Article January 13, 1934 Issue

Listening

KIMMIS HARTLEY HENDRICK

One attitude which is said to characterize those who are truly great and at the same time humble is that of listening. It is a kind of expectancy, which longs for and quietly awaits the unfoldment of inspiring ideas from divine Spirit. Moses listened for God's voice and heard it. So did Elijah, Isaiah, and other prophets. Then came Jesus, listening for and hearing only the voice of his Father, and saying, "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." In this way, as in all others, Jesus should be our Way-shower. Our Leader accepted him as the Way-shower, and like her we should be striving to listen as did Jesus; and with her we should say, "I will listen for Thy voice" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 398; Poems, p. 14).

Right listening calls for heeding; and so we may well ask ourselves what we are heeding. If we are heeding the claims of material sense, then we are obviously not listening to Spirit, for Spirit and matter are contraries. Are we listening to the arguments of fear, envy, hatred, disease, lack, pride, and the like? Surely, these are not worth listening to, for they are atheistic lies; there is no Godlikeness in them. They would pretend to leave God, Love, out of His own creation. Mrs. Eddy says (Unity of Good, p. 11): "Jesus stooped not to human consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He heeded not the taunt, 'That withered hand looks very real and feels very real;' but he cut off this vain boasting and destroyed human pride by taking away the material evidence." Christian Science teaches us not to yield to temptation or the taunt of mortal mind, but to listen to the divine Mind.

To listen also means to give attention; and so we may well ask ourselves how much of our attention is directed Godward, towards Truth. Are we listening to the truths of being as Christian Science declares them? Are we devoting time enough to the study of the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly? In church are we listening for the spiritual import of the service, rather than allowing thought to dwell—perhaps critically—on outward aspects and lesser considerations? If we are not hearing enough, humanly speaking, it may be because we are giving too much attention to what Jesus spoke of as the "cares and riches and pleasures of this life," or to the claims of personality.

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