In which I attempt to close my mouth long enough to hear something worth hearing.
There are few things in life more misunderstood, more subtly noble, or more desperately needed than the simple act of listening. I say “simple,” but of course, like most things of value,love, good wine, well-baked bread,it is not simple at all. Listening is, to borrow a phrase from my old tutor, “deceptively difficult and tragically rare.”
We imagine ourselves to be fairly good at it. After all, we’ve been hearing since birth. We nod, we mm-hmm, we even make the appropriate sympathetic noises in conversation. But this is often performance. A kind of social choreography, like pretending to enjoy small talk at a party while plotting one’s escape route to the canapés.
True listening, however, is another matter entirely. In contrast to hearing, it is not the passive reception of sound, but the active surrender of self. It requires stillness of ego. It is the gentle art of making space in oneself for the words, the silences, and the presence of another.
I began to understand this rather late in life, during a conversation with a friend whose voice I trusted more than most. I had been pontificating, as one does when one has read a few books. She waited politely for me to finish and then said, “Dave, I’m not sure you’re listening. You’re preparing your response.”
Well. I certainly don’t like to be caught in the act, especially not when I had just made a rather clever point involving Kierkegaard and compost. But she was right. I wasn’t listening. I was curating my next remark. I was hearing her as a backdrop to my brilliance.
Since then, I’ve tried,though with mixed success, I confess,to listen differently. To stop rehearsing replies while someone is speaking. To let their words land before I begin assembling mine. It’s harder than it sounds. The ego is an impatient thing, always eager to reassert its cleverness.
But here’s what I’ve discovered: when you really listen to someone,listen not just to their words but to the world behind their words,something remarkable happens. The conversation deepens. The other person breathes more easily. Time stretches a little. You begin to hear not only what is said, but what is meant.
And you begin to notice what is not said at all.
A pause. A hesitation. A trembling in the voice. These are not gaps to be filled,they are windows into the soul. To listen well is to lean in, not with your body, but with your whole being. It is to say, without interruption or advice, “I am here. You are safe. Please, go on.”
Now, I must issue a caution: listening is not the same as fixing. This is a mistake we especially prone to if we were eldest children, clergy, or academics. We assume that every problem is a puzzle to be solved, every silence an invitation for intervention. But often what people need is not our solution but our presence. Not a plan, but a companion.
There are sacred moments,too few, but they do exist,when someone dares to tell the truth of themselves. A sorrow, a fear, a hope so tender they can barely voice it. In such moments, to listen is to bear witness. Not to judge or analyse, but to say, in your quiet attention: I see you. I hear you. You are not alone.
Of course, this kind of listening takes time, and we are all short on that most precious of commodities. But perhaps the deeper truth is this: it is not time we lack, but willingness. The willingness to set aside our distractions, our certainties, our own clever monologues, and be with another.
In listening, we offer a space where someone else can become. A sanctuary where their voice, even faltering, even flawed, is honoured.
It is, in the end, a form of love.
So let us learn the art of listening,not just for the sake of politeness, or professional competence, or keeping marriages intact (though all are worthy motivations),but because listening is how we join one another in the sacred work of being human.
And if, along the way, you find yourself interrupted, unheard, or misunderstood, take heart. The world is noisy and full of hurried ears. But let us choose to be otherwise.
Let us be the kind of people to whom others speak not because we are brilliant, but because we are present. Not because we have answers, but because we have made space.
In a world brimming with voices, may we become, in our quiet attention, the rarest thing of all:
Listeners.
