Listen Slowly!

In a high school literature class, the teacher called on a day-dreaming student to read aloud a paragraph from an essay. When the reader had finished, the teacher asked him to tell the class what the paragraph he had just read meant to him. The classroom rocked with laughter at his answer: “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t listening.”

One thing is clear about today’s world: there is a serious shortage of good listeners.

We talk too much, most of us — talk, talk, talk. And even when we’re not talking, we’re not listening. We’re trying to think of what we’re going to say when the other person slows up enough for us to break in.

Listening is a loving way of affirming the other’s real worth as a human person. When you care enough to be there and to give your full attention to the other, you are saying, in effect, “I care enough about you to take time to listen.” Moreover, the person “who…