How to listen

 

Then pay attention to how you listen; for to those who have, more will be given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away. (Luke 8:18)

It is not the knowledge of many things that fills the heart but the savor of a few. So listen ... and hear.

Hear the lilt of a voice that awakens hope, renewing confidence and joy. Savor the voice and the emotions stirred. They tell you how to listen to the Voice who speaks within you.

Even more, they are the Voice of Love restoring your wholeness and setting you free to live beyond the bondage of failures, sad memories and anxious preoccupations.

The human heart more easily dwells on what is wrong, what may go wrong, what is lost, what we no longer or could never have.

But the Voice of Love draws us forward, out of our internal quagmire into the lightness of being, out of isolation into the communion of mutual love and regard, out of ourselves into the wholeness of relationships that awaken gratitude for the goodness of life and the sacred beauty of loving laughter.

So listen to the moments that awaken life in your mortal being. Pay attention, not once in a while but every hour. Recall and retell moments that freed your heart to breathe. Turn them over. Examine them from every direction lest they be lost. 

And give thanks that the Voice of Love found you ... exactly where you are.

David L. Miller