Thought for the Week – Listening, paying attention

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At this time of year it is good to pay special attention to nature and listen to its varied and wonderful sounds. Last week a cuckoo landed on an electricity poll beside me and started to ‘cuckoo’ and then flew off. The wonder of it all!

Listening, paying attention is not something I do very well despite my ears being switched on all the time. In out culture we tend to be swamped by images and our sense of sight dominates all other senses.

Somewhere I read recently that neglecting the aural ‘de-spiritualised existence’.  Neglect of the aural pervades theology and spirituality – God is dealt primarily from a visual perspective, largely ignoring the transcendent possibilities of hearing.

Yet in Genesis, Adam and Eve “ heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”

And the great obstacle the Israelites faced during the journey from Egypt toward freedom was their ‘hardness of heart’; they were a stiff necked people who did not listen to God but to themselves.

Murroe Website EditorThought for the Week – Listening, paying attention