Seeing and Hearing

Gospel: Luke 8: 16-18

"Take care, then, how you hear."

The physical act of hearing words spoken is but one level of hearing, but what is our inner disposition to those words?  A person can hear without interest or attention.  Another could hear out of a sense of duty but not open to what is being said.  And finally a person could be fully attentive and open to the words being spoken to her.  It matters a great deal then in how we hear, as Jesus heeds us to do in today's Gospel portion.

This plea of Jesus regarding hearing is closely tied to what he says about the lighting of lamps.  We do not light lamps only to put them in a place that does us no good.  We instead light a lamp and place it in a place of prominence so that we might see what we need to see.  The same is true regarding the powers of hearing.  If we are not going to use our sense of hearing intently, then we will not benefit from that sense or from what we are meant to hear from God in our lives.

So today we look to cultivate our senses of seeing and hearing that we might be attentive to the presence of God in our lives.  This task requires discernment in order to filter out what is distraction and harmful while retaining what is useful and good.  That which leads us to sentiments and deeds of love and mercy are what comes from God as they illuminate our own interior rooms and that of others.  All the rest is the bluster of the world leading us to self-interest and animosity.