The Art of Listening

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends:

Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue,

and let anger straggle along in the rear.

James 1:19 [The Message]

...be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath...

James 1:19 [KJV]

If there was ever a verse in the Bible that I personally need to pay more attention to, it would be this one.  I am not, on average, the world's greatest listener.  I can talk with the best of them when I am in a "safe" environment with a friend, but listening?  Yeah, not so much.  I don't know why I am that way.  Perhaps over time I have learned to tune people out, for one reason or another [my mother and ex-husband come to mind].  But the older I get, the more I realize that the art of listening is a very important talent that I need to diligently cultivate.

Yesterday I had a run-in with a senior at school - not one of my students, but another kid that is in the instrumental specialty program.  He sauntered into my classroom to print out a paper (I teach singing in a computer lab, believe it or not!), and I was certain he had permission from another teacher to do so.  After a few moments, I asked him how long he was going to be, and he countered with a challenge:  WHY?  I told him that I needed to talk with my class (freshmen) regarding their grades for the semester (and the very poor job that they did on the semester project), and that it was information that he didn't need to hear.  He shot me a wide-eyed look that clearly read, "What could you possibly have to say that I can't hear?" and started rolling his eyes at my students.  At that point, I politely asked him to leave the room, and he impolitely did so.

After my teaching periods were completed, I spent the ride back to my full-time job wondering if there could have been another way to say what needed to be said to this young man, or if I missed something in listening to him - either of which might have presented a better outcome.  As it turned out, the computers at school were down, and he would not have been able to complete his task at that point in the day.  He did not know that at the time, however, and neither did I.  Unfortunately, life does not give us an instant rewind button, and once words are out, they're gone.  As the old saying goes, God gave us two ears and only one mouth.  It's time that I relearned to lead with the two rather than running the one.