Listening

 Listening

Last week I sent an email attempting to schedule a meeting with a group that meets fairly regularly that I’m a part of (not one at church).  I said very clearly in the email, “The only day that consistently does NOT work for me is Thursday.”  The first person to respond wrote back immediately with, “Great!  Thursday is perfect for me!”  Grrr.  They clearly had not actually read my email.  Later in the same day I had a similar situation happen with a second email.  I said something that I felt was very clear and the response made it equally clear that the person who responded had not actually read the email but instead had just answered quickly and automatically to what they assumed I had written.  Equally frustrating.  A little while later it happened again, this time with a text message.  

I believe that we are listening less and less clearly to one another.  Part of this is the frantic pace at which we now move.  Part of this is the need to “get things done!” that means we zoom through emails and texts as things that need to be checked off, finished, addressed quickly so we can move on to the next thing.  Perhaps another part of it is that we are all so stressed with the anxiety of COVID and the problems in our lives and in our world that we simply don’t feel we have the energy to attend very clearly to that which is in front of us.  

At the same time, I think each of us has a deep need, in the face of this frantic disconnection from one another, to BE heard at more depth, with more intention, and with more genuine care.  We are isolated and alienated from one another, what with COVID and with our most common means of communication being through texting, emails, and even the phone, but less and less in person.  We have been created to connect.  We have been created to be in relationship with each other.  We need each other, we need relationships, and we need, deeply and desperately, to be heard.  So when we only communicate in these quick, disconnecting emails and texts, our isolation can be intensified, and along with it the desperate need to be truly heard.  The solution to this has to start with each of us, individually.

I would like to challenge all of us, then, to be willing to take a little more time, to be willing to “get less done” for the sake of deeply and truly listen to one another. Even if it is just a scheduling email or text, the need to be heard remains. I invite all of us to “put on the ears of God” or to strive to  be the ears of God in our listening.  How would God listen?  With all presence and with all fullness.  How are we called to listen?  Similarly with all presence and all fullness.  That will take more from us.  We will actually have to read the emails, texts and listen to the phone conversations or in person conversations with more attention, with more commitment of time and with a deeper intentionality.  But my guess is that we will be blessed by the choice to listen more fully and more deeply.  My guess is that we will find ourselves gifted in the listening through seeing deeper into one another, and maybe even seeing God more fully in one another.  The promise is that when we respond to the call of God, we will be enriched.  Listening deeply to one another is another way to love one another.  And we will find ourselves more deeply heard and understood as well.

Thanks be to God for the lives that touch ours, interact with ours and share with us their thoughts, feelings and ideas as well.  In connecting truly with others and in listening deeply to others, we will in turn find ourselves more deeply heard.