Listening

Who ever took away August, September, and October, I would like them back please. It is hard to believe it is almost Thanksgiving already.

Last week as part of my continuing quest for ordination I was part of a session where the probationary members, myself included, met with our mentors. One of the things that we talked about was listening. We all read part of an essay by Dietrich Bonhoeffer about listening. It mentioned the need for pastors to talk, or at least that is how I remember it, if he was not specifically talking about pastors, it certainly applies. As paid experts, we have a tendency to feel we need to talk and express opinions. Whether it is because we feel we have to, or because we just love to preach, we tend to be better at speaking rather than listening. I myself am a great example of that, and the very fact that I spend time every week blogging about my thoughts shows that this clearly is an issue for me. For all the benefits of the Internet, one of the great dangers it raises is that of everyone talking and no one listening. I know people read my blog, or at least I know people load up my blog's page, the reading part is just assumed by me. The problem is the reading does not ensure a dialog, and may just encourage further monologues. I tend to read CNN.com as my news source, not because they are perfect in representing what is happening, but because they work for me. CNN has recently added the ability for people to post comments on different articles, in particular political items. My tendency is to read these articles, read the posts and then rant to myself about the comments that are made, many of which seem rather insensitive and offensive to different people. the point is, even the CNN does provoke me to think, it does not actually create dialogue. While most people who post seem to read previous posts, the posts don't tend to actually talk to one another, just talk at one another. Because of the facelessness of the Internet, it has become more easy than ever to simply ignore the person you are attempting to "speak" with and simply go about espousing your opinions. How do we use the Internet, and just regular conversation, not as a way of demonstrating what we know, but listening and learning what others have to say, resisting the temptation to fill in silence, but instead letting it hang in the air to stimulate our thoughts and conversations?