To Hear or to Listen...

to hear- to be aware of (sound) through the ear; to perceive or apprehend by the ear

to listen- to pay attention to someone or something in order to hear what is being said, sung, played, etc.; to hear something with thoughtful attention


Open your ears, pause your tongue and listen to what's around you. Have you ever heard, do you even know, the music of this world? We speak, we spout words, and I more than many will chatter endlessly, like we don't know what will happen if we stop. But have you ever tried? For even just a moment, step out the door, without a word in your mouth, set a hand to your ear. The wind sings a melody as it dances and swirls through the grass, catches the leaves in the trees and laughs at it's brushing through your hair. The crickets harmonize, if only you're still, and the birds send trills of delight to join the chorus. The squirrels, chipmunks, lizards, they talk through their skittering and scratching. Did you know that sometimes silence has the most voice of all? Sometimes if you just listen, you are overwhelmingly filled with the music in a place where you thought there was no sound.

But not just in nature...

There is another world of which we are often unaware. We are so caught up in the here and now, the us and what we are thinking, saying, doing, in life that we never see past it. And yet...if you think hard enough I'm sure every one of us has caught at least one glimpse of that world, if not more. But we brush it aside so swiftly that it blows from our minds like dust and we give it no more notice. The world of the unsaid is what you cannot even hear unless you listen closely. You heard the bitterness in a boy's speech when he speaks about men...but did you listen to the pain that lies under it because his father never valued him? You heard the calm acceptance of the third place prize but did you listen to the shattering of dreams underneath it? You heard the apology but did you listen to the cry of remorse for a relationship destroyed? You heard the grandiose ideas of a child but did you listen for that hope of someone's endorsement and encouragement underneath? You heard the story of faith given up but did you listen to the time again and again and again before when they tried and were pushed back down? You heard the playful teasing but did you listen to the dart of truth that stung home when it hit? You heard the boasting and overconfidence in the athlete but did you listen to the insecurity that fuels pressure of the image? The list would go on, you know it, I know, and the wind reverses and blows the thoughts back through your mind.

Do we actually listen to what people have to say? What they are saying right now? So often we are busy talking, and saying our own things, or even when we're not saying something we are so busy formulating our responses to what someone else is saying that we never really listened to it in the first place. Stop, wait a moment, and just listen. Listen to the words around you, soak them in and process them, don't reply right away. Maybe if you wait, maybe if you register the words entering your ears you will begin to hear far more than you used to. There is more depth to what most people have to say than we often have any idea. Their ideas, thoughts, irritations, hopes, dreams, depressions, frustrations, joys, sorrows, all started somewhere. We hear the surface level, we see the lens, but we never pause to find out what's behind it. Let go of the you for a minute, let go of your drive to have a reply, let go of your need for something to say and let someone else speak. And when they do...listen... You may have no idea how many people in this world want someone to listen to them. Someone who actually cares enough to put themselves aside and tune in to another person, it's rare in this me-focused world. But that doesn't mean coming up with an immediate response, it doesn't mean criticizing them, it doesn't mean giving them the solutions to their life problems, it doesn't mean negatively judging them after what they say. It means actually listen, really hear what they have to say, and you may learn more than you ever guessed. You may find that there is more pain, brokenness, sorrow, loss and struggle behind the bold fronts than it appears. But if you just scorn the dirty lens you may never see the beautiful pictures a camera can capture, and the incredible workings inside. We all have our problems, and we all don't listen, but by God's grace what would happen if we listened and actually cared about the people around us? And if we took care of the knowledge we listen to instead of trampling it on the ground or throwing it in their face. We're not very gracious, and we're not very selfless. But we can start.

So tell me, tell yourself...

The world around you... do you hear it... do you listen to it?