Listening, or waiting to speak?
Peggy Heeks reflects on the importance of listening, as part of a hospital chaplaincy team
Come and share with me four different scenarios. In the first I’m at a seminar, here by invitation because the subject is relevant to our research interests. As we proceed through the Powerpoint presentation, I notice that the man on one side of me is checking his emails: the one opposite flicking through a journal. How to account for this? Maybe we’ve grown used to phasing in and out of TV programmes; maybe we’re coasting because the secretary will later send us a summary. Now I’m having coffee with a long-established friend. There are lots of things I want to discuss with her. However, someone else has been invited who caps each of the hostess’s stories with one of her own, not even allowing a pause to absorb what has been said. In conversation a subject is discussed, teased out, but here the two minds never meet.
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