I am a musician by training. My undergraduate degree is in voice performance, and after finishing school I worked for several years as a choral conductor. In recent weeks, I’ve wondered what business a musician-turned-educator has writing for a blog devoted to the subject of inter-religious dialogue. Though I’m not currently involved in any singing or conducting projects, I often find myself reflecting on rich lessons learned through music.

When I arrived at college, I had never formally studied voice. I enjoyed the process on the whole, but one of the more painful aspects of taking voice lessons involved facing one of my biggest fears: listening to recordings of myself singing. I hated listening to my own voice. I was always shocked to hear that the voice I heard in my own head was not in fact what everyone else heard.

I always found it easier to critique the work of others. This bass has a woofy tone, that tenor tends to be a bit sharp. That soprano must know her vibrato is so wide you could drive a truck through it. Is she deaf, or just delusional? Other singers’ problems were always so evident, but my problems were more nuanced, unique, complex.

All students of the arts have to learn to critique their own work. It’s hard enough to listen to your teachers and peers offer their feedback about something you’ve practiced and labored so hard over. It’s even more difficult when you have to face the music yourself.

I want to suggest that the ability to be self-critical is a necessary skill for anyone who wants to engage in meaningful conversation with others. I want to promise to myself and to the other State of Formation contributing writers at the outset of our common project that I am going to do my best not to judge you—or, perhaps more fairly, I’m going to do my best to criticize myself and my own Greek Orthodox Christian tradition before critically examining anyone else’s beliefs.

Jesus talks about this idea in the Sermon on the Mount. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).

Orthodox spirituality draws heavily on the wisdom of the desert mothers and fathers. The story is told of a group of monks who found one of their brothers guilty of a sin.  They sent for Abba Moses, who was renowned for his holiness, to come and pronounce judgment on the brother’s sin. Moses refused, but the monks insisted. He finally relented, but as he traveled to meet the monks, he carried on his back a basket full of sand. And as he walked, the sand slowly spilled out. When the monks inquired as to the meaning of the basket and sand, he replied, “My sins run out behind me and I do not see them. Yet I come here to judge another.” The monks immediately forgave the guilty brother.

It is one thing for Christians to judge amongst themselves what constitutes sin, and it is quite another for a group of inter-religious bloggers to discuss their similarities and differences. I am frequently embarrassed by fellow Christians who are seemingly more focused on the speck in the eyes of their enemies rather than the plank in their own. The media seems to have a knack for seeking out and featuring those Christians who are outspokenly judgmental.

We in the Christian community often fail make use of the tools our tradition offers us to become more critically self-aware. Confession, in both its general and sacramental forms, is a helpful discipline that moves Christians toward deeper self-understanding. The Ignatian Examen is another exercise that develops the capacity of Christians to become more reflective.

Over the course of my undergraduate studies, it got easier to listen to my own voice. I gradually developed the capacity to evaluate myself objectively, dispassionately. As I recognized my fears and insecurities and named them as such, I was able to assess myself more accurately and with more attention to fine details. As I grew comfortable listening to my own voice, I grew as a singer.

I also found that as I learned to be more objective in evaluating my own singing, I became a more compassionate listener toward others. I was able to recognize that they, like me, were students in a process of learning. I am suggesting that all of us—singers, theologians, ministers, leaders, students, parents—need to be more patient both toward ourselves and toward those with whom we journey.

As we develop a critical self-awareness, it becomes possible for us not just to appreciate differences, but to begin even to love those who are different.  Rather than assuming a posture, or hermeneutic, of suspicion toward those with whom we have differences, we can employ a “hermeneutic of affection” (to borrow a phrase from Thomas Green). In treating others as we want to be treated, we learn to love both self and other better. In the words of the sixth century desert hermit Dorotheos of Gaza, “Let us, therefore, strive to gain this love for ourselves, let us acquire this tenderness towards our neighbor so that we may guard ourselves from wickedly speaking evil of our neighbor, and from judging and despising him.”