At the core of any sustainable world are relationships. The health of the planet depends on people working together to make changes, sharing resources, living more closely together, building local economies, and leaning on each other for emotional and physical support.
The sustainability of the planet demands a spiritual change, spiritual being what we believe is important. The change needs to happen first in the core of our beings. The change we need to make right now is not just plugging in efficient light bulbs, but addressing our ego's needs for instant and competitive gratification.
At the core of these relationships is communication. The hallmark of the effective communication is not just the words and ideas said and how they are said, but how they are heard, and how the person speaking is valued. The quality of listening defines the quality of the communication. Without good listening, nothing gets heard, nothing gets communicated, stasis abounds.
The media seems to reward lots of words, people on all sorts of fences yelling and berating, arguing over whose words are right. Politicians have taken to annihilating one another's platforms or proposals instead of deeply considering them. Yet few people are really listening, weighing deeply what is being said, considering opposing viewpoints.
Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, designers of the idea of democracy, spoke of the dialectic process, which necessitates the art of listening, as one of the core skill a citizen in a democracy must have. Interestingly, our "liberal arts" colleges were founded on teaching the "arts of liberty." In the dialectic process, which is similar to the process of mediation, one person posits a thesis of their ideas, another counters with their anti-thesis, then they listen to one another to arrive at a third synthesis of the best of both ideas. The "best" is what benefits the most people, allowing for the "common wealth."
We have some decisions to make quickly to save the earth, to save the economy, to save our democracy. Stick in the debate-annihilate-frustrate syndrome we are getting nowhere fast. We need to hear what one another is saying, Tea Partier and Commie Pinko Liberal sitting down at the table to find what in their seemingly different beliefs are common, what of the other side is plausible and preferable to our own idea, and decide how we, as people of the planet, are going to move forward for the good, the common wealth, of all.
All might agree that we need to make some changes in ourselves. Working toward inner change for the good is the definition of the notion "spirituality." |
We have no sustainability if we do not listen to one another.
Learning to listen in itself causes this spiritual changes we need within ourselves to attain a sustainable community.
When we learn to listen deeply, which I call "social meditation, we must become fully present, outside of ourselves, focused, mindful, and compassionate. Just by improving our ability to listen we are practicing the spiritual and practical skills we need to live together in the new local economies we need to create in order to survive, all of us, regardless of political persuasion.
The words "wealth" and "health" both stem from the word for "wholeness". Any sustainability we can attain has to come from considering the health and wealth of all of us, even those with whom we disagree. In order to sustain the "commonwealth" as intended by founders of the early American colonies, we must listen to one another.
By Marcia McReynolds of Planet. She teaches people how to really listen through workshops, The Listening Cards ™, and public speaking. |
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• The Listening Place
• Pledge of Listening:
Listening should be taught in schools
• Make Molehills Out of Mountains
• Problem Solving Process
• Listening for Sustainability
• Meditations on Listening
• Depression Sign of Missed Calling
• Path to Unconditional Happiness
• Guerilla Mediation Steps
• Listening to Emotional Blocks
in the Body |
