Quotes About Listening

Jos ihmisellä ei ole aikaa olla toisen kanssa, jollei hän pysty istumaan hiljaa toisen seurassa, hän hylkää, torjuu ja pilkkaa.

The word listen in Latin is audire. If we listen with full attention in which we are totally geared to listen, it's called ob-audire, and that's where the word obedience comes from. Jesus is the obedient one. That means he is total ear, totally open to the love of God. And if we are closed, and to the degree that we are closed, we are surdus. That is the Latin word for deaf. The more "deaf" we get, the more absurdus

The great movement of the spiritual life is from a deaf, nonhearing life to a life of listening.

The loud, boisterous noises of the world make us deaf to the soft, gentle, and loving voice of God.

When we live with a solitude of heart, we can listen with attention to the words and the worlds of others, but when we are driven by loneliness, we tend to select just those remarks and events that bring immediate satisfaction to our own craving needs. Our

Our God is a God who cares, heals, guides, directs, challenges, confronts, corrects. To discern means first of all to listen to God, to pay attention to God's active presence, and to obey God's prompting, direction, leadings, and guidance.

we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us.

The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.

It is not easy for us, busy people, to truly receive a blessing. Perhaps the fact that few people offer a real blessing is the sad result of the absence of people who are willing and able to receive such a blessing. It has become extremely difficult for us to stop, listen, pay attention, and receive gracefully what is offered to us.

when we listen to the Spirit, we hear a deeper sound, a different beat. ...Living a spiritually mature life requires listening to God's voice within and among us.

One good way to listen is to listen with a sacred text: a psalm or a prayer, for instance. The Hindu spiritual writer Eknath Easwaran showed me the great value of learning a sacred text by heart and repeating it slowly in the mind, word by word, sentence by sentence. In this way, listening to the voice of love becomes not just a passive waiting, but an active attentiveness to the voice that speaks to us through the words of the Scriptures.

Por qué tanta prisa por tener éxito, y por qué nos embarcamos en empresas tan desesperadas? Si un hombre no va al ritmo de sus acompañantes, tal vez sea que oye un tambor diferente. Dejad que baile al ritmo de la música que escucha, sin importar su compás ni la distancia desde donde llegue ese sonido» 2.

Where does God lead us as a people?" This question requires that we pay careful attention to God's guidance in our life together, and that together we search for a creative response to the way we have heard God's voice in our midst.

By offering premature advice on how to cope, by rushing to reassure, by prodding with advice, we say much about our own need for easy closure. When we barge in with such consolation, we make hurting souls into objects or projects.

In a time so filled with methods and techniques designed to change people, to influence their behavior, and to make them do new things and think new thoughts, we have lost the simple but difficult gift of being present to each other. We have lost this gift because we have been led to believe that presence must be useful.

When we live with a solitude of heart, we can listen with attention to the words and the worlds of others, but when we are driven by loneliness, we tend to select just those remarks and events that bring immediate satisfaction to our own craving needs.

The loud, boisterous noises of the world make us deaf to the soft, gentle, and loving voice of God. A Christian leader is called to help people hear that voice and so be comforted and consoled.

El discernimiento es una comprensión espiritual y un conocimiento experimental de cómo Dios está activo en la vida diaria, y se adquiere mediante una práctica espiritual disciplinada. El discernimiento implica una vida de fe y la escucha atenta al amor y la voluntad de Dios, para que de ese modo podamos cumplir nuestra vocación individual y la misión compartida.

Coming home and staying there where God dwells, listening to the voice of truth and love, that was, indeed, the journey I most feared because I knew that God was a jealous lover who wanted every part of me all the time. When would I be ready to accept that kind of love?

Dear Lord, Be with me today. Listen to my confusion and help me know how to live it. I don't know the words. I don't know the way. Show me the way. You are a quiet God. Help me to listen to your voice in a noisy world. I want to be with you. I know you are peace. I know you are joy. Help me to be a peaceful and joyful person. These are the fruits of living close to you. Bring me close to you, dear Lord. AMEN

When we no longer pray, no longer listen to the voice of love that speaks to us in the moment, our lives become absurd lives in which we are thrown back and forth between the past and the future. If we could just be, for a few minutes each day, fully where we are, we would indeed discover that we are not alone and that the One who is with us wants only one thing: to give us love

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear.

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.