Listening as a Sacred Calling
April 8, 2010
I have become convinced that one of the most sacred callings we have as human beings is the call to listen. By this of course, I mean deep listening to God, but my emphasis here-and-now is concerning other people. I am talking about listening to people with significant regard to who they are and what they are saying. To me, listening has become a treasured, sacred engagement, because it makes people significant and it empowers people; yet in a culture that hypes most everything and pumps up the volume to get your attention (or just distract you), we tend to denigrate listening; but it is one of the most powerful and empowering things we can do with one another.
It’s been my experience - both in a spiritual direction context, but equally in the broader contexts of my life - that when we listen to people, people feel loved. I don’t need to have the answer but by merely listening and responding appropriately (sympathetic hand on their shoulder or taking them hand or little gestures like that both physical and just in my own demeanor), people feel loved.
Now listening might not come naturally to us, especially given the cultural norms I mentioned earlier. We may need to train ourselves with disciplines like sustained attention and use skills like active listening. Listening is about being present to people, and in being present to others, mysteriously we become more present to them and more absent to ourselves. When this happens - when we truly listen, when we are truly present to others - people can almost touch the genuine authenticity in it; this is being a true friend, not putting on the role of “being a friend”, it is actually doing it. Someone (ok, it was a guy named Jesus) at one time coined a phrase about when we play-act and perform…I think the Greek term was ‘hypocrite’. When I’m genuine, when I am other-centered, it does not become about me and what I am feeling in response to what you are saying and what I am hearing. It is about the other person and it remains that way while we are in that moment. In our present North American context and society we struggle with this, because we “act” like we are listening [and the truth is people can typically sense that we aren't listening at all] but we are merely formulating our next thought in our head and waiting for a pause as our opportune moment to spill out what I am thinking…and when we do this, we aren’t really listening, we are being hypocrites. Meanwhile, the opportunity for real listening, the opportunity for genuineness dissipates.
I feel lately that I want more and more genuineness in my life, thus I want more and more to become a great and deep listener…Lord help me. OK, here is one recommended resource for further exploring this: Holy Listening by Margaret Guenther.
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