Listening that transforms

Is there any topic more often spoken and written about than listening?

I should know, given that half my career as an international broadcaster was in radio, not television where communicators and viewers can’t survive more than ten seconds without an illustrative graphic or subtitle of some sort.

    It takes a well-schooled radio network such as NPR to cut  to the essence of effective listening, as, for example in these observations:

“Listening is more than just being physically present when another person is talking. … It’s more than deploying a disengaged Mhmm while someone talks about their day. …Dedicating ourselves to actively listening can be radical and transforming.”

Of course, factors such as stillness sometimes play a key part. I have found that quietness helps us hear what God is saying about us, our neighbors, and our universe.

As Tania Israel, a psychologist at the University of California, reminds us, if you rearrange the letters of the word listen, it spells silent.

         Those thoughts go even beyond the long-established basics of good listening—be patient, show respect, maintain eye contact, and nod in understanding.

As that NPR report reminded listeners, in our noisy, distracting world, at any time and place it’s difficult to truly hear. People talk past each other, eager to be heard, yet somehow deaf to what is being said.

And that observation is reinforced by the wisdom of minister, chaplain, and author Adam McHugh who wrote in his book The Listening Life (Intervarsity Press, 2015) that listening is an essential skill for healthy relationships, both with God and with other people. More than that, listening is a way of life.

The subtitle of his book is Embracing attentiveness in a world of distraction—which, I would add, sometimes relates to the attentiveness called for in hearing what people are not saying. Focused listening can deepen understanding and friendship.

McHugh writes that listening is a gift from God that sparks intimacy, that helps us grow into servants and disciples. It promises “constant learning and self-discovery, that helps us never lose the childlike gift of being surprised, and that assures us of guidance and the awareness of God’s presence.”

He believes that listening ought be at the heart of our spirituality, our relationships, our mission as the body of Christ, our relationship to culture and the world.

And I suspect that many people would not only agree with McHugh, but support that NPR observation that good listening can be “radical and transforming.”

  They might even echo Matthew’s cry, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (11:15), or James’s insistence, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak”(1:19).