EARS

A meditation based upon Psalm 44

To what are you listening?

What do you think you hear?

One person speaks, several hear

but each one may take away something different from the other

Often, when the speaker feels their intention has not been understood

they say, “You aren’t listening!”

But, we are all listening.

We all hear.

So, what is happening?

Hearing with our ears, is a physical exercise.

Hearing with our heart and with our understand is altogether something else.

Hearing with an open mind is yet something else again.

We each bring to our listening a lifetime of experience

experience than can influence how we understand what we are hearing

our pain, our anger, our fear, these can all color our understanding

our prior knowledge, the depth and breadth of it

or the shallowness and narrowness of it

also influence our understanding of what we are hearing

How will we ever all come to the same understanding

given our different backgrounds and experience

How can we understand our enemies

How do we not end up hurt

How do we not sell ourselves out

How can we be open to our neighbors who are different from us

How do we maintain honor and avoid shame

when painful words are hurled in misunderstanding anger

There are no easy answers

Keep listening

knowing that there is more to hearing than our ears