method would be better suited to her. Or it means talking through a difficult situation in a teenage relationship, discussing rights and laws, and then letting the teenage make an informed decision, even if I might have made another one. It means trusting people.
Of course, we must also share information, discuss things deeply, confide in one another. But there's a difference between offering information and imposing a solution. Listening has to be learning about someone's struggle, and helping them find their own way out of it.
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also James 2:26
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