You have two ears and one voice, because you should listen twice as much as you speak - or so the saying goes. Right? I disagree; this seems to be one of those sayings that parents use to manipulate children - on one level communicating something simplistically sensible, but in doing so stripping away all other meanings.
We have two ears because we live in a cloud of voices, and we need two ears to discern direction and source in the confusing clash of sounds that clamor for our attention. We have one mouth so that we present a single voice back to others, enabling them to identify us as the speaker. Imagine being in a cocktail party with one ear and two mouths. We would have no means to identify who was making which voice, and as we speak in stereo we would merely add to the babble and confuse others. Metaphorically, its the same for all of our life. We live in a communication-enabled world with "voices" from all directions. We speak into this clamor with a singular plaintive voice. If we cannot identify source and direction, how could we ever build relationship. Speaking and listening are about as basic one can get to the elements of existing. We are relational to our core; to suppress either listening or speaking is to commit violence. We need to be able to express our inner selves. We need someone to listen ... actively. Loneliness, possibly the biggest illness in the world today, is a disease of silence. The voice of any individual is a distillation of a deep and multi-layered complexity that lies within. With practice I can listen someone's voice tell a story, and see the multi-hued meanings layered in the simplicity of the words; all those unspoken messages that the speaker implies, or is too fearful to actually voice. It takes trust to voice something. It takes trust to listen to someone voice an inner thought. For both individuals are changed by the expression and the listening. This has two implications for how we live our lives. First, no single voice can speak everything. No one ear can listen to all that is being said. This means that we must build a varied set of relationships in which we speak and listen. A spouse is closest to being a complete partner in this, but hard as it may be to say it, a spouse is not enough, for each individual is finite. And as each speaker-listener relationship is built on trust, so we must encourage and enable those closest to us to build relationships of trust. If we do not, we are not a friend. Second is the fact that our speaking and listening is where we grow in understanding, where we build the skills to think, consider, and expand our awareness and perceptions. More often than not this interaction takes places through stories. Not simple stories as many might shallowly think of as a light novel or anecdote, but stories of rich texture that are rooted in our nature and experience. They don't even always have to be true, they could simply be stories that exist in our mind yet are as real an expression of the person inside as any actual account of events. Much of Jesus' speaking comprised made up stories ... parables ... but they were as real an expression of who he was at his core as any actual event. Some listeners may even have thought the parables to be true. These captured an essence of wisdom that needed to be spoken whether the listener understood them to be real events or not, because at their root they encapsulated the nature of an individuals body, mind and soul, delivered in truth. My mind thinks of two things as I dwell on this idea. First is that the Bible tells stories, it speaks with one voice. Of course the stories have strands and threads that weave to make a tapestry, a picture of horrors and delights, promises and pain, beginnings and ends. But it is a singular story woven out of the strands of time. Like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it holds a depth and breadth that discloses new mysteries on every reading - but much bigger and better. Second the Bible listens. Odd, isn't that? But think about what listening means; . Listening is not simply detecting sounds, but filtering these sounds into cascades of meaning that drip like paint onto a canvas, and create an image of a story which stands alongside the experiences of the listener. In this way the congruences and contrasts stand out starkly and invite comment; further comment by the speaker, or response from the listener. The Bible is masterful at providing that counter story to compare our own against, it is a good listener if we have the courage to speak in it's presence, its responses are as sharp as flint yet comforting as a warm blanket on a cold night. Our stories are not comic books; our stories are a manifestation of an inner reality. Without active listeners, the stories dissipate into a vacuum, slowly emptying the soul of the speaker. There is no discussion, no testing of ideas, no refining of gold. An active listener receives, filters, and gives back the counterpart to fill the voids of confusion and mis-understanding. Stories told in relationship are the relationship being worked out in the stories; all as real as the inner nature we each carry. These are the vehicles for transporting the wisdom of experience, providing checks and balances to ground those free floating ideas we put up like balloons. It does not require clever language, complicated words, or higher education. As Richard Feynman noted it is about knowing something versus only knowing the name of something. As in a city, we know our lives through the trust-relationships that enable a community, where we ferry our goods and services from one to another. Like a city, this is best built on a bedrock of truth and trust.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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