Listening and Therapy - revisited

Being a techie one always has several things going in some kind of "test mode". True to that I have an unpublished blog on WordPress. I don't go there often but because of a recent renewed interest in all things blogging I was checking it out this morning. It was worth my time because I ran into an entry I had posted about a year ago while trying out some new widget or other. Now I'm re-pondering what I had been pondering then....

from July, 2010...

I've been reading regularly in Eugene Peterson's devotional Living the Message. It's one of those for a certain date but without a specific year so it lasts forever. I've tried keeping up with this sort of thing and most often fail at consistency. When someone else is reading with me and we are comparing notes I've been more successful. But this time I've been on my own, its July and I find myself regularly on target and sometimes even ahead.

Frankly I don't know what today's reading actually is or when this week that I've read the particular entries on listening but some ideas struck a chord and they have stayed with me. As so often happens to Christians, a friend comes along and it's becomes one's desire to pass along what you've been pondering...some because you need to say it out loud and some because it seems to fit the thing they are facing too.

Such are the entries for July 17 "The Intense Work of Listening"¹ and July 18 "Ambiance of Leisure"² - I've been pondering them. I quote:

"Listening is in short supply...people aren't used to being listened to."¹

"...listening requires unhurried leisure, even if it's only for five minutes. Leisure is a quality of spirit, not a quantity of time. Only in the ambience of leisure do persons know they are listened to with absolute seriousness, treated with dignity and importance. Speaking to people does not have the same personal intensity as listening to them. The question I put to myself is not "How many people have you spoken to about Christ this week?" but "How many people have you listened to in Christ this week?" ²

I thought about the times I have needed to just talk and my so-called "willing" listener keeps looking at their watch or is struggling to keep their eyes open. Okay, so maybe I'm boring :) but that's not the point. They were willing but not prepared. How many times have I been willing but ill prepared? Too few margins built into my day; not well rested; not emotionally secure; not having disposed of the chip on my own shoulder or the splinter in my own eye.

Who would have thought that listening required so much preparation or that the art of listening could be a gift some possess or a skill to be learned for others?

Counselors come to mind. People, who choose to listen for a living and by doing so, prompt their clients to self discovery and thereby open them to the possibility of healing. Counselors, like dentists, are often called upon to deal with an abscess - abscessed anger.

It's the pain that has caused the sufferer to seek help and dutifully the counselor pokes and prods and pricks, looking for the inflamed pocket that needs to be acknowledged and cleaned by the telling of it. When it is located, now the counselor must listen. If they listen well, they will validate the person's genuinely painful experiences so that once affirmed the poison can drain away. (All the better if the listener knows the Healer but He can and does work in spite of not gaining the credit.)

This professional listening takes training along with a deep compassion. And it is certainly not all this technician brings to the table, so I dare not compare myself to them.

Still one cannot hang out with Jesus and not appreciate the compassion He has and wants to share. He did in fact give us two ears – the equipment is in place. He makes it pretty clear that we are to be Him to each other and to the world. So my challenge is to be deliberate in preparing myself for the occasion when Jesus asks me to be a true listener "in Him”.