Let's talk. Pull up a chair, relax, have a coffee, and tell me all about it. Those are the words, or some variation, that I used for decades as a professional counselor. I really loved saying them too. It wasn't so much that I was champing at the bit to share some sage wisdom or life altering advice. Though sometimes that's precisely what a client may have wanted. What turned me on was the chance that a relationship might form or continue through our chat. My part was to create a safe space and to listen deeply. It requires humility. This can only be accomplished with the recognition that you don’t have all the answers. and an openness to discovering what the other is feeling. It is essential if we are to have a good conversation.
Author and journalist Kate Murphy recently wrote about the subject of authentic conversations and listening in the New York Times saying;
Once you know people well enough to feel close, there's an unconscious tendency to tune them out because you think you already know what they are going to say. It's kind of like when you've traveled a certain route several times and no longer notice the signposts and scenery.
She has a good point. The problem is that it’s becoming harder and harder to feel close at all. Our one sided conversations are typed out on a screen of one kind or another leaving little room for understanding or humility. This has become the default mode nowadays at home, work, school, and in community. We aren't authentically relating with one another. There are just too many tweets and sound bites with fewer genuine conversations to establish or maintain meaningful relationships. These contextual observations leave damage done in their wake. Hate-filled tropes are ripping people apart, influencing prejudice, and promoting bullying.
Most of the time, when responding to social media, a conversational decision has been predetermined. This also happens when we are communicating on the fly or are absorbed in other matters. We set a course to conform, confront, or ignore. True listening requires a hearing, mirroring, and internalizing without filters, critiques or rationalizations. It demands intentional openness. That will never happen with a 280 character tweet limit. It won't occur on any platform or in any email. Transformational relationships are formed face-to-face. It is dependant upon putting everything else aside and paying attention. That might not be easy with our agenda based lifestyles. But it is indispensable if we ever want to connect with anyone more meaningfully than in an internet feed.
The Center for Action and Contemplation recently shared the words of Steven Charleston who relates to God as a grandmotherly figure. For me, this tells the story of true communication;
She takes my face gently in her hands and holds me in Her gaze as She tells me what She thinks I need to know, forming the words slowly so I can remember them and let them sink in.
Now is the time to slow it all down. If we are to do more than survive the current crisis of deafness to the needs of one another, there will have to be a concerted effort to be humble. We must become more willing to open up with patient and listening ears. In so doing we will create a space where true intimacy can flourish. Let's get started. I'll listen.