If I have not listening
April 3, 2025
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.—1 Corinthians 13:1
“Ask, and it will be given you,” said the man from Nazareth. He might as well have said, “Listen, and you shall hear.”
If we listen and truly hear, much will be given us. The universe isn’t the only thing in our reality that is always expanding. So do we when we listen through.
As this phrase implies, to listen through is dimensional, much more than merely listening to, as in listening to sound. Like a turntable cartridge turning vibrations from an LP’s grooves into Beethoven’s glorious Ninth, listening through picks up on the frequencies in every moment and the vibes emanated from people in our midst. It is one thing to hear the trill of a dark-eyed junco outside my office window. It is another thing entirely to listen through that moment and feel grateful that the junco was circling overhead, spotted me, and alit on the gas grill just a few feet away and burst into song. Only for me.
We are halfway there when we listen for. As in, we are aware there is something out there, something we need to hear, whether it is 2 a.m. and we are listening for the sound of a critter on the back porch tipping over our compost bin, or it is Sunday morning in church, the peopled sanctuary utterly still, and we are listening for that still small voice we long to hear.
Ask, and it shall be given: The voice so diminutive we could hold it in our cupped hands lands next to us in our pew, where it bursts forth in silent song to tell us we are loved.
The voice is so loud, yet only we can hear it. It is an ode to joy. There is nothing to do but listen through, and receive the acceptance that has been there all along. It is in such moments that we learn love is a flow, a wave, a frequency, always there, never leaving, only waiting. Listen for, then listen through, and let yourself become, for the moment, a landing place for love. Next time it will be even easier, for you will have grown, your hearing improved. Someday you might be surprised to hear the universe calling you from light years away. Right now, though, rejoice in the closeness of that warm embrace. Listen with your heart. Listen, and you shall receive.