Author: Thomas Morgan

Soul Tender Member Brown Bag Lunch April 17, 2019 12-1:30 pm
Listening

You probably have seen the commercial: Can you hear me now?
Or, you are familiar with the line from the Christmas carol: Do you hear what I hear?
Or, you may have heard or even said: Why won’t you just listen to me!!?
Two aspects of listening—listening to others: In our work and practice of dynamic dialogue we emphasize how our quality of presence (how we ‘show up’ or attitudes, beliefs, etc. we bring with us, consciously or not) shapes the quality of engagement we have with others. And listening to our own life: How do we begin to pay attention to what our own life is telling us and then discern the source of the various voices we hear: the divine, our truest self, our ego, our family of origin, culture, various types of authority?

Question for further reflection & conversation:
For you, is there a difference between hearing and listening? If so, what is the difference?
What, in your personal experience, communicates that someone is listening to you and that you have been heard? How important is this for you? What needs are being met?
What allows you to listen deeply to another? What hinders your ability to do this?
How do our agendas, assumptions, defensiveness, expectations, grudges, plans, judgements, limited points of view, opinions, and desired outcomes affect our ability to listen?
Listening to our life. How do we discern the source of the various voices we hear: the divine, our truest self, our ego, our family of origin, culture, various types of authority?

Perspectives on Listening
You are used to listening to the buzz of the world, but now is the time to develop the inner ear that listens to the inner world. It is time to have a foot in each world, and it can be done. ~ Bartholomew, 1st C. CE
We must learn to hear the tongue of the Invisible. ~ Qur’an
The beginning of wisdom is silence. The second step is listening. ~ Unknown
Listen, for your tongue makes you deaf. ~ Native American Saying
When you seem to be listening to my words, they seem to be your words, with me listening. ~ Antonio Porchia
All things and all people, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen. They want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. But we can give it to them only through the love that listens. ~ Paul Tillich
So, when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
Holy listening – to “listen” another’s soul into life, into a condition of disclosure and discovery – may be almost the greatest service that any human being ever performs for another. ~ Douglas V. Steere
Listening is a difficult and sometimes tedious art. It is so much easier to tell people what to do … To listen to someone means to become open and vulnerable to him/her and to allow them to disturb us, to change our habits and our ways of thinking and seeing things. ~ Jean Vanier
Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. ~ Thomas Keating
Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in other people. ~ Marion Wright Edelman
In the presence of compassionate non-judgmental listening, miracles happen. ~ Marianne Williamson
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. ~ Unknown
What we hear is the quality of our listening. ~ Robert Fripp
Eyes glare in silence Lips formed into a straight line Ears lend no comfort ~ A Haiku
The Creator gave us two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we should speak. ~ Unknown