"Being listened to is so close to being loved that
most people cannot tell the difference."
~ David Oxberg
I guess I knew this before I married him, but I don’t remember it among all the reasons in his favor. I thought of him as considerate and respectful and kind, but I don’t think I identified his skills as a listener underpinning those other qualities. It was like he listened to me so well, I didn’t notice. But I got the message listening sends: I felt respected, valued, and loved.
In contrast to my husband, I would rate my listening skills as merely “moderately okay.” This has been made clear to me in my listening group, where three other women and I sit around, listen and share, ask non-leading questions, and silently pray. The power of that group is all in the listening. The first several times we met together I found myself thinking about what I would say during my turn, or what I should have said, or what happened to me at work that day – anything other than listening to what the other women were saying. It was hard to concentrate on someone other than me.
At the same time my own listening-deficiency was becoming clear to me, I was experiencing the power of being listening to. I would tell of what was happening in my life like I had told it countless times to friends, family, and strangers; I would set out to tell it matter-of-factly, expecting a couple laughs, but at listening group I would tear up and cry. It was like I was being allowed to feel what I was saying because someone else was finally hearing me, the me behind my front of words.
Not only would I end up telling my story differently, with tears instead of wisecracks, I would hear myself differently too. Like the main character of C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, Orual, who rages against the gods until she finally hears herself as the jealous, center-of-her-universe she is, I would realize mid-story how selfish I sounded, how false, how afraid. Lewis’s title comes from the central question, “How can we meet the gods face to face till we have faces?” In other words, how can God answer truthfully until you have heard your own question accurately? How can He answer you when you are asking a false question, full of pretense and sin?
We are always full of pretense and sin, and God speaks to us anyway, though this may explain why He often seems to miss the point. For example, I tell God about how horribly this person has treated me and He says something like, “Love her as yourself.” God’s apparent naïve idealism tempts me to respond, “Did you hear what I just said, God? Do I need to repeat the part about what a bitch she is? Because Your response does not make me feel like You have heard me. Love her. Pff.”
This just goes to show that “good communication skills” don’t help much if you don’t want to hear what the other person has to say. I do not want to love my enemy. That’s why I call her my enemy: Because I hate her. And yet God goes on about love, completely ignoring all of my complaints.
And that scenario assumes, maybe, that I have legitimate complaints against my enemy-neighbor (in which case God usually adds something about forgiveness, too). But I know there are times I have railed against Him and others for no good reason at all – for answers to questions that should not be asked, for recompense I do not deserve, for red herrings of all kinds. I have plenty of rants that miss the point, that aren’t really about what they’re about.
It is hard to speak the truth about your situation, about your past, about what you carry inside. I find it hard to communicate what it is I want – partly because I’m not used to being asked. So sometimes, it’s not that the other person is not listening to you; it’s that you are not saying what you really need to say.
For instance, say that I really need to tell someone, “When you did x, you hurt me.” If I actually said that calmly and plainly, I would probably get an apology, assuming I’m speaking to someone who cares. I want an apology, but admitting that I am hurt makes me feel vulnerable and weak, and I would much rather be angry than weak. Plus, I’m not entirely convinced that the other person will care, that they will bother listening to such a soft, teary voice. Yelling is the logical response of those who do not believe that they have been or will be heard.
Once Orual finally hears herself, she quiets down and quits her yelling. Being heard by another, I believe, has the same affect. If you can trust you will be heard, you have no need to yell. If you have been heard, you have reason to hope. Listening communicates love more clearly than words, more assuredly than kisses. We know we are loved by God because He promises to hear our prayers, whether the content of our prayers be true or false. He even answers the questions we aren’t asking: Love her, He says. Receive my healing and forgiveness, He says.
Half the time, I don’t even know what I’m saying, but God is still the one to whom all hearts are open and from whom no secrets have been hid. He gave me a listening man before I knew well enough to ask for one. Such is how God does, always. He hears.
1 comments:
Hi Bethany,
I opened up to a friend about something she did that hurt me and her reaction was to put up a wall and ignore me to this day... 6 months later. I thought she was a friend. I thought she cared enough to correct the harm she was doing. How hard when I discovered the truth that she didn't want to hear the truth and shut me out.
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