A DEAF PERSON who goes through life learning to listen soon becomes wiser than a person who hears but never learns to listen.
While it is entirely possible - even desirable - to overcome this world without much speaking, without listening we are utterly ruined.
(The Wisdom of Listening)
If we are to proceed in the way of our learning,
from God to the communities embraced by His Providence,
we must learn to listen attentively to the reality
of the instruments of Providence.
It is always better to learn from persons
by our trust in the inherent good of others
- than to seek to unlearn -
the sincerity native to our good will
by nurturing any bitterness stemming from hurt
or from any perceived lack of good in the person of others.
This is always true with regard to those
whose littleness and difficulties conceal from many
the true value of their instruction
- all who are the least among others -
whom the darkness of this world blindly rejects.
For this must always come by way of false comparisons
that rob ourselves and others of our particular sense of uniqueness
and removes us further from the truth.
Therefore,
let us make it a rule of our everyday living
that it is always better to listen first than to ask first.
We must be listeners first and speakers last.
For much listening shall often reveal to us the answers
where much speaking give rise only to questions.
And counsel that is well-received
is worth more than a thousand questions.
But if we must know how to listen to the counsel of others,
we must also learn how ably we must bend - against our own will -
and this bending is the bending of obedience.
All our hearing amounts to nothing
if our listening does not lead to discernment.
For all our listening is a form of obedience.
It is wise only inasmuch as it leads us to the truth.
We must understand - first - that obedience merits much
only when we are taught in the way of mutual trust and respect,
in an atmosphere of understanding, and in the freedom of the truth.
When obedience fails,
it fails because it is given blindly
or when it is a choice wrongly taken away
or as a bondage that is forced against the will.
This is ignorance, timidity and oppression - respectively -
and it avails evil people much but then again,
by token of these same things,
it can also be said if we know how to listen to Providence
- that their evil is but a thing permitted -
by each and every one of us
who by token of their same evil,
are led to the leadings of the good.
For all tyranny that matures,
matures only because it is an evil allowed by the people.
Obedience - in a nation -
is neither servility nor weakness.
It is the strength to know the truth
as well as the resilience to uphold it,
in sacred remembrance of each other;
it is as the bending of a bow - aimed towards the infinite -
we let fly not because we are hurt,
we let fly because we have finally found
our peace with each other.
To not be ignorant, we must know to ask.
To not be timid, we must learn to know to ask.
To not be oppressed, we must learn to know
to always ask without fail.
