Spiritual Life and Listening: Learning to Hear With the Heart

Listening to the Holy, listening to others, and listening to ourselves are all vital to the spiritual life. Yet true listening requires courage and vulnerability, for deep listening does not leave us unchanged. To listen attentively is to allow ourselves to be moved, disturbed, and sometimes transformed by what we hear.

Silence and the Art of Listening

Br David Steindl-Rast  — the Benedictine monk and writer — reminds us that 'Without silence there can be no listening.'

As I explore in 'Silent Mind, Holy Mind,' silence is the space in which words are heard. Solomon ibn Gabirol, the medieval Hebrew poet and sage, also says, 'The beginning of wisdom is silence. The second stage is listening.'

You do not hear silence itself, but it is that by which all hearing becomes possible. When our interior silence can actually feel and value the silence that surrounds everything else, we have entered the house of wisdom and can start to truly listen.

Listening in Spiritual Direction

In many ways, spiritual direction is a practice of listening — listening in all these places at once. It is about helping a person notice, attend to, and trust the movements and breath of the Holy within their own stories, feelings, and experiences across the whole of life. For some, these inner movements are helped by being listened to and accompanied over time.

As the American theologian and writer Frederick Buechner so beautifully encourages us:

'Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments and life itself is grace.'

I recently came across a thoughtful TED talk exploring the power of listening — particularly listening with what might be called the wisdom of the heart — and the life-changing impact this kind of attention can have on individuals and communities. You may find it a helpful companion to these reflections.

'The Power of Listening: An Ancient Practice for Our Future' with Leon Berg