Comments on: The Art of Listening

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:25:23 +0000

Mattice, this is a blog not a place for you to make unfounded and scurrilous comments about your former pastor. I don’t care if you are the best community organizer I know of (on your side of the Mason-Dixon line) you need to reign in your tongue. Mary and I miss you very much. There is plenty of room for trouble makers like you up here in Massachusetts.

By: Mattice

Mattice — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:34:59 +0000

Wow! Thank you Geuka and Dan for sharing such powerful insights and reflections. You both have been two of my greatest spiritual teachers. I sure miss my pastor and friend! They just don’t make ‘em like Dan Wilson anymore! ;-)

By: Geuka

Geuka — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:13:29 +0000

Dan, thank you for sharing this. Isn't it amazing how something you see, read, hear or smell can trigger such vivid memories from long ago?

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:00:32 +0000

Well, don’t quote me on this but . . . oops! Come to think of it, if I am responding to this then I am already on record. So what I mean is it was high school which was about 70 years ago for me, give or take a decade or two. I read a book by Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin Buber called “I And Thou.” The book had a profound impact on my life at the time. This is the part I am fuzzy about. I seem to recall that the background for the book was that Buber, who was a trained spiritual couselor, was contacted by a distressed friend. Buber said all of the right things, his friend sounded better and he concluded the conversation feeling like his friend was on the right track. The next day he found out his friend had committed suicide. The masterpiece of writing that followed invokes the principle of not objectifying the other. The other person is not a “you” as in me and “you.” But rather the other person is another “I”. However Buber being the mystic that he is does not use the term “I” for the other; he uses the term “Thou.” This has the connotation that in the other “I”, the “I” that is like me but not like me, is the Divine. To truly listen and be with someone is to be close to God. I am not doing justice to this great work but I thought about it after all of these years because of your excellent description of how to really “be with” some one and listen to them as opposed to trying to give them all the right advice. It is a holy moment to listen without judgment, without agenda, without inserting yourself into the conversation. To reverence the other person is even more than listening to them as you would want to be listened to. It is allowing them to recreate themselves anew.

By: Geuka

Geuka — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:03:54 +0000

Malena, thank you very much for your feedback. You definitely hit the nail on the head. I’m glad you like the quotes. I run across so many cool ones and it’s great when they relate to the article I’m writing.

You’re right, my friend is pretty confident and married :-)

By: Malena

Malena — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:06:40 +0000

Oooooo wow,
This part was the jump!
“… He made it easy for me to sit there with my feelings, without having to worry about keeping pace with a conversation or being distracted by some other subject on the stream of consciousness. I had to just be. It was powerful.”

Your friend must be a confident man; it’s so easy to cheapen a person’s healing process. instead of close listening, dissing your ex-partner or pumping your up with raining adulation;
you spell that moment over chicken tikka very well and i wonder, is your friend single? lol,

Keep up this awesome site, and the quotes at the end are just fabulous,
Malena