Dr. Michael B. Brown wrote the following meditation.
“Don’t you have eyes Why can’t you see? Don’t you have ears? Why can’t you hear?” Mark 8:18 (Common English Bible)
And in the naked light, I saw ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening.1
“People hearing without listening” has always been a phrase that strikes a deep chord within me. Apparently long before those lyrics helped Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel score their very first hit song, the idea also resonated with Isaiah (6:10), Jeremiah (5:21), Ezekiel (12:2), and Jesus, who in the Gospel of Mark asked the poignant questions: “Don’t you have ears? Why can’t you hear?” (8:18)
I heard a man say some time ago: “The world consists of so much jabbering. So, I’ve learned to retreat into my own head space where it bounces off me. I hear the noise, but I’m really selective about when I choose to listen.” I get it. But, what if some of the jabbering (noise) is actually a cry for help? A cry to be noticed? To be seen? To be, for a precious and sacred moment, a little less alone?
My childhood pastor, the late Dr. Harlan Creech, used to talk about “the ministry of being there.” He contended that we rarely possess the power to resolve many (perhaps most) of the pains and problems we observe friends enduring. We have no magic wand to wave that can make all their suffering or sadness disappear. But, what we do have is presence. We can be there with people. For people. And at the heart of healing presence is the act of intentional listening. Tuning in. Taking someone’s words seriously. Because when we take what another person says seriously, we communicate that we take them seriously. It’s part of the ministry of being there, the grace of listening.
When my children were small, if we were seated on the couch with the TV on, and If one of them were trying to tell Daddy something but receiving no indication that I was listening, my children would physically take my face in their hands and turn it toward them. “Look at me,” they were saying. “Listen to me. I need you more than you need that television program.” “Don’t you have ears?,” Jesus asked. In our politically fractured society where we spend so much time shouting at each another, how much stronger could our nation be if we who are polarized would simply listen to one another with respect and a desire to understand? In our homes, how much more connected might we feel if we set aside disciplined time every day simply to listen to one another? How much stronger could our prayer lives become if part of praying for us was to be silent and still, saying to God, “Speak, Lord. Thy servant heareth”? (I Samuel 3:9 KJV) How much deeper could our friendships grow if we learned the beauty of the phrases, “Tell me about it,” or “I’d like to hear more about that”? And, in a culture where 75% of adults claim to feel a certain measure of loneliness, couldn’t the shadows give way to light for at least some of them if you and I would practice the grace of listening? Who is taking your face in their hands even now, crying out to be heard?
And in the naked light, I saw ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening.2
As followers of the one who took all people seriously, failing to listen to others (and, thus, failing to take them seriously) is failing to follow him closely enough.
Joy,
____________________
1 (Paul Simon, from Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel, NY: Columbia Records, 1966)
2 Ibid
Nurture Faith with Dr. Doug Hood 