LISTENING

Listening

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

James 1:19

Because both of my daughters were born in China, I tell them they are my favourite Chinese characters. You probably know that the written form of Chinese contains thousands of characters, some of which require dozens of brush strokes to create. What’s more, some of these characters are pictographs—pictorial representations of physical objects. The character for sage, for instance, is of particular interest. Consisting of a large ear and a small mouth, it implies that a wise person is someone who listens well and speaks little. When it comes to our search for peace, we should ask ourselves what life would be like if we developed larger ears and smaller mouths.

Why is it sometimes so difficult to listen? Perhaps because we think we know more than we do. A child complains about her homework for the hundredth time and we tell her to get to work and stop being lazy. But what if her complaints are a symptom of a learning disability and not laziness? Have we really listened, allowing ourselves to consider that more might be going on than “meets the ear”?

Some of us have difficulty listening because we have an urge to fix things. A wife tells her husband she feels down and he tells her she’s got to start exercising more regularly. A friend worries about her son’s inability to keep a job, and we tell her to stop worrying. She can’t do anything about it anyway. Often our advice goes nowhere. That’s because we’re either telling people what they already know or offering advice they aren’t ready to hear. In such instances, we often withhold the thing they need the most—a listening ear.

To fine-tune your listening skills, consider spending the next couple of days straining to hear what others are trying to say. Put down the phone, take a break from your computer, turn off those video games, and really listen to the people around you. Help them to experience more of God’s peace by giving them your full attention.

Father, give me the grace to hear what others are saying. Teach me wisdom as I listen, both for words that are spoken and for those that are not.