Hearing and Listening

I am reminded when I talk to people of the difference between hearing and listening.

Hearing is a physical phenomena. Do the bones of the inner ear vibrate when sound waves strike it? Do those bones vibrate well enough to allow the sound to be articulate? Many people can hear, perceive and respond to that physical phenomena.

Listening is another matter. Interpretation always was a problem for people. We understand so little of what we hear that someone can tell us a fact in plain language and we still don’t register it. Whatever we’re told can’t be true. It doesn’t agree with our assumptions, with our expectations, therefore it cannot be. It is dismissed from consciousness before it has time to connect to anything. It is as if the words were never spoken, wiped from consciousness.

I listened to a spirit tell someone about themselves yesterday and realized that despite the fact that they were being told plainly that they had a problem, they simply refused to listen. They heard the words, laughed them off, and forgot them in a few seconds.

It cannot be said that the spirits are not communicating. I watch them, just the little I see, communicate clearly over and over. I even remind people of what they have been told—it’s part of my job as a priest to act as the memory of my people.

It is more accurate to say that people do not listen.