Visit

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  James 1:27

C.S Lewis famously said that it is easier to pray for a bore than to visit one.  To donate money or resources can cost us less.  To donate time and patience costs us much more.  It requires we get personal.  But as James points out, the visit is vital.  

People in affliction are difficult company.  They bring out uncomfortable feelings in those around them.  They stir up feelings that make us uncomfortable with ourselves.  Think of the panhandlers you pass at a stoplight.  Instinct prompts us to look away.

Afflicted people are often emotionally borderless--they bleed their emotions onto those around them, threatening to pull us under and into the chaos of their lives.  

By necessity, they are often self-centered.  So consumed by their own pain, they can be oblivious to the pain of others.   

So, why would anyone want to enter into that?  It feels like self-sabotage.  Why stop?  Why bother?

Because James bothered to clarify--religion that is pure and undefiled is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.

Listening

Jeppe Hein, Semicircular Mirror Labyrinth II (2013), installed at Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund, Denmark

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  James 1:23-24

Listening is a notoriously neglected skill.  We know we should listen.  We admire the concept in abstract.  Yet, how often in a conversation are we already forming our reply amid their thoughts?

Listening requires that I park my thoughts, not just let them idle.  There must be room and space enough to let another's thoughts breathe.  We give grand space to our own thoughts--room upon room.  Then we eke out a corner for another's.

Admittedly, I am quick to believe that I know their thoughts already, or at least the gist of them.  But do I?  How could I?  If I stop to think about the level of presumption in that simple belief, I see it for what it is--grand hubris, impatience, prejudgment.  

In James, the subject is not just anyone's thoughts, but God's thoughts as reflected in His word.  If I carry these base thoughts about men's thoughts, how much worse is it when I carelessly breeze through the Bible?

Giving reverence to God's word--letting it settle into and color my thoughts, spirit, and ultimately impact my actions--this is the ultimate goal and fruit of listening.