Please Pass the Corn

Was there corn involved somewhere in your Thanksgiving consumption this year? Well, sure there was. Even if it was just corn syrup in your pecan pie, corn was invited to your meal. History Channel research allows some confidence that corn was part of the historic three-day harvest and hunting festival associated with the “1621 Thanksgiving,” Records show the corn crop was pretty plentiful at the first harvest. It is very likely the gathered ones ate onions, beans, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, carrots and perhaps peas, and again, corn. The article I read asserted that “In those days, the corn would have been removed from the cob and turned into cornmeal, which was then boiled and pounded into a thick corn mush or porridge that was occasionally sweetened with molasses.” That doesn’t sound bad.

I mention the corn especially because I remember an interview with the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Barbara McClintock, some years before her death in 1992. In the early 30s at Cornell University, she ignited something of a stir in the field of corn cytogenetics. Some other major breakthroughs came up in the 40s while the University of Missouri. Hail Mizzou and corn research too. By the time she won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Science, she had been studying the noble grain on the cob for 60 years. She discovered early on, in her meticulous crossbreeding of corn, that whereas scientists had thought the genes in chromosomes stored on DNA were pretty stable packages of instructions this was not always the case. She found that DNA is far more complicated than scientists originally thought. The genes don’t exist in fixed positions on chromosomes but actually could jump around from one part of the chromosome to another. Wow, “jumpers!” She found the genome is not just a passive database of info. It is a sensitive and dynamic system with “transposable elements,” interacting with their environment and each other.

That brings me to the line I loved in an interview with this remarkable woman. Professor McClintock was asked how she could stay with corn for 70 years and how she could learn so much about it. She said something like. “Well, I came to learn, that if you are patient, quiet and focused, and lean in closely to listen, the corn will tell you quite a lot about itself.”

Wow, listening is that powerful! We are told the chief divine commandment to us as God’s people is two-fold: Love God with all you got and love your neighbor as yourself. (Maybe that is a three-fold commandment, given the “self” part.) Of the one hundred things I can list being thankful for, I mention here a renewed focus I have in my life-in-Christ. Namely listening to God, and listening to others.

Listening is a very special way of loving. We can listen lightly or listen in a careful and intentional way. I am learning to listen silently to God in Christian Meditation which I seek to teach, week by week as people come around to learn and practice this special kind of prayer. I am also learning to listen to God in the Bible in a more intentional concentrated way as well. I love teaching about this as well. We don’t know it all. We have barely scratched the surface. God is the unfathomable treasure.

Focused listening to other people is a good idea for anyone. I am discovering a kind of “holy listening” to others. I recently completed a certificate of study in the caring practice of Spiritual Direction from the Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction. This is the ancient art of Christian spiritual guidance.

It is important to point out the model of training I received is rooted in listening, and the word “direction” is a bit of a poor fit.  Hesychia means “watchful, inner stillness, silence.” This manner of direction is rooted in “desert spirituality” from the early church, which seeks special attentiveness to God’s movement in one’s life and the restoration of one’s life of prayer. The director is “holding a space” as a valuable opportunity for the directee to discern and articulate what God is up to in his or her life. To borrow again from Barbara McClintock’s work with corn: the spiritual director can be patient, quiet and focused, and lean in closely to listen, to the directee. Through this, the exploring soul friend can unfold quite a lot about himself or herself. The director is listening in a way that evokes the directee’s exploration and expression. I would be happy to respond to questions you might have about this special ministry or the special practices of listening to God. Pass the corn. Pass the pecan pie. Pass the peace. Just do not take a pass on these ways of leaning in to listen. You will hear a-maize-ing things. (Okay, that was corny.)

I am thankful for the new avenues opening to me in listening to God and listening to others. It is a new discovery of the way of love we are all called to know in our Lord Jesus Christ. At St. Francis, the ministry team is continuously praying for all to be growing in relationship to God in Christ. May Thanksgiving Day and all the days to come be filled with offering love and thanks specifically to the God of Love.