Am I listening?

I struggle to listen. I have spent years reading, teaching, and practicing active listening, but I still struggle. Some friends would claim I am a good listener, but I know my inner struggle to attend and listen.

This struggle showed up powerfully on a recent visit to my 91-year-old mother. My mom, Maxine, is declining. She no longer can link my name to her memory, but when I walk in the room with my husband, it is clear she sees me and knows someone she loves to see is here to see her too.

Her face lights up with clear eyes and a huge smile. She hugs her body with joy and gives a soft shout of deep happiness.

The words she speaks are vital to me. My words feel meaningless and flat. Here is a real-life situation where all I must do is listen, observe and be present. Doesn’t it sound simple?

It is hard. It is hard not because it is unpleasant to see my mother in her current stage of life. It is hard because I realize I am so prone to action and contribution that I am at risk of missing the most significant. I have nothing to contribute in this room except sit next to Gary, hold her hand, smile, and look into her eyes. My short replies responded to her simple repetitive statements.

My visit with my mom reminded me of the lessons in my recent five-day silent retreat. It’s a challenge to sit and listen to what’s in front of me and inside of me. But at the retreat, I made the space for silence, the space to be still.

In both sitting with my mother and at the retreat, I was laying aside productivity and work for something that would help me listen and avoid what the poet T.S. Eliot describes:

“Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

T.S. Eliot