IF we are going to open
our hearts to others there is one quality we shall have to acquire, and
this may be more difficult than we think. We shall have to learn to
listen. Very few men and women know how to listen properly. The majority
of conversations between human beings are interrupted monologues, cutting
across each other.
When people meet, they usually start by asking: "How are
you?", "How are things?" But who stops to listen to the
answer? In England people say: "How do you do?" so automatically
that it is now bad form to start explaining how you feel. It is just a
matter of form, a mere convention. After this, the man who started the
conversation will usually begin to talk about himself and his affairs,
going into innumerable details. At a certain moment, the man to whom he is
talking will seize on one of these details in midspeech and attach a story
of his own to it or something he wants to talk about. From then on, each
will follow his own course, only pausing to take breath, like a car
stopping at the traffic lights; and each of them takes the whole procedure
for granted so long as he continues to have his own say. A caricature? I
don't think so. You can find plenty of examples of it at all levels of
society.
Not many people listen to others. They don't seem to realize that they
have two ears and one mouth, and that nature herself expects them to
listen twice as often as they speak .
The reason for this is that every
one is so full of his own affairs that there is no room for anybody
else's. This is one gift we have to acquire: the art of listening. The
saints, now, were good at listening. A man like the Cure d�Ars knew, in
spite of his sixteen hours a day in the confessional, how to listen to his
penitents, and they all left the box amazed at the personal attention they
had received. Sometimes you hear it said of someone: "He listens to
you as if he had nothing else to do." That is a wonderful gift, and
it has a tremendous effect. For nothing opens the heart more than complete
attention, taking the trouble to enter into the worries which are being
put before you. A school of patience, but in the first place, a school of
self-forgetfulness.
You have to listen, not just to what is said, but also to what is not
said. Not many people can take in
the meaning of an awkward silence, a half-uttered word, a word kept back.
They listen to words and sounds; they have no ears for mute distress or
semi-confidences timidly offered. Sometimes you even have to arrive at a
meaning when the words say the opposite, like Our Lady at the marriage at
Cana, when she asked the Master to do something and received an apparently
negative reply. She turned to the servants and made a sign to them to be
ready for what was coming. She listened to more than the words.
You have to listen, even when you know more, perhaps, about the matter
than the person who is speaking to you. You have to listen by raising to
the highest possible level the value of what others have to contribute. Do
you remember what Lavelle said? "The greatest good we can do for
others is not to give them what we have, but to show them how much they
have to give."
There are wonderful listeners who have the gift of getting others to
talk, bringing out the best in them, making them surpass themselves by
encouragement and expectation. Such listeners are rare, but history tells
us that more than one writer found the best of his inspiration and power
to write in the affection and comradeship of a wife eager for communion
with her husband.
Blessed are they who know how to listen intently enough to hear God. We
find it difficult to believe that God speaks to us, yet he never stops
speaking. Then why don't we hear his voice? Simply because we are not
listening. If the radio is not switched on, no music can be heard in the
room. Yet the room is full of music; all we have to do is tune in. We
should tune in to the voice of God, who speaks to us in the Scriptures and
in life, in miracles and acts of Providence. But to hear God himself in
the midst of all the noise we make, when all the interference is jamming
his speech, we must tune in to his own particular wave-length, which he
makes known to those who pray to him and listen to him in silence.
Condensed from Christian Life Day by Day by Cardinal Suenens. �
1963 Burns & Oates Ltd. Cardinal Suenens, who died in 1996, was
the Archbishop of Malines-Brussels and was instrumental in bringing the
Charismatic Renewal into the mainstream of the Church.
|
|
By clicking
on the blue type, you can read other articles in the December
2000 issue of