meditatio at the water's edge

Some thoughts on listening...

How well do I really listen? I know I listen to others, but I am not sure I do it very well.

Most of the time, my mind is racing on all the things I have yet to get done. If I happen to be in a conversation, my mind is usually racing with the next thing I want to say. When I do that, I just use the other person's words and ideas as a jumping point for my next idea or statement. Of course, that can be a good thing when we are working together to come up with ideas. I have been part of some really exciting 'brainstorming' that is marked by that kind of 'leapfrogging of ideas.'

However, I am concerned here with the way that I try to make my thoughts and ideas the only 'important' ones. It then becomes important that I am heard--that I am understood--and, usually, that I am agreed with.

I am learning, though, that it can be really good to just sit silently and listen. Occasionally, I will catch my impulse to speak and I will choose to remain silent instead. It has, more than once, opened up a wonderful silence into which the other person was able to enter and share their ideas.

But I still wonder if I am listening well.

I think that listening well makes us vulnerable. We are forced to recognize our own need to change. Sometimes it is our ideas that must change. Other times it is our behavior that needs to change. And still other times, it is our attitude toward that person that needs to change.

When we listen well, we hear the pain of the other person, and we identify with them in their pain. This is not an enjoyable experience. Our own pain is bad enough most of the time, how can we bear the pain of others? We can, and I believe that we must understand it as part of our vocation to do so.

One day I sat on my front porch and listened to the world around me. I listened to the loneliness of the widows I knew. I listened to the disappointment of a family down the street. I listened to the pain of a family who had lost their son when his car struck a telephone poll right down the street from my house. And (this may sound funny to you) I even listened to the pain of the squirrel that had recently been killed by a random car driving down the road.

In this very sensitive moment, I was able to identify with the pain of the world around me. It was heartbreaking, and really a little too much for me to handle. But in that moment, I realized what it meant to listen well.

To listen is to become attentive to the world around you; to its hurts, its hopes, its joys. And ultimately, it is to be attentive to God. It is to wait; to be still until 'the other' has spoken. To do this demands time. We must lay aside our pocket calendars and take off our watches. We must put off our agendas so that we can truly be present with 'the other'. Otherwise our attention is elsewhere, and that does not respect the person with whom we find ourselves.

I realize that we live in a culture that is ruled by schedules. We have clocks, watches, calendars, and secretaries (or computer calendar programs) to remind us where to go next. Whether these things make for a better life is debatable, but I think we need to reconsider our approach to life if we can never be present where we are because we are so preoccupied with where we 'have to be' next.

I hope to become a better listener. I hope to be more attentive to the pain and joy in the world around me. I hope to be the kind of person who is attentive to the voice of God. I hope to live beyond the tyranny of the schedule so I can truly be with my wife, my parents, my brothers, my sisters, my friends, and anyone else I am with. I hope I learn to listen well.