The text came a day or two after I got home after being away for weeks and managing intense medical situations in two different states for months. It came when I was so weary that I wasn’t really reading texts; they took too much effort.
“It’s so hard when the hits just keep coming. Do you feel like this is something you just need to do yourself (with our prayers, of course) or that it would help to process aloud with a friend? I know sometimes it works well for me to do either but not both at the same time. I could come over later in the day tomorrow or tomorrow evening if you find yourself in the latter category right now.”
We met for dinner the next night and we talked for hours. Well, I mostly talked. She listened well and asked all the right questions to draw out the dross and allow healing to begin. I am forever grateful for her offer, for her kindness, and for the valuable time she took from her busy life to both pray and to be an answer to prayer. What a gift a patient listener is to her friends.
Are you a patient listener? A fool rushes into conversations and sprays herself over the scene, leaving a fine mist of her pride over everything, then coming away knowing nothing more about the people in her midst than she did when the conversation began.
Good listening requires patience and humility. When we half listen and then jump right in, we presume to know more about what someone else is saying than he does. We busy ourselves in our heads with whatever response we’re going to offer, or we divert attention to something else entirely (iPhone much?). Our pride runs roughshod over true communication. When I only half listen — because I think I know better or more, or because I’m preoccupied with myself — I devalue the person who talks. When I listen with my full attention and fix my eyes on his face, searching for meaning, I assure him beyond a doubt that he matters. Listening requires concentration, and it requires patience. We can’t just hear somebody as he begins to speak and then push the conversation to the periphery of our consciousness. We need to implore the Holy Spirit for both the patience and humility to keep listening.
Listening well is an act of respect, honor and selfless love. Poor listening turns a friend away, rejecting her heart. Good listening gathers her in and holds her close.
As an experiment this summer, let’s give up interrupting, give up formulating answers before hearing the whole story, give up thinking we know everything. Let’s endeavor to listen well.
Draw deep into the well of someone’s heart. Listen with humility and ask considerate questions. Seek the holy meekness that draws another person out and helps him understand himself better, not to know our opinions. Listen empathetically and serve other people.
Truly offering full time and attention is a generous gift of self. Some of the most precious moments in my life are the moments I can sit at my kitchen counter, offer a cup of something warm, look someone in the eyes, lean into his pain, and hear his heart until there is nothing left for him to say.
Good listening gives a person a hallowed place to give voice to the ponderings of soul. I think God knew that my pride would get in the way of listening well, that I so love words that the temptation is strong to let them rush in and take over. I was born with only one ear. I struggle to hear and the struggle helps me to listen. I am forced to tilt my good ear toward someone when they talk and I look intently at what they are saying in order to let those cues of eyes and lips fill in where maybe I just can’t hear. What a blessing this “curse” has been to me, because in the seeing of what someone is saying, in the necessity of paying close attention, I am granted the full vision of a heart’s whole story, instead of a mere glimpse into a brief message.
Someone needs you to listen to his or her whole story. There is someone you have cut off, some cue you have missed. There is someone in your life who would dearly love to receive a text like the one I got. Who is that person and how are you going to give him or her they attention God wants you to give to them?
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
