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The Gift of Listening
To develop the skill of listening will unlock more doors in life than anything else and will be responsible for you establishing lasting friendships and meaningful relationships with people in all walks of life. Listening is vital because we can only truly offer unconditional love and friendship to those people to whom we have listened, not only with our ears but more importantly with our heart. No person can ever learn to listen to God or be open in a spiritual way to others who has not learned the art of listening. A person who cannot listen cannot love either man or God.
What is listening? Listening is being silent to another person in an active way. In other words, the silence should not be the silence of indifference but a silence of caring and concern. The one who really listens is one who is quiet, yet sensitive in every possible way to the other person. This means participating in anothers life in a most creative and powerful way. It is neither coercive nor manipulative, rather it is bearing one another’s burdens. We neither agree nor disagree with what is said, we simply listen yet permitting the other person to be what he or she is. Listening in this way permits the other person to be open as they readily recognize that you are not trying to control what is heard nor have any need to sensor it. One who has developed the skill of listening is secure within himself, they know where they stand and what they believe. They are not easily shocked by what they hear, therefore to be a good listener you must have developed an inner security in order to listen with understanding. The one who develops the art , also strengthens their own convictions and broadens their faith.
In today’s world the silence is deafening. Not the silence that we refer to above, but rather the silence that is being bombarded from noise emanating from all types of communication media and in particular people who have not learned the art of listening attentively to others. Too often we experience the situation where no one really wants to listen to what we have to say but rather are anxiously waiting to express a more important thought of their own. However, in order to establish true communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ we must again learn to listen and think positive about ourselves and about others. Communion or communication is at the very heart and soul of our religion and that is why we call our scripture the New and Old Covenant. That is why God himself is called Word. We must be more aware that communion or communication takes place in silence, not in the silence of isolation but more meaningful silence of a gesture, a smile, a tear, a quiet being together which proclaims better that words that two lives are one. That is why we are made in the image of God and are called to be what He is. A Word reaching out to others.
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