Wisdom asks you to listen

Thursday, May 7

There is a story about an old farmer who was persuaded by his nephew to come and visit him in the Big Apple.  So, the farmer got on a plane and went to New York City, and the nephew met him and immediately took him down to Times Square to show off the city to him. They were walking down the street, and the old farmer suddenly stopped and said, “Did you hear that?”   The young man looked at all the people and all the traffic around and said, “Hear what?” “A cricket,” said the old man.  And he walked over to the building, and there was a little crack with a tuft of grass growing out of it, and on the grass was a cricket. The nephew was amazed, and he said, “How could you pick up the sound of a cricket with all this noise?” The old farmer didn’t say a word.  He just reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of coins and dropped them on the sidewalk. Immediately, a number of people around him reached into their pockets and looked around on the sidewalk. The old man observed, “We hear what our ears are trained to hear.  We hear what our ears are trained to hear.”  

Anything that we want to do well, we must practice.  When we practice something over and over again, the neurons in our brains form links that lock in that learning.  It takes time and patience for us to master a new skill whether it be learning to walk, playing a violin, or growing tomatoes.  It also takes time to learn to listen to God.

Jesus spent time teaching his disciples to listen.  He demonstrated for them how to stop, look at the person who was speaking, and listen deeply to what they were asking him.  He did not assume he knew what they wanted; he asked them and listened to their response. (Jesus stood still and ordered the (blind) man to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, ⁴¹ “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me see again.” Luke 18:40)  Too many times I ask, but I have already imagined the person’s response in my mind. I end up hearing my own answer rather than their answer.  Jesus’ mind is open and ready to receive the message he is given.

Jesus also took time to listen to God.  Often, he would leave the disciples to go off alone to pray. He prayed after five thousand people came to hear him speak, and he prayed before the soldiers came to arrest him.  The circumstances of the day did not determine whether or not he prayed; no matter what was happening, he sought guidance from God.  When there is a crisis in our lives, we fall on our knees to ask for help.  And God hears us. But we do not always hear God, because we have not yet learned how to listen. We can practice by following Jesus’ example by taking moments every day to pause and be aware that God is speaking to us.

When I was 19 years old, a young woman at my college gave me a message.  She said God had told her to give it to me.  The message was a request that I pray more, and it included a scripture passage from Matthew 6:6: “But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”  At the time, I didn’t know what to make of it, and I wasn’t sure I believed the person that it came from God.  As I’ve grown older, I know that not only was it God’s request of me then, it is God’s desire for me every day of my life.  I can only be who God created me to be if I am connected to God.  Prayer is essential.  There are many ways that God can speak to me – in nature, through other people, in a song or a reading.  What is required is that I am listening and waiting in suspenseful anticipation for God’s message.

Mother Teresa said this about silence and listening: “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of silence.  Look at nature.  See how the trees and the flowers and the grass thrive in silence.  See the stars and the moon and the sun, how they move in silence.  The more we recede in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.  The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us.”

In this message from Mother Mary, she gives us more instruction about how to listen.