IT WOULD BE A BETTER WORLD IF WE LISTENED MORE

Listen folks, I have devoted considerable space on Wrights Lane recently to heralding love and its true meaning. I am reminded, however, that there is an aspect of love that has been overlooked.

A woman recalls the following frustrating experience. After dinner, her husband set out on his usual thirty-minute walk. After an hour, she began to worry since it was getting dark, and her husband had forgotten to bring his phone. Two long hours passed before he finally returned. "Sorry I'm so late," he said, "but I stopped to talk to a neighbor, and he just wouldn't stop listening."

Those of us who identify with Christianity learn an extraordinary kind of love, which among other things, is a "listening" love. It's not the kind of love that says, "How can I use you for me, or how can I use you to make me happy, or how can I use you to exalt me?" It is the love that asks, "How can I give you my attention so that you can be fulfilled?"

The famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, designed some unusual buildings. On a university campus in Florida stands a library designed by Wright with an extremely low ceiling, so low that if you are six feet tall and not careful, you keep bumping your head. A man who was having this trouble asked why it was that Frank Lloyd Wright, who himself was short in stature, had designed such a building. And the answer was, "This is a characteristic of his architecture because he had a bias against tall people." How sad this is. In a manner of speaking, don't we often try to cut others down to our size. Ideally, we make them fit into our mould.

We express this attitude by using others (husbands, wives, children and friends) to shape them into what we think they ought to be. But it is contrary to the attitude which biblical scriptures call forth -- the love that is for the other, the love that affirms the life of the other, the love that rejoices in the differences of others. 

We talk too much -- all of us. Even when we're not talking, we're not listening.

A skill, according the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, is a learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability. The skill of listening is a skill that I believe everyone should have but most people lack. 

Many people do not realize that listening is not merely the act of hearing a sound but of paying close attention to what someone is saying and trying to understand the message that they are attempting to relate. Most times people say they are listening when in all actuality they are merely hearing, but not even attempting to understand what is being spoken of. Worse still, is the individual that listens with just one ear while busily conjuring up what clever thing they are going to say next.

The reason I believe that listening is of such importance is because nowadays people have developed the mentality of “every man for himself.” People are not concerned about others anymore. We are only concerned about our own issues and problems. 

People should be taught from childhood the importance of learning how to listen. If we realized how much we would benefit from being good listeners -- respectful and sensitive -- I believe that a lot of things would change. Lack of listening skills affects marriages, parents and children, teachers and students, employers and employees, foreign affairs, and the list goes on. 

Have you listened to what I'm trying to say?