Putting Your Ear to the Conch Shell
in memory of Rev. Tommy
After my parents were revealed as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, I still held the belief that the ocean was inside a conch shell, even when I pressed my ear to the shell back at home in Raleigh. I didn’t need an explanation or argument. I just listened with wonder.
It increasingly feels like a rare thing in public discourse to listen attentively without hoping to respond with a counterpoint or comeback. Conversations too often feel like another form of one-upmanship, trying to beat one’s interlocutor. But the wisest listen like children. Tommy Wilson was such a man.
I met this pastor 20 years ago when I was dating the woman who would become my wife. We traveled to her hometown over Thanksgiving and attended a supper at her childhood church. I had a semester and a half of divinity school under my belt, so I opined about the Church writ large, as yet unaware that I lacked the mantle of experience even with a modicum of knowledge. Tommy listened generously, however, and he and I enjoyed banter in the years to come. He was a movie buff known for peppering his sermons with cinematic anecdotes. At the time, I considered him an older man, although he was just the age that I am now. Hopefully, I’ve matured somewhat more in his example over the years.
It is common in the Jewish tradition to speak of the dead in hopes that their memory will be a blessing. Many parishioners and members of the larger community will remember Tommy as I do—someone who made you feel heard. It’s a precious gift.
Tommy and his beloved, Sandra, never had children, but they delighted in their 18 grandnieces and grandnephews. I can imagine the wonder in Tommy’s face as he crouched beside one of these little ones, first holding a conch shell to her ear and then smiling as he took a turn to listen.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of the book with Wipf and Stock Publishers titled This Is the Day: A Year of Observing Unofficial Holidays about Ampersands, Bobbleheads, Buttons, Cousins, Hairball Awareness, Humbugs, Serendipity, Star Wars, Teenagers, Tenderness, Walking to School, Yo-Yos, and More. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he is a student of joy.
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