Sermon 8 - Listening

Sermon 8 - Listening

Proverbs 18:2

The fool has no love for reflection, but only airing his own opinion.

To retort without first listening is folly to work one's own confusion. - Proverbs 18:13

Once upon a time I was with an American friend when "American Woman" came on, and the announcer said it was by "a little band from Winnipeg called the Guess Who."  My friend was surprised that they were from Winnipeg.  He said that "American Woman" was their "school song" when he was in high school.  *I* was a little surprised at that.  I asked, "Did you ever listen to it?"

This is based on yesterday's Bible study.  At one point, there was a very extended discussion of how you knew that you were doing God's will.  And there was the usual discussion of prayer, and Bible reading.  But, the overall theme and concensus seemed to be, for the most part, was that it was important to be listening to God, and for God, all the time.  If you were listening to God, then God would tell you whether or not you were actually doing his will, and what it was that you needed to do.  And my immediate thought was, how is it that you think that you are listening to God?  You don't even listen to each other.

When I was a teenager, I found the Dale Carnegie book, "The Awesome Power of the Listening Ear," in the church library.  And I read it.  Now, Dale Carnegie is not the greatest author in the world.  He wrote an awful lot of books that might be found, these days, in the self-help section of a bookstore or library.  I'm not saying that "The Awesome Power of the Listening Ear" is a classic, or even a good book.  It's got a lot of trivial content, and it's full of cliches.  But it does make one very very important point: it is absolutely vital that we listen to others.

Listening, really listening, to other people is possibly one of the greatest gifts that you can ever give them.  We think we are pretty good at listening.  As a matter of fact, 90% of us, when surveyed, think that we are better than average at listening.  Mathematically, that is just flatly impossible.  And even saying "better than average" is not much of an accolade.  In fact, it's really, really terrible.  From the moment that I read that book I have been studying listening.  I have paid attention to studies on listening in psychology classes.  I have practiced listening skills myself.  I have read up on various guides that people have written about how to develop listening skills.  And I have, of course, observed thousands and possibly tens of thousands of conversations over the course of my life.  And I can tell you one thing.  Almost nobody is any good at listening.

There was a minister who Gloria and I both knew, and respected, now unfortunately deceased.  I recall him giving me a piece of advice one time.  I followed it, and it turned out to be really, really terrible advice.  It was a disaster.  (Although, in the end, it may have led to some good stuff so, who knows.)  However, even if it was bad advice, he had listened, he had thought about my situation, and his advice was thoughtful, and considered, and even somewhat creative.  It was not a cliche.  It was not a simplistic reaction.  It was thoughtful, and based on what I had said.  And what he knew about me as a person.  Gloria said of him that when you talked to him, and when he asked how you were, his entire concentration was focused on you.  For the time that he was talking to you, even if it was only ten seconds (and he was a very busy man in very great demand), but for the time that he was talking to you, you felt like you were the only person in the world.  He actually listened.

Yes, I'm going to talk about grief again.  One of the interesting, and extremely painful, things that I have observed about grief, and people's reactions to my grief, is that, when you are bereaved, everyone seems to take it as license to give you advice.  Everyone seems to feel that, because you are mourning, you are also stupid.  They give you advice.  And it's not thoughtful advice.  It's cliches.  People tell you that "time heals all wounds," as if that helped you feel better right now.  People tell you that "God works all things out for the best," as if that is any comfort when you are in immediate pain.  People tell you that you should get on with your life, as if that isn't what you are trying to do.  And everyone, *everyone*, feels that they have the right, indeed the duty, to give you advice.  They talk to you.  Endlessly.

Nobody, is willing to listen to you.

Now, of course, partly this is because our society is terrified of talking about, or thinking about, or even admitting that death exists.  Or grief.  Or pain.  I say that I have lost all of my friends, because they are terrified that I am going to talk about Gloria, or death, or grief, or pain.  This is, of course, an overstatement.  Some people are willing to listen to me talk about Gloria.  A little bit.  But almost none of them actually will do that.  It's been really interesting to see people's reactions, to me, since Gloria died.  Some of my, I am very tempted to say *former* friends, feel that they have a duty to call me, and talk to me.  But, of course, they will not listen to me.  They talk.  It's absolutely hilarious, in one sense, although it's very very painful in many other senses, to note that they are so terrified that I will talk about Gloria, or pain, or death, or grief, that they babble!  They babble, endlessly, so that there is no space for me to say anything at all.  They will babble about anything, running on in an endless stream of words that's almost a stream of consciousness, so that I have no space to say anything, so that there is no danger that I will talk about Gloria, or death, or grief, or pain, until they figure that sufficient time has gone by that they can end the phone call.  Without me ever having to say anything.

Nobody will listen.  And, in my grief, it would be really nice to have an opportunity to talk aobut Gloria.  But nobody will listen.

I'm going to digress for a minute, but I promise this is on topic.  I am an ESS volunteer.  We do Emergency Support Services: we find out what people need to survive in the imeediate aftermath of a disaster.  I'm with a new crew, and having to retake a bunch of courses that I have already taken, and the Justice Institute of BC, which manages the courses and curriculum, is not making it any easier with their really badly designed Website, and some really questionable choices about the design of some of the courses.  But, in the midst of one course that was full of extraneous, trivial filler, there was a statement that shone out as true, and important, and something to always keep in mind when dealing with people who are going through the worst time of their lives.  It said, "DON’T TALK TOO MUCH - You cannot listen if you are talking."

It's a proven, physiological, fact that you cannot listen while you were talking.  While you are talking, not only are you thinking about what you are going to say, and not thinking about what you are hearing, but you actually cannot hear as well.  Your own voice is very loud in your own head.  Your voice, when you are talking, you not only hear through your ears and the air, but through the bones in your head.  Your larynx, producing the sound, is connected to your jaw, which is connected to your skull, and the channels into your ears go through the skull.  So you get much better conduction of sound through your bones, then you do through the air.  Therefore, your voice, in your head, through the bones, is much louder than pretty much any conversation.  If you were talking and other people are talking, generally speaking you cannot hear what they're saying.

And, of course, that's only the physics of the sound.  When you are talking, you are thinking about what you are going to say.  You are thinking about how you are going to say it.  You are thinking of any stylistic tricks you can put into the way that you say something, so that you will convince the person that you are speaking to to agree with you.  You are thinking about all of this.  You are not thinking about what anybody else is saying.  Even if you can hear what they are saying, you are not thinking about what they are saying, you are thinking about what you are saying, or are going to say.  That occupies your mind.  That is your primary concern, and it is what your brain is occupied with.  If you are talking, you cannot hear what someone else is saying.

So, if you are talking, you can't be listening.

But there is also the fact that we listen so very, very badly.  Generally, we only listen until we hear something that sparks some idea of what *we* can say, and then we stop listening, because we have to keep trying to remember the vital thing that *we* have thought of to say, and listening, not to what the other person is saying, but for the indications that the other person is about to stop talking, and so we can be ready to jump in before anyone else and say what *we* want to say.

Which usually isn't all that important.

Listening is also more work than talking.  This may seem strange, but it appears to be a definite fact.  Studies of traffic accidents, and distracted drivers, note that unless people are actually physically manipulating their phone, doing texting or the like, accidents are more likely to happen when people are listening to a conversation on the phone, than when they are talking.  Listening takes more work, more attention, and more concentration.  Listening drivers are more distracted than talking drivers.  This also seems to be the case with regard to distraction simply from a conversation within the car, according to other studies.  That the driver, when talking, is less distracted than when they are listening.  Listening takes more work.  Listening is harder.

So, we are predisposed to talk.  But we're also predisposed to talk by our ego, by our natural desires.  We want to be helpful.  We want to be important in helping someone else.  It's more important that we express an idea.  It's more important that we give advice.  We feel that it is much more important for us to talk than to listen.  After all, talking means that we are giving the other person the benefit of our wisdom.  Even if, as I hope I have amply demonstrated by this time, we are not particularly wise in these choices.

There is a flip side to listening, and this is silence.  Over the years I have come to realize that most of our society is definitely afraid of silence.  CS Lewis once said, "When the modern world says to us aloud, 'You may be religious when you are alone', it adds under its breath, 'and I will see to it that you never are alone.'"  So we actually need silence, if we are to even try to pay attention to religion of any type in cour society, and yet we are afraid of it.  We are constantly busy.  If we are not with other people, then we are on our phones. If we are not talking to somebody else on our phones, then we are listening to our "tunes."  If we are in the stores, there is background music.  There is background music, and sound, or advertising, wherever we go.  There is never silence.

And, if we managed to find silence, then we fill it.  We have our phones, as previously mentioned.  We have our "tunes."  We have our podcasts for self-help and self-improvement.  We think that we are responsible for filling every second of silence.  So it's no wonder that we never listen to anything.

Part of any of the benefits of "mindfulness" is silence.  Simply listening to the silence.  Of course, mindfulness doesn't really listen to the silence: it tells us to pay attention to the wind; to the bird song (if we manage to find any); to the traffic noises; to the sound of the fan in the heat pump; whatever.  And, if you weren't listening to the sounds, then mindfulness tells you to pay attention to the feel of the chair that you're sitting on; the smells in the air around you; or any other sensory stimulation that you can find.  Mindfulness really isn't interested in you listening to the silence either.  I've been paying attention to mindfulness, since it started out as transcendental meditation, back in the 60s.  It's not quite as advertised.

Law enforcement knows about silence, and the power of silence.  I know that television presents a rather simplistic view of police interviewing technique, but police interviewing technique is actually a rather specialized field, and comprises a whole set of skills.  It's an interesting field of study.  And one of the important points, is silence.  Those who are skilled in interviewing technique know of our society's fear of silence, and the power of silence.  They know when to be silent.  They know that we are all afraid of silence, and so is the suspect that they are facing.  And so, simply sitting in silence may prompt the suspect to start to talk.  Even if the person they're interviewing isn't a suspect, the police know to leave spaces of silence, which prompt the interview suspect subject to recall new details as they are working through the event in their minds.  The silence gives them the opportunity to think, and their fear of the silence gives them a motivation to think and recall and try to recollect.

There are some naturally-occurring chemicals that affect our moods.  You all know about tryptophan, which is supposedly why you all fall asleep after Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.  (The only problem being that turkey isn't really that excessively high in tryptophan, and the reason you fall asleep is because you've eaten so much dinner, regardless of what that dinner is.)  There is also the fact that phenyalanine, which we produce when we are in love, is present in chocolate.  Therefore, many theorize that those who are disappointed in love sooth themselves by eating chocolate.  (This is a case of taking perfectly good data, and drawing the wrong conclusions.  The reality is that those who insist on falling in love have insufficient chocolate in their diet.)

Dopamine is a chemical that we produce, ourselves, in many situations.  Dopamine is associated with reward.  When we produce dopamine, we reward ourselves.  It is pleasant.  It makes us happy and rewarded.  So strong is this association that anything which produces dopamine can become addictive.

Talking about ourselves exercises the part of the brain that produces dopamine.

Why should we have a mechanism that rewards us for talking about ourselves?  Probably because letting other people know about ourselves is necessary for communication.  But, of course, when taken to extreme, it can become a problem.  We get rewarded for talking about ourselves.  We like how we feel when talking about ourselves.  Talking about ourselves can become additive.  We can easily get to the point where we only talk to other people because it gives us a chance to talk about ourselves.

(And that thing the police do, using silence to get people to talk?  Well, suspects being interviewed in a police station are probably a bit stressed.  In a bid to reduce their stress, they'll probably want to do something that produces dopamine, so that they can reduce their stress and discomfort.  Talking about themselves will do that.)

You're probably part of the ninety percent who think they are better-than-average listeners.  You may even feel that you are a pretty good counsellor, even if informally, even if you only try to be good at listening to your friends, or people at church.  Trust me, it's likely that you are not.  OK, Rob, I hear you say, you've said we're not good listeners.  *We* say we are.  So far it's "he said/we said."  Prove it.

OK, I have a challenge for you.  Most of you have smartphones.  Most of those smartphones will take video.  Set them up to record a few conversations.  It may be just you having coffee with a friend.  It may be you counselling a friend.  (If so, let them know what you are doing, and get their agreement.)  Then watch the video.  Watch it all the way through.  Listen to it carefully.  Count all the times you talk about yourself.  (You should really *measure* the amount of time you are talking about yourself, but we'll start with just counting.)  Even if the story you are telling is making a point important to your friend, if it's about you, it counts.

(And remember, if this is a counselling situation, simply letting the counsellee talk about themselves means that *they* get the dopamine reward.  They get to feel good.  Isn't that the point of the exercise?)

If you're being honest, you'll probably be surprised by the result.  You may even be shocked.  I'm not going for shock, here, but you can't start to fix a problem until you realize it exists.  Once you realize that you *do* need to improve, you can start to use this tool (and move on to the measuring part) to practice and improve your listening skills.

And so it is with God, and our conversations with God.  It's very interesting to talk to people about their Christian life and see how much more often they mention prayer, than they mentioned Bible study.  After all, these are two sides of our conversation with God.  There is, of course, direct revelation to us, and there is the fact that God occasionally talks to us, specifically and directly.  But most often, God is talking to us through Scripture.

And, apparently, we would much rather, and much more often, talk to God, than to listen to Him.  That tends to be prayer.  We are telling God what is wrong with our lives, and asking Him to fix it for us.  We are telling God what is wrong with the world, and asking God to fix it to our satisfaction.  Prayer is us talking to God.  And, when you talk to people about their own devotional life, they mostly talk about prayer.  Talking to God, rather than listening to God.

You can, of course, talk to God in your prayer life, and also listen.  If you sit, in the quiet, away from the distractions of the world, maybe God will have a chance to talk to you.  But how often do we do that?  How often do we sit, in the quiet, away from distractions, away from the other concerns of our lives, and just listen?

And yet, what is it that we say that we want?  We want to know God's will for us.  That means we have to listen to what God has to say to us.  We can't know God's will, if we are always doing the talking.  We cannot hear God if we are always doing the talking.  We have to listen.  And we almost never do.

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