Blog 2220 – 11.16.2021
The Delightful Listener
The proverb goes, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he (also she) will give you the desires of your heart.” I have written at length often and elsewhere that the first part of that is the not so secret secret of getting all we desire, all our delights stemming from the one, but I’d like to revisit that verse a bit and ask the question, “In who or in whom do you delight?”
I have recently relearned a love lesson that we all seem to know well in the beginning of each love relationship, but too often, too sadly, and too quickly forget. Remember how when you first meet a new love that his/ her voice is to your two ears the sweetest of all sounds so much sweeter than the sound that comes out of your one mouth that you are left quite speechless and want nothing more than to listen to her/him babble on about anything and everything. You are so hungry to hear everything they have say. Minutes quickly turn to hours, where does the time go, you can not get enough. Books, movies, TV are no longer a distraction. Love songs seem to always be playing on the radio or stereo in the background. What happens? What changes?
Little by little ole ego, that hateful little spoiler of dreams, turns the tables till the sound of our own voice starts to become more and more important to us than that of “the beloved.” Having the last word, becomes more important, and the first, and most of the ones in the middle. Pretty soon we find we are no longer listening at all, just rehearsing in our heads what we want to say next time we are given a chance to talk. And our beloved more and more desperate to be heard talks faster and faster leaving fewer gaps in the conversation for us to interrupt them. Hurt ego further inspires us to resent them and think she/he/they do not love us enough to even give us a chance to speak that they do not care what we have to say when more often than not the opposite is true. Nothing says I do not love you louder than just not listening.
Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond’s lovely duet, “You Don’T Bring Me Flowers Anymore” is a sad story of a love gone wrong, but long before the flowers stop the listening does. How do we get love back on track? How do we relearn to listen and how do we get them hear us again? The answer is that verse again “Delight in him/her/them” and the best way to do that is not by using our one mouth but our two ears. Someone has wisely said that we were give two ears and only one mouth so we would listen twice as much as we speak. Try it, you will soon find conversation is more delightful if someone else supplies most of the words. And everything you could think of saying is usually said eventually by the other without you having to formulate the words.
We can actually relearn that lesson that we knew so well once as young lovers, We say it best when we say nothing at all.
If you have a special love thought you want to express to your beloved, take the time to put it in a love letter and write S.W.A.K. on the envelop flap. The Perfect Lover says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come it and sup with him/her/them and they with me.”
Nothing says you delight me so much as two listening ears. Wanna be heard? Wanna get everything you desire? Delight first, listen first, your turn to talk will come and with it everything your heart desires. Loving is listening.
So ends the lesson that we all once knew but ego caused us is forget. As babies we were so lovable, we listened so intently to every word and then we learned to talk and some of us have not stopped talking since. We all need to exercise our ears more. Our two ears open wide can make us and others far happier than our one mouth continually having to control every conversation.
Listen, pilgrim, you been causing a lot of trouble in these parts. Try talking less and listening more.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
Your turn. I’m listening.
When You Say Nothing At All
theencouragingword 