Listening

International blogstar, Justin "Tractor Trailer" Taylor, has some great words pertaining to something I am very passionate about, but at times not very good at: Listening. I can attest to the fact that JT is a great listener. He says:

It's quite sad, really, that "listening" has taken on such wimpish connotations. We hear that word and we tend to conjure up images of Mr. Rogers leading a group therapy session while we sit cross-legged in a circle, holding hands and singing Kumbaya! But there's nothing passive or pansy or prettified about the art and task of biblically informed listening. It's serious, active, and aggressive. It's hard work. It's a battle to fight impatience and to take the time to really understand. It takes mental sweat to zero in on the author's intended meaning. It's encouraging to know that even the Apostle Peter found some of Paul's writings "hard to understand" (2 Pet. 3:16). In his great book How to Read a Book Mortimer Alder wrote that you only have a right to criticize someone's work when you restate their arguments in such a way that the author would say: "Yes, you've got it." If you don't do that, you've created a "straw man"--a flimsy representation of the real thing that you can whack away at. But if you want to win the war and not just the little battles, you have to fight against the real deal, and to do so requires a fair amount of work.

To read more of his interview from the New Attitude conference you can click here.