A Few Thoughts On Listening

“Most of us find it easier to speak of the importance of an individual than to show it in practice by listening to one.”  
--Os Guinness In Two Minds

How much better this world could be if we would make even the most basic attempts to hear what others are saying, or are trying to say.

Listening is one of the rarest gifts we can offer another human being. We often assume that communication is primarily about speaking, persuading, explaining, or defending our ideas. Yet Os Guinness points us in a different direction. "Nothing speaks louder to a hungry man than a meal," he writes, "and nothing speaks more clearly to a doubter than the not speaking of genuine listening." Silence, when coupled with attention, can communicate respect, compassion, and understanding more powerfully than any argument. (I'm ashamed when I think back on certain memories where I did all the talking.) 

Most of us know what it feels like to be unheard. We have all experienced conversations in which the other person was merely waiting for a chance to speak. As Guinness observes, it is easier to talk about valuing people than it is to demonstrate that value by truly listening to them. Genuine listening requires patience, humility, and the willingness to set aside our own agenda for a moment.

Harry Nilsson captured this universal frustration in his lyric, "Everybody's talkin' at me, they don't hear a word I'm sayin'." In an age of constant noise, social media, and endless commentary, those words may be more relevant than ever.

Imagine how much healthier our families, friendships, workplaces, churches, and communities could become if we simply made a greater effort to hear what others are saying—or trying to say. Listening does not guarantee agreement, but it can foster understanding. And understanding is often the first step toward wisdom, reconciliation, and genuine human connection.

Original painting by the author

More on IdeaSpotting

"Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind." ~ Samuel Johnson

Sam Harrison's IdeaSpotting is as good as I anticipated. The approach to the material is itself handled creatively. The pages are designed in an original manner. It is not a typical "book" in the send of having only words on the pages. Every page is a new layout, appealing to the eye, though thematically it holds together and does not interfere with the message.

On page 25 the heading is, "Open your mind, and people will show you what's on their minds." He quotes Clint Eastwood: "Once you feel you know everything, you're done. You're either repetitive or boring, or both."

This notion reminded me of my college days when we'd sit or lie around on the college green at Ohio University talking about the meaning of life. There was this one fellow there who always said the same thing. "We're born, we procreate, and then we die." The first time he said it was cool, it seemed sort of a nugget to chew on. He had a professorial attitude, deep voice, beard and avante gard dark shades with turtleneck look. On another occasion we were discussing something and he was there. The only words he spoke were, "We're born, we procreate, and then we die." Months later, again the same.

Evidently he had had a profound LSD experience and "figured out the universe" and knew all he needed to know, because he'd definitely become repetitive and boring. The "cool" mystique that we originally saw in him never went beyond being a veneer. He was a guy you couldn't get to know. And he never got to know us. He was as interesting as a one trick pony.

If we want to learn new things, we need to explore the world around us, and inside others... to listen and hear and see in new ways. Ask questions. Pay attention. And "maybe even eavesdrop." There are new things to discover all around you. This is the fodder for new ideas. And underneath it all you may even hear gentle rumbles of the voice of God.

How Soon Till High Noon?

Heard Chris Hedges on Minnesota Public Radio last night... speaking with much venom for the Christian Right. Some of his outrage may have a measure of legitimacy, but what does he advocate as a solution? He cites Karl Popper's The Open Society & Its Enemies, stating that we (meaning The Left, or the intellectual Elite) may have a right, even an obligation, to silence "the intolerant" for the sake of the greater good of society. Hedges argues that the Right must be silenced by action.

What concerns me here is that we live in a Machiavellian era where Virtue is neither a supreme value or a relevant one. Bare knuckled power is the bottom line. Crush the opposition by any means possible before he crushes you. It's the new Cold War, only a war of ideas, with no apparent attempt at understanding. The objective is to win.

The Right takes the same stance. Both sides appear to be arming for battle... waiting for High Noon. Who will draw first?

August 21, 2007

Verbal vitriol has long been a part of the American political scene. (Read John Adams, by McCulloch.) Much of it is rhetoric. It concerns me, however, when I hear the shrillness in Hedges' delivery. He is a man with an aim: move his audience to action. And what action is it he wants them to take? He spells it out. Not only does he quote the Karl Popper passage in his speech, he uses it in the introduction to his new book.

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."-- Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (reprinted as the introduction to Chapter One in the book by Chris Hedges called, "American Fascist: The Christian Right and the War on America.)

And so we are marching toward a faceoff. Each side professing that Tolerance and Free Speech, long time American virtues, may be no longer important. Each side professing to its followers that the other side cannot be trusted, and at some point we'll need to make a grab for power because if we don't, they will. Are we heading toward a gunfight at the O.K. Corral?

Machiavelli, in The Prince, essentially states that it is better to win by lying, cheating and stealing than it is to lose. The end justifies the means in Machiavellian morality. This is a world view at odds with the Bible and Christian ethics. And for this reason, it cannot be embraced as an action plan by the true Christian, whether politically conservative or liberal.