On what it really means to hear another person.
Solomon asked God for a listening heart.
I have always liked that expression.
It suggests that listening requires more than ears.
It requires the heart.
To truly listen to someone is not merely to understand the literal meaning of their words.
It is to become attentive to the heart behind them.
To understand the context in which those words were spoken.
To wonder what someone was feeling when they finally decided to say them.
What courage it may have taken to speak.
What they struggled to put into words.
And what they were really hoping I would understand.
Listening does not necessarily mean agreeing with everything another person says.
But it does mean trying, for a moment, to step outside myself long enough
to understand the place from which they are speaking.
Words alone rarely tell the whole story.
Sometimes the real meaning lies in the hesitation before the sentence.
In the tone.
In what was left unsaid.
In the reason those particular words had to be spoken at all.
Perhaps that is why Solomon asked for a listening heart, not simply sharper ears.
Without the heart, we may hear every word and still miss what someone is trying to tell us.
And maybe that is why the relationships in which real conversation is possible always require some form of love.
Not necessarily agreement.
Not sameness.
But enough affection to make me want to understand the person before I decide what I think of their words.
