Listening

In yesterday’s post, I told the tale of my sister Mary Louise in church on a fateful Sunday some sixty-five years ago. After I had saved the draft, I asked Jeff to read over it, proof it, make any suggestions he thought beneficial.

For the record, Jeff was married to my late daughter Amy. The world would describe him as my son-in-law; to me, he’s one of my kids. Since her passing, he has been my companion, my cohort, and my brother in Christ. He is also my IT person and major encouragement on this blog.

When he said, “What color is ‘pre-stroke’?” I didn’t give it much thought, accepted it as a tongue-in-cheek comment and left the wording as it was. We published the post. Later, the incident kept running in my mind. Two questions emerged: First, what color could have described the furious red face of an elderly gentleman who was a little swarthy? To that one, the nearest I can come is to say he was the color a cardboard box would be if it could blush.

The second question that came to mind was, “Do I listen as well to other people as I should?” Not as easy an answer as the other one, because this question is basic to relationships. Even when we’re actually listening to the other person’s words (as opposed to waiting for him to finish so I can say what I was going to say) , how often do we lend importance to their ideas, equal or at least close to what we think of our own ideas? Ever?

Also for the record, I don’t have a good answer to this second question for myself. I can only look to Jesus for guidance on it — duh! — because He was the only human being ever who listened to every person who spoke to Him. And let them know that they, goofy ideas and all, were of paramount importance to Him. He never hurried other people as they spoke. I do it mentally. He never dismissed their ideas as not being as good as His, even though they were, in fact, very short of the wisdom of Almighty God. He listened. He heard.

My prayer in this is for consistent caring, enough to stop running my little mental train long enough to hear the Conductor’s “All Aboard” and make room in my moment for other passengers.