Listen up!

Jim Carrey got himself in all sorts of trouble in the movie “Liar, Liar” when he had to speak truth. I suspect in real life if we all treasured integrity as much as we do other things, our world would be a much better place. Nowadays we question the promises of politicians, business can no longer be conducted on a handshake, and some parents have good reason to doubt their children.

In some cases the problem is those people who have little or no regard for the truth. However, more often than not many of our relational problems stem from poor communications. You would expect with the vast array of communication technologies at our disposal good communication would be on the rise but I fear this is not the case.

Undoubtedly, many people can put words together well to express a point of view, to debate, to argue or merely to respond. We are good with putting words into circulation. The question is, “are we equally as good at the other side of communication?’’ Are we expert listeners, as well as being expert wordsmiths? A lot of time and effort is put into teaching us to speak but I doubt that our society has spend an equal amount of energy and dollars on teaching us to listen.

One great piece of advice from the Bible that is, “Be quick to listen and slow to speak.” The old adage is true; God gave us two ears but only one mouth for a very good reason. If you are striving to be a good communicator then you’ll be striving to be a good listener.

Peter Morphew
Chaplain