By Connie Blunden
Years ago my friend Wendy gave me a book entitled “Listening Is an Act of Love” edited by Dave Isay. The book is a compilation of personal stories collected by The StoryCorps Project. Since 2003 StoryCorps has worked, in the tradition of acclaimed historian Studs Terkel, to preserve and document oral histories nationwide through recorded conversations. The formula is simple: ask and listen with the intent to receive. The title of the book reminds us that listening is an action verb and through listening we honor and respect one another.
Truly effective listening draws us to a deeper understanding of the person who is speaking. When I was in college I interned for the Washington, D.C. Superior Court as a court-based mediator. In addition to being an intake specialist I was assigned to mediate day-of-trial cases. Although I dealt primarily with consumer-merchant and landlord-tenant disputes, I distinctly remember mediating a personal loan case. The claim involved two close friends and a sizable amount of money. You might think that the conflict centered around repayment of the loan, and while that was a consideration, the underlying issue dealt more with a communication breakdown between friends and the resulting damage done to their friendship. In order to move forward it was important to ask questions and listen with the intent to receive what each person was bringing to the table. The mediation turned into an open dialogue that both resolved the dispute and healed the relationship.
Can asking questions and listening with the intent to receive be a pathway to understanding when conflict is experienced on a larger scale? Many people believe so. Organizations such as Seeds of Peace and Living Room Conversations emphasize the importance of recognizing our shared humanity while working to address larger and more complex issues. StoryCorps newest initiative, “One Small Step” builds on this idea as well. So, if we believe that conversations bring us closer together, and that listening contributes to the overall success of a conversation, then we must prioritize stepping towards one another with the intent to receive what we hear.
Connie Blunden is the Jane Bagley Lehman Director of the Center for Public Purpose and an upper school history teacher at Greenwich Academy. Her curricular and programmatic work focuses on social justice, participatory citizenship and service leadership.
