The Weight of Sacred Listening

Rev. Dr. Angela Johnson
Co-Chair, community safety & equity committee

CLOUT Team Assembly – Thurs, Oct 9 2025

As we’re wrapping up our annual listening process, I wonder if your house meetings were like mine. People sharing their stories…concerns about their themselves, their families, their communities and even about this country…

Stories that rode on the weight of the mantle that sacred listening requires. Where we heard the longing for more and decent affordable housing. Stories about immigration…with the stealthy threats of ICE…in the backs of minds. Stories about the probable loss of healthcare for many…and possible higher premiums…for even more…that will make healthcare a thing of the past for our families, friends and neighbors. 

I wonder if your house meetings were like mine…where stories were shared that compounded the weight of the mantle that sacred listening requires as you heard about the ever-climbing cost of living that will send some households over the edge into poverty and uncertainty...stories which often caused the room to be silent…

…because the weight of the stories being told…fell on our hearts...in ways that a friend in one of my house meetings later thanked me for…in providing a safe space to share their deepest woes…with no fear of ridicule or judgement. Just a safe place in which to share…where there were no sharp comebacks or laughs in an attempt to deflect the weight of what we were hearing.

The Sacred listening of our house meetings required that we be present and remain in the moment as we honored one another’s thoughts and feelings, so we each felt less alone in our pain. These moments that felt like ‘Job-moments.’ Job suffered so much loss that no one could really understand it. So, his 3 friends sat with him for 7 days in empathy and in support, just being present. We each owe our neighbor that.

However, we, unlike Job’s friends, are not going to try to reason away our realities. In our communities and in the world, we don’t have to do anything wrong to find ourselves in dire straits. The systems of the Empire are working exactly as Pharoah designed them. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer- money talks and BS walks. You grease my palm and I’ll grease yours. “Not in my backyard!”

Now, we know that some of these issues were created by the System and the powers that be. Some problems CLOUT can’t do anything about…like people’s personal health or issues at the national level- like the government shutdown or the national guard being deployed to certain cities. 

But at the local level…in our neighborhoods and our communities…the issues we can do something about…the issues we can change…we will change! So, stay in it for the long haul! We’ve got work to do!

And most of all, thank you for bearing the weight of the mantle that sacred listening required during our annual listening process. Thank you for making a safe space for those to share…without judgment. Thank you for holding in your hearts those stories that it took much courage for our neighbors to entrust to us.