Listening

Do you listen to people? Do you feel people listen to you? Listening is one of the hallmarks of a healthy relationship. It is part of the communication process and the Bible has quite a lot of things to say about it.

The idea for this blog post came about as most of them usually do, from my experiential observations during the past week. What I seemed to keep running into recently was a lack of people being able to listen to what others had to say. I found myself wondering what it was all about. 

One such story regarded a certain young lady who is contemplating leaving her job. She is an IT specialist who is at the end of her rope dealing with insensitive coworkers. It seems that frustration abounds in the field of IT. Programmers and computer support staff often complaint of the unrealistic expectations and lack of communication skills that they face every day. 

The users, whether they be a business concern, academic institution or government agency, are more interested in dictating their demands to computer support staff rather than listening to any input that the computer specialist may have to offer. How interesting, a whole career field where not being listened to is the standard. This is widely known and widely accepted. 

Then there is Emmanuelle*. Emmanuelle is feeling that her husband just does not listen. Strangely enough Marco*her husband feels as if she is the one who is not listening. Just who is telling the truth? They are in a difficult situation since her mother had to move in with the couple. This new circumstance has again shown how they are not a team whenever they have a crisis.

Watching those two talk at each other and not listening has become a sport for me. My neck cranes to and fro as if I am viewing a tennis match. Either that or, it is like when I find myself slowing down when there is a police action on the side of the road. I am not sure which one it is. 

All I can say is that it is mesmerizing. 🎶Everyone keeps talking at me, I don’t hear a word they say, only the echo of my mind 🎶. That is not a bible verse. It is however, a verse from a 1969 American song which won a Grammy award, entitled Everybody’s talkin. It perfectly encapsulates many of the communications that I witnessed recently.

I also had my own personal experience of people not listening. I recently was invited to a soirée in Westchester County, New York. I was introduced to several new people that evening. A strange thing happened to me at the event. Every single person that I met spent their time with me just talking about themselves. After they heard my name, that was enough about me. They proceeded to use their time with me to make sure that I got to know them a lot better.

Did you hear that, make sure that I got to know them better. I pretty quickly learned everything including one person had a pilots license and was formerly a secret service agent. Another person, was fluent in ten languages including Urdu. How interesting, I exclaimed. I can see that saying just the one thing that I was able to interject into his monologue annoyed him. However, clearly he was able to forgive me because I pointed out how interesting he was. Plus, I didn’t prattle on about my own silly life.

In the not so distant past, manners were serious business. People looked carefully at things such as conversational skills as indicative of moral character. Etiquette, the art of manners, was even taught in all the best schools. But, that is all gone and what has replaced it is a sort of every man for himself  conversational philosophy

Every cultures’ set of manners emanate from what their belief system is. Today’s manners are no different. The philosophy behind the manners of today is narcissism, that is the worship of self. This is the opposite of what it means to be a Christian. 

The people and stories I encountered served to illustrate how people are unable to interact with others well. People are too wrapped up in their own life. They are living for themselves. Other people only come into play as a tool to make them feel good or not feel good. Mostly, other people get in the way. People are very busy starring in their own show. Does that surprise you? The selfie culture exemplifies this principle. As does the phony facades that people posit on social media. If you believe all of that, I have some New York bridges fo sell you!

The Bible leads us towards the art of listening. It begins with listening to God’s message. Psalm 46 verse 10 says, Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. Listening requires quieting our hearts and our minds. This allows us to focus. Trying to multi-task? This will not help you to grow close to God or to people. Focusing on too many things is frequently not fully focusing on any of them. 

Why we should listen more:

Listen to learn. Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance-Proverbs 1:5. 

Listening is serving. Part of the Christian walk concerns serving others. Sometimes, people just need some one to listen. Just listening to someone is a wonderful way to serve them and to show that you care. Don’t we all need that sometime? Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ-Galatians 6:2. Listening is one way to carry someone’s burden and to fulfill the law of Jesus Christ.

Listening is part of the signs of a mature believer in Christ. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath- James 1:19. Many problems in the family, in the office or at school could be averted if one merely followed this advice from the book of James. 

Listening averts disaster. But whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster- Proverbs 1:33. In this case I think the inference is that we don’t just listen to godly wisdom but, that we actually chose to obey God as well. You may have heard the expression, look before you leap. I think it should be: look at GOD before you leap! 

Listening is the opposite of narcissism. A fool takes not pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion-Proverbs 18:2. If one bible verse summarizes my observation this week it is this one. People are so full of themselves that they really don’t seek to have a broader understanding of their job, their life or their relationships. The Bible calls that being foolish. 

* the names are changed to protect privacy.