Listening and hearing

Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. Isaiah 28.23

Mu dheireadh thall, I am on a course that I have been trying to attend for several years: Tha Cultar Beò ann am Flòdaigearraidh. It is not what I expected, which is not necessarily a bad thing!

Yesterday we were confined to barracks on account of the relentless downpour which would have rendered our field trip a soggy affair. Instead we listed to a story on the Tobar an Dualchais website. The point of the exercise was to illustrate how important it is to tune into the narrator's dialect in order to understand and appreciate the story.

How often in life do we think we have heard what someone is saying when, in fact, we have assumed our own interpretation of their words without listening closely enough to understand what they are intending to convey? We can even do that with the Bible. This explains the prophet Isaiah's plea, quoted above.

Accurate hearing requires that we listen for the meaning behind whatever and/ or whomever we are listening to - whether a speech, a conversation, a piece of music, an animal, or the Bible. Otherwise we risk missing the point and our response may be at cross purposes with what was intended.