Ears to Hear: Learning to Listen in a Divided World

Week 3 - Listening to Other Voices

Last week, we began identifying conversational norms that make good listening possible. These include:

Don't Start with a Solution. True listening can only take place when we come with a mind open enough to genuinely hear. When we come into a situation with the answers already in our minds, we seek to fit everything said into our pre-existing solution. True listening requires us to be open to new responses and new possibilities. 

Share the Stage. If we are talking, we are not listening. A willingness to listen requires us to let others stand at center stage, and to let go of any need to draw the spotlight back to ourselves. 

Ask questions, don't just make statements.  Asking questions puts us in a  posture of seeking to learn more. Statements suggest we are just waiting for our turn to speak! Seek to ask clarifying questions, which ask the speaker to offer more information, rather than defining questions, which seek to narrow the conversation. 

Appreciate the people who are listening. When it's our turn to speak, cultivate an attitude of gratitude for those who are listening carefully. Reinforcing good listening skills helps everyone in a group listen more intently! 

Practice Empathy. How is this person feeling? 

Don't Judge Other People's Choices. Not easy, but essential if we are to truly hear!

Reflect Back. Reflect back what you think you have heard, and wait for clarification or correction. 

Slow down. Don't interrupt, and don't rush to answer. If this is an emotional conversation, make space for everyone to process the emotion. 


This week we begin putting our listening skills into practice, welcoming a friend of Rev. Suzanne's, who will share her story as a transgender woman, and her spouse. Our focus is on listening and learning from someone whose experience is different from our own, and practicing asking respectful questions that deepen our understanding. We will use these conversational norms as a means of practicing listening to learn. 

In preparation, please read and reflect on the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:24-30


24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Questions for Reflection:

• What initially prevents Jesus from listening to the Syrophoenician woman?
• Why do you think Jesus stops to listen?
• What changes because Jesus listens?
• Have you had an experience like this, as either hearer or heard? What did you learn from it?