Listening Room
James 1:17-27
“Two children were in the kitchen fighting over the one orange in the house. Each needed the orange for a recipe. Mom came in, saw the problem, and with great apparent wisdom, cut that orange in two and handed one half to one, one half to the other. No one was satisfied. If only someone had listened. You see, one recipe called for the meat of the orange, the other called for the skin. BOTH could have had what they wanted ... if only anyone had bothered to listen.”[1]
Listening is not a skill we do very well.
Epictetus, a Greek philosopher who lived shortly after the time of Christ said, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” In the book of James, written around the same times, we hear this; My dear children, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
Listening is not a skill we do very well.
Apparently the fine art of balancing our listening, hearing and responding has always been difficult to accomplish. James offers us some very practical advice today….by reminding us to slow down our mental activity by being “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.” We would be wise to heed these words and would find them helpful and healing for all of our relationships – with our children, our spouses, friends, co-workers and of course our relationship with God.
There are different types and ways that we listen to one another – including how we listen to God. One type of listening is inactive listening which happens when someone is talking and your mind is somewhere else. Things go in one ear and out the other.
We all have many times when we realize we haven’t heard what someone has said to us. We are aware that someone is talking or aware of sounds around us…but we tune out. Our minds are somewhere else - such as a conversation or activity in our past or something that might be a few hours or days ahead of us. This can happen in our listening times with God as well…we begin a time of prayer or silence with good intentions and before long - our mind is somewhere else. We can tune God out as well. With inactive listening there is no hearing or communication and it is my greatest hope and prayer that there is no inactive listening going on here in this listening room.
Another form of listening is selective listening - where we hear just what we want to hear. Someone is speaking and our mind is ahead of the speaker - hearing just bits and pieces and choosing to leave certain things out. Parents will tell you that children and youth use selective listening often because there is little communication going on between the two parties. But we adults practice selective listening and we do it with our faith. When we pull scriptures out of context in order to suit our own purpose – we practice selective listening.
Listening is not a skill we do very well. Listening carefully to one another and to God is something we need to do more often and with more intention. We need to listen with ears and with a heart that brings us below surface level to a place of hearing and understanding.
Listen… to this conversation between two people:
"I find it extremely difficult to talk with my father, and it saddens me because I want to get closer to him."
"I didn't realize it was so hard for you to be together," said the second person.
"We don't argue or anything," said the first. "We just care about such different things. When he starts to talk about golf, I want to scream. I have no interest in golf whatsoever. Of course," he added "I would never tell him that."
"Then it's simple," said the second person. "You don't need to have any interest in golf. What you're interested in is your father. Just listen to him and not to the golf."[2]
We need to learn to listen and become aware of the deeper issues going on between one another. M. Craig Barnes calls these the deeper issues of the soul and they lie below the surface of what is apparent. We do that by using active listening skills….which is why James reminds to be quick to listen…and then slow to speak and slow to become angry. We need to take more time to listen before we respond and good listening takes time.
Active listening happens at those times when our ears, minds and hearts are fully awake and engaged with the sounds we are hearing - whether it is someone talking, the sounds of music or the sounds of nature. We are listening and hearing and some kind of communication happens. We not thinking about what we are going to say or do next. We are mindfully present.
At times our listening is reflective and empathic. When we listen with empathy we are filled with caring and compassion for someone who needs to talk, share and needs to be heard. Counselors and pastors are supposed to be reflective and empathic listeners. Politicians are supposed to listen to their constituents, but we joke that they do not. We all know the personal pain associated with times that we were talking or sharing and realized that no one was listening to us. Empathy is being aware of and sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of the other person. When try to listen to what is going on below the surface…is the person scared, fearful, lonely tired? We listen slowly so that we can hear their story. The Lord listens to us and knows what is going on in our interior life….our joys and our struggles. It is a way we can listen more carefully.
Discerning or evaluative listening is where we are fully present while listening to someone and then we engage in a process of evaluation by using our reasoning skills and experience to come to a conclusion where we might agree or disagree with a speaker. When one listens with a discerning ear, it removes or disregards that first emotional reaction and later evaluates based on a person’s ethics, morals, faith, hopes and beliefs. Solomon asks God for a discerning heart so that he could distinguish between right or wrong. Listening with a discerning heart takes more time.
Appreciative or recreational listening is listening for the pure enjoyment. We listen to the sounds of music, theatre, poetry, the sounds of nature or even the sounds of silence. There are some smaller concert venues which are called listening rooms, because they are designed primarily for listening and not eating or drinking. Listening rooms can enhance the musical and artistic experience without the noise that might come from the clanging of dishes or wait staff taking orders and cleaning tables. Some of the best concerts are found in listening rooms where the attention is on the artist or group. The audience is closer and not subject to as much distraction and noise.
We are a noisy society especially when there are 4-5- 6 sounds in our hearing range at one time. We are becoming used to a lot of noise. Noise is unwanted sound or too much of multiple sounds together so that it interferes with one’s well being. The word noise comes from the Latin word nausea. We need to eliminate noise – by finding times of stillness and silence so that we can be better attuned to hearing the word of God and a word from God who speaks to us and asks us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to be angry and to be doers of the word of God.
The book of James is only five chapters long. It does not contain many words and is a letter filled with advice about speaking, listening, hearing and doing. As people of faith our words and our actions should be in sync with one another and James reminds us that we are not only to be “hearers of the word but doers.” We must walk our talk and he concludes this little portion with a reminder that the “doing” involves caring for orphans and widows in their distress. Our walking with God involves caring for those in need -but before the walk begins we must listen slowly and before we listen…we must know who to listen to.
James reminds us that we are to listen to God, who is our creator and our source of all good things. First things first. James says in verse 17:
“Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
It is God from whom all our blessings flow …that is who we listen to first. And in order to hear God we all need to slow down and listen more carefully. Isn’t that why we come to church...to this listening room? To try to get away from the distractions of our lives and to eliminate some of the noise that is around us? We come as seekers who long to hear a good word, a hopeful word, an inspiring or helpful word, or a comforting word from God from whom we receive every generous and perfect gift.
We come and we begin to listen and we take our time.
My dear children take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
Wendy Wright says that we 21st century Christians need to be on a quest for “intentional listening” and hopes we can “ferret out the small, still whisper of divine prompting that so easily gets submerged in the rowdy chorus of voices that clamor for our attention in the busyness of each day. To listen deeply: to listen with a tender, yielding heart; to listen adventurously enough to be utterly surprised at what we hear- this we all need to be able to do”.[3]
She suggests that we can listen adventurously. I like that...the idea that all of our listening, that all of the different types of listening we do, can be an adventure and a way to uncover the generous acts of giving and all perfect gifts that have come down and right before us from our Creator and loving God.
Listen……
And may we all go forth and hear the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
Rev. Deborah J. Blanchard
[1] -David Leininger, in a sermon, "The real force be with you," May 23, 1999.
[2] --Meditation consultant Eknath Easwaran, Take Your Time: Finding Balance in a Hurried World, (Tomales, Calif.: Nilgiri Press, 1991), 119-120.
[3] Wendy Wright, Desert Listening, Weavings, May/June 1994, p. 7.
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