Hearing, Listening, and Understanding

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The masculine journey starts here now. No, that's not distortion. If you just grew up in the last probably 15, 20 years, you have no clue what that is. But if it's more than that, if you've been around for some of our age, in the wide variety of age that we have here, you know that that's Charlie Brown's teacher, right Harold?

Yes. So why did we open the show with that particular clip? Well, our topic is about hearing and listening. I made the mistake of being able to answer the question, well, Harold, you're not really talking much by saying, I like to think of myself as a good listener. So then I was told, well, okay, that's the topic for next week, and it's yours. So around this group, you got to be careful of what you say and to whom.

I remember it slightly different. But yeah. Okay. Harold says I have a topic. No, that's not how. I wasn't listening, Harold.

I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, you know, I also made the mistake of using one of my favorite quotes is I know you believe you understand what you think you heard me say, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. So the difference between hearing and listening is to me an important thing.

I did look up a couple of definitions that I'll read. Hearing is an accidental and automatic brain response to sound that requires no effort. Listening, on the other hand, is purposeful and focused rather than accidental.

As a result, it requires motivation and effort. Listening at its best is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by speaker. So, you know, to me, a part of it is that we can't help but hear sounds. But unless we're listening, those sounds may mean nothing at all to us.

And so there's a big difference between hearing and listening. Many years ago, I was studying to take an exam for a certificate in data processing. And I had an album, for those of you that that word doesn't mean much. It was what preceded CDs. And it had the 50 greatest classical themes. Beethoven's Fifth was about the fourth of the fifth cut down on one side. And I really wanted to hear it.

So I would start it, and I would do my studying. The record would eject, and I had no recollection of having heard Beethoven's Fifth. And for those of you that are not familiar with it, it starts off bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, a really loud sound that's unmistakable. So I tried it again.

Same thing happened. So then I knew that it was doing exactly what I wanted it to do, which was to drown out my wife's TV and the two boys, scuffling and yelling, and allowing me to concentrate on what I was studying. And in our discussion earlier, before the show started, it turns out that while that works extremely well for me, I had other people express the idea that music would interfere with their ability to study and retain material.

I worked for many years, almost 44, in information systems. And I would use earphones and music so that when I was writing programs, I wouldn't have to hear phones, conversations. And it would shut the door in effect to somebody wanting to stop by and talk, because I wanted to be able to concentrate on developing the computer code. So to me, I could have that hearing, but since I wasn't really listening, it did what I wanted to.

It was just background noise that drowned out other unwanted background noises. So that's kind of where we are on this topic. I had a revelation there after your definition. If I tell you, Harold, I hear what you're saying, that's actually kind of insulting, isn't it? I'm not listening, I just hear you. Well, that could be true, but it could also be true that you did understand what I said. I'll have to go back and listen to the show.

I was already moved on to like four other points. Which we do when we're listening, quote unquote, because we're not listening, we're thinking about how we're going to respond. And that's a big part of the issue with not listening. Yeah, there's definitely, you hear lots of things, you don't listen to everything that you hear.

You know, just think about going down the highway with your window down a little bit. I mean, you hear lots of noises and things, but you're not really concentrating on any of that stuff. It's just kind of in the background. Rodney, were you looking at the microphone? Did you have something to say? Just looking at the microphone. Just looking at the microphone, Sam.

Thank you, I want to make sure. But one of the things we talked about a lot though, was the understanding part, whether it's hearing or listening, call it whatever you want, put whatever definition where you want to, but it's really about trying to understand. And are you really concentrating and trying to understand someone or are you trying to understand how can I make my point?

Exactly. One of the best things for me that my company did, and I've talked about on the air before is they made me read a lot of books I wouldn't have read if they didn't make me read them. And one of them was Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And the one that really stuck with me was seeking first to understand before seeking to be understood. And whenever I practice that, at any level, it works so much better, right? Because that means I have to listen and try to understand where they're coming from before I have the authority or the opportunity to speak back into it. And it's no question that we have this trouble in small relationships, meaning intimate relationships, or on the macro level, that one side can't understand or listen to the other on any political thing. Communication is completely out the window when it gets to this listening and hearing kind of thing. You know, and it's the most, probably one of the, Jim, you've done a fair amount of counseling over the years, but isn't that one of the biggest issues that couples face is they're not listening to one another. They don't even really understand that we're speaking different languages. With your spouse, women hear things differently than men. They understand things differently. And listening and listening requires making sure you've got a proper understanding of what's being said.

And yeah, and I've been married 48 years and it's amazing how often both of us will say something and the other takes it a completely different way than we thought it should have been taken. Carolyn made an expression while we're watching TV and she said, what? And I said, well, this is what happened.

I know what happened. I was just saying what? And it was took like three times for that to happen before I realized, oh, that's just an expression of, I can't believe that happened. It wasn't asking for a repeat of what just happened.

Makes sense. I'm going to, uh, we didn't have a lack of clips for this particular topic because everybody had one, but I'm going to steal it. I'm going to go ahead and play my clip because I'm right here at the computer. And it kind of goes on those that not only do men and women have a hard time understanding each other, but so do donkeys and ogres. And so we're going to play this and they're on their way on an adventure and they're talking about Lord Farquaad, you know, and about the swamp. And that's where we kind of pick up the conversation with donkey and Shrek.

I don't get it Shrek. Why don't you just pull some of that older stuff on them? You know, throttle them, lay siege to his fortress, grind his bones to make your bread, you know, the whole ogres trip.

Oh, I know what, maybe I could have decapitated an entire village and put their heads on a pike, gotten a knife, cut open their spleen and drink their fluids. Does that sound good to you? Uh, no, not really. No. For your information, there's a lot more to ogres.

No. For your information, there's a lot more to ogres than people think. Example?

Example. Okay. Um, ogres are like onions. They stink? Yes. No. Oh, they make you cry? No. Oh, you leave them out in the sun, they get all brown, start sprouting little white hairs.

No. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers.

You get it. We both have layers. Oh, you both have layers.

Oh. You know, not everybody like onions. Cake. Everybody loves cakes. Cakes have layers.

I don't care what everyone likes. Ogres are not like cakes. You know what else everybody like? Parfaits. Have you ever met a person and you say, hey, let's get some parfaits. They say, hell no, I don't like no parfaits.

Parfaits are delicious. No. You dense, irritating, miniature beast of burden.

Ogres are like onions. End of story. Bye-bye.

See you later. Parfaits may be the most delicious thing on the whole planet. You know, I think I've preferred your humming. Do you have a tissue or something? Because I'm making a mess. Just the word parfait made me start slobbing.

We're getting ready to head into break here in a minute. But you look at this and you got an ogre, right, who you consider to be closed off. He doesn't have anything he wants to share.

And he's really wanting to share his heart. But Donkey can't get past his own way of wanting to explain what Shrek's already explained. Right.

It just gets in the way. He can't accept the way Shrek said it and just take it for what it was and try to listen. He has to say, oh, no, what you mean is really this. Right. Or what about this?

Is this a better idea? Even worse than donkeys and ogres is donkeys and elephants. Oh, there you go. That made me think there for a minute, Jim.

That's dangerous. Now, that's one of the things that gets in the way are preconceived filters that we have up. Right. The way that I'm choosing to interpret it instead of just saying, okay, I want to listen for what that person has to say and try to understand the angle at which they're coming at it.

Right. And instead we insert our own thoughts on it. I was telling the guys, you know, doing training for several years, one of the things that constantly got in the way about every other class would be somebody that was kind of like Donkey. And the fact that, you know, he would try, he or she would try to rephrase what I was trying to say in the middle of me saying it instead of listening for the eventual outcome. What I was trying to say, and they'd pause and say, what you're really trying to say here is this, isn't it? And I'd have to go, no, but I'm really trying to say, and then I'd start again.

And usually after about the fourth time, like, look, you can't talk until I'm done talking. When you're the teacher, you can do that. You can do that in regular life.

Right. But, you know, that's the only way I could try to get them to listen and then try to get the point I was trying to make there. But as we come back, we're going to talk about several different points on this whole listening and hearing and understanding and how do they, they all work together and what gets in the way of that.

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Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina 27285. Harold, that was your bump, right? Yeah. On your topic. Yes. So tell us a little bit about that bump.

Why did you pick that? Well, first of all, I happen to love Simon and Garfunkel as a musical duo, but this particular song I wanted to use as a bump because of the line, people hearing without listening. And I thought that emphasized the point that I was trying to make, that they are somewhat different. You can't listen without hearing, but you can hear without listening. Yeah, one of my kids taught me that, probably all my kids at one point or another, they'd be talking to me and all of a sudden they just have to go, dad, dad, dad, you know, because I can like just tune them out, you know, as already onto something else, you know, and especially when they're at certain ages, you can't pay attention to them the whole time. I mean, you just can't or you'd kind of go crazy, I think. But, you know, you do have to pay attention to them. But, you know, there's a lot of hearing, but not a lot of listening.

And that's what my kids would remind me of. Yeah. Andy, one of the things we do at bootcamp, you know, we're just talking about bootcamp at that break is we do something that has to do with listening. You want to share a little bit about that?

Yes. So, you know, we're talking a lot about hearing each other as individuals or people. But, you know, the foundationally, I think, if we hear from God, some of the other secondary listening occurrences, I mean, with people, we should have a better understanding of how to listen to people coming with God's wisdom out. Now, I find myself very guilty in the fact that if I got some truth that God's given me, I don't want to listen to anybody else's perspective or anything. I've got my truth. And that gets me in trouble sometimes because even though I think you have that truth that God's given you that's specific to you and it makes a lot of, you know, sense to you and you know that he gave it to you, you don't want to give that up. But God, you know, love your neighbor as yourself.

You've got to find out where somebody else is coming from. And if you're to share that truth, you have to give them the opportunity to get their place where you're at. But back to boot camp, you know, just, you know, we do listening prayer at boot camp.

It's a simple exercise. You know, why would we ever think prayer was a one-way thing where we just talk and God never gets to talk? You know, we give God an opportunity to talk at boot camp. And God can speak something into somebody's life where they've heard all the sermons, they've heard all the guidance from men, and it just hasn't taken root. But ever when God has an opportunity to speak, it's like E.F. Hutton, you know, everybody listens. And it really impacts the guy's lives.

It's impacted my life. And it's really, you know, foundational. You go back to the experience of Samuel in the Old Testament where God began to call him out, call his name, and he didn't really understand it.

And Nathan kind of gave him direction. You know, you see Elijah whenever God's coming through storms and lightning and all, and he said, no, you know, my voice is in the still small voice. But hearing and listening and really understanding is a part of who we are. If we can't get that concept and get that from God, then, you know, that's where we get off and we're wayward.

We're just kind of a master of our own destiny. Yeah, it's hard to kind of fathom to some degree. You know, if you're out there and you've never done, like, a listening prayer, you know, we're actually just listening for God because we struggle enough hearing somebody we can audibly hear that's in front of us, right?

You know, like, another person with skin on, right? And so there is opportunities for misinterpretation. But when we're talking about when we do listening prayer, we do it as a group, and God does some pretty cool things.

We don't do it at every boot camp. We do it when God, we feel God lays it on our heart to do it. But every time he comes through with some really cool things that he's working in people's lives. Yep, agreed. I mean, it's, you know, just we've got testimonies, I don't have any fresh off, but just things where they were supernaturally events to where there was no question, and this first time somebody's heard from God, they know the circumstances, they know that he spoke.

And it's, it's a really cool thing. But, you know, God tells us in the Scripture to, to get wisdom and to get understanding. And we can hear words a lot of times and stuff, but to really get that understanding. It could be that my take on Scripture wasn't the what God intended for me to get. But over time, I get understanding of really what that means personally to me.

Well, there's also a difference of I can read the same Scripture. This year, next year, the year after, and I interpret things differently in it, because I'm in a different place. Right?

It didn't make last year's less true, or the year before is less true, as much as I have a deeper understanding and a more intimate walk. Right? And so it becomes more truthful. Right? Which is a really tough thing right now, because, you know, everybody wants to have their truth. You know, well, this is my truth. Right? I want to do me, you know, that kind of thing, or you do you kind of thing. And there's parts of that, like anything else, it's probably got some healthiness to it.

But there's some parts of it, it's really not very healthy at all. You know, it's basically when you say, you know, it's my truth that I can say it in a way, I don't want to listen to what you have to say. Right? And when we're talking about Scripture, the only truth that we truly have is Scripture. Right? Now there's truth in our lives of our experiences and truth in our testimony that's going to vary.

Right? But the Scripture is the only thing that we all have that's just total we know can count as truth. You guys are all shaking your head.

There's lots of people around the table, nobody talking. So back to the topic on listening and hearing. Jim, you got something?

No, I was just gonna jump in because you were crying for help there. Thank you. I love you. And I wanted to respond.

Or at least that's what I heard. Okay. Or listened to, or understood. You heard me. What I was thinking earlier is that, and it's, I don't know if we're gonna get to my clip, but a big part of being able to listen and understand is know the context of the other person.

And if you don't know them, you're not going to understand what they're saying, even if you understand all the words. Which, and like I said, I don't know if that's something to jump into the clip or if we have time. You can see the clock, I can't. I can see the clock.

Yeah, we have time. So go ahead and set up your clip. Setting it up, this comes from the Beverly Hillbillies, the Beverly Hillbillies. And it's the original one that they did. Pilot, thank you. I knew there was a word for that, but I didn't understand what it was. But in this, you've got a geologist that has come looking for oil, which is called wildcatting. And he is given permission by Granny. And we're gonna start with Granny and Jethro talking about him being there. But in the second part of the clip, Ellie Mae found him snooping around their property, knocked him out, because it'd be easier to carry him. So he's taking a blow to the head. But the communication in this is hilarious. Okay, I'll go ahead and play it. That there fellas from the petroleum company.

What's a petroleum? He asked me if he could do some wildcatting down by the slough. I said help yourself. We're glad to get rid of the critters. The laughs on him. There ain't no wildcats down there at that slough.

No, it's too full of oil. What happened? Well, this here is the Clampett place. I'm Jed Clampett, my young and Ellie Mae and Granny.

Granny says you've been doing some wildcatting. There's no need to. Mr. Clampett, that swamp of yours is full of oil. I could have told you that. Well, my company would like to pump it out.

Yeah, I'd like that too, but I just can't afford to have a ton. No, no, no, you don't understand. You see, you wouldn't have to pay for it. Oh, I don't take favors from strangers. No, no, no, Mr. Clampett, you see, uh, you're a very rich man.

How big a rock did you beam here? Listen, I've got to call my office in Tulsa. Have you got a telephone? A what? A telephone? Well, maybe one of your neighbors has one.

It's a, uh, well, down in this country, it's probably a box attached to the wall and, uh, you talk into it and they can hear you in Tulsa. Maybe you better sit down for a spell. No, I haven't time. Listen, where's the nearest airfield? Airfield? You know, Granny, that's, uh, one of them airfields that's up in the air. Oh, never mind. I'll find it myself. Listen, now don't you sell that swamp till you hear from me.

I'm flying to Tulsa. Now he thinks he's got wings. Jim, that's a great point. You know, that's why, you know, Jesus taught in parables, right?

Things that people can understand. It is. And it's, that's funny. And we've got a lot of laugh tracks on this because communication, miscommunication can be hilarious. But if you're trying to communicate and you're not understanding what's being said, or you're only understanding it like this interchange in your own context, everybody thought the other was crazy in that.

And rightfully so, because they were using the same words with very different meanings. We have a bunch more clips. We have a great clip of Harold's. We didn't get into this particular show. We'll get into the after hours, uh, from the movie world trade center.

And so really want to stick around for that and listen to the after hours. But before we go out of this, uh, segment, what's some key takeaways for the difference between hearing and listening? Harold, what's something you would say that you have to do to go from hearing to listening somebody?

You have to be willing to be quiet and listen to what they have to say and not jump in with your answer before you've heard them out, as you were describing in your classes. I think too often we want to get our say out. And if we would just wait, we'd realize that what we have to say is irrelevant and shouldn't even be said. It's really hard to blank out your mind on something you already know and have a preconception of, but that's where we're at. And that's what we're really talking about is being truthfully open and honest with yourself and saying, okay, I'm actually going to listen to what you have to say based upon the merits of what you have to say and put that together with other merits that are being said and really come up with, okay, what then do I believe or understand about this situation versus nope, I already heard it, got my mind made up and anything you say is just going to be wrong.

And therefore I'm also going to vilify you for it. And what Harold said there, um, yeah, I'm kind of back of the bus today. I'm sitting in the back seat here and listening and taking a lot of this in. And that's one of the things that I kind of extrapolated from everybody's conversation is the one thing that we've kind of missed here is the desire to want to want to hear the answer that you receive in the way that we get before God. A lot of times we ask a question and sometimes we don't get the answer we want. You know, are we willing to hear what he has to say?

Thanks Wayne. You know, one of the things we considered for The Bump was a song called The Listening Song, which is like for elementary, but it's really pretty appropriate. You listen with your eyes, with your ears, with your mind still, you know, sitting still with my full attention, right? And whether that's listening to others or definitely listening to God, that's when we have the opportunity to hear and really listen and understand deeply. We'll talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.