This Week's Quotation:
“Listening is the most dangerous thing you can do, because once you listen, you might hear what you are called to do.”
—Sobonfu Somé
Learning to Listen Differently
Rev. Berry Behr, Interfaith Minister
I have been reflecting on lessons I have learned from African traditional elders in my circle, including my dear friend and colleague, Rutendo Ngara, whose life’s work bridges science, spirituality, and a range of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS).
Rutendo speaks of the communal nature of knowledge. It cannot be owned but lives in the collective and is carried through story, ritual, repetition, and presence. It is validated not by how persuasive it is to the intellect, but by whether it sustains life. Indigenous wisdom is a heart-first knowing—an experience of deep interconnectedness with all of life.
This worldview is often described through the philosophy of Ubuntu, popularly expressed as “I am because we are.” Yet in African Indigenous Wisdom, Ubuntu is not merely an ethic—it is a cosmology, a way of understanding the structure of reality. We are inseparable from one another, from the trees and other life forms, from the so-called inanimate objects around us that carry memory and intention, and from spirit, intuition, and emotion. Identity is relational, and life is understood as cyclical rather than linear.
Human beings mirror natural rhythms—the seasons outside us and the womb cycle within us. Health, in this worldview, is alignment with nature rather than domination over it. When rhythm is broken—internally or collectively—imbalance and harm arise. Suffering is perpetuated because we misunderstand the philosophical difference between a modern Western mindset that demands immediate action and Indigenous wisdom, which teaches restraint, consultation, and collective emergence.
A Ghanaian teaching known as Sankofa offers guidance here. Sankofa means “to go back and fetch.” It is not nostalgia but responsible retrieval. We have arrived at this moment and discovered that something essential has been left behind. What we are being asked to reclaim is the soul of the soil in which our lives are planted—the wisdom of how to live here, in balance, in reverence, in rhythm.
IKS remind us that listening is not passive. “Wait,” says the Earth. “Be still until the time for action arrives.” Right timing is a powerful strategy in a world addicted to reaction. If floods are coming, it does not help to declare war on the clouds. Instead, we prepare: we dig channels, secure shelter, gather resources, and then wait, uplifting and supporting each other until the storm passes.
Perhaps this is what our time is asking of us now: to choose deeper listening over louder certainty and wiser timing in preference to faster answers.
About Open Windows
We, the authors of this blog, dedicate it to the transparent exploration of the world's sacred scripture and enlightened spiritual thought. We believe that the original inspiration of all faiths comes from a common source, named and revered in a myriad of ways. With that understanding, the innumerable symbols, beliefs, and practices of faith cease to divide. They become open windows to a common reality that inspires and unifies us. We find deeper insight and nourishment in our own faith and from the expression of faith from others.
We hope these weekly quotations and meditations speak to your heart and soul.
