My dear friends,
As we move into a hectic period of the build-up to Christmas and the New Year, it is often difficult to sift out, from the background noise with which we are all surrounded, what may be really important in what is being said to us by others.
A piece of advice often given by teachers to pupils about to take an examination is the warning to read carefully the questions on the exam paper; answer carefully what is being asked of you, and do not answer the question that is not being asked (even if you might have wished that it were being asked), if you wish to pass the exam! This is certainly good advice we have probably all heard, even though we may not always have acted upon it. It is very tempting to write a good or clever answer in an exam, even if it is to a question that was not asked!
Whatever for writing examination answers, much the same problem arises in the way that many of us listen to what is being said to us by others. It has been commented that most people are already rehearsing what they themselves intend to say next (regardless of what is being said by another person) and hence do not truly hear much that is being said to them. We may even finish another person’s sentence for them, in order to provide ourselves with the correct cue for what we want to say!
It is also true that sometimes we do not listen carefully enough to others. Sometimes however, even when we do try to listen, we are not “picking up” what another person really wishes to convey to us but is unable to do, either because they cannot articulate it clearly or because they are embarrassed or confused about what they do want us to hear. Listening carefully, not only to what is being said, but also to what is not being said but is nevertheless a message that another person is seeking to convey, is something we all need to improve upon in our daily lives.
There are worse things than silence, and there are worse things than thinking before we respond to what another person is telling us, or asking us. There will be a lot of noise and a great deal of busyness around us over the next few weeks, but we surely all need to ensure that none of this allows us to stop listening to the real needs, the cares and the anxieties of others.
With every blessing and good wish for the coming weeks of Advent and Christmas,
In Christ
+Richard Armagh