A Listening Activity for Discovering Quiet and Hearing God
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In our noisy world, it can be difficult to quiet your inner and outer life and hear God. This listening activity can help you do that.
The swinging wide on the rusty hinge of the gate that separated the Mormon Mountain Trail from the Arizona Trail interrupted the quiet of the early morning. The creaky, nails-on-a-chalkboard-screech shivered my spine as I looped the chain holding the gate back in place before following my dog, Mollie, down the path covered in pine needles in the old growth forest near Dairy Springs Campground in northern Arizona.
The noise from the rusty gate was nothing compared to the nonstop thoughts going on inside my head—the ongoing narrative of should’s, could’s, and why don’t you's. I had hoped the morning stroll would calm my inner critic—the familiar, nagging voice that easily drowned out any noise from the surrounding forest. The endless drone had followed me from the city, on my weekend getaway, where I had hoped to connect with God in a deeper way.
I had begun the weekend with a prayer found in 1 Samuel 3:9, “Speak LORD, for your servant is listening.” Now, on my second day, I still could not hear above my noisy inner and outer life.
I decided to try a listening and quieting activity from the book, Sharing Nature, by Joseph Cornell. Cornell uses the activity to connect people with nature, but I thought it might also work to connect to the Creator of all things. Standing still, I closed my eyes and held my closed fists out in front of me. Cornell instructs participants to open one finger each time they hear a new sound, until they hear ten different sounds. How hard could this listening activity be?
I started a mental list. A loud cawing from tree above me. Chook-chook-chook. Sound one. A stellar jay. I opened one finger. Three more birds quickly followed. A cooing dove, a scolding raven, and an unknown songbird. Sounds two, three and four.
The jingling of Mollie’s dog tags signaled her return and as she got closer, I heard her paws hit the cushioned earth. I lifted the thumb on my left hand and the first finger on my right. A buzzing fly. Sound seven. A falling pinecone. Sound eight. With all the other critters making a home in the surrounding cedar, spruce, oak, and pine, I figured I would soon hear the final sounds.
I waited. And waited. My ears listened in the unfamiliar woods, straining to distinguish the slightest movement or change around me.
Tap. Tap. Tap. A woodpecker. Sound nine.
The birds continued rustling and calling, but I detected no new voices. Even my inner critic had fallen silent. My shoulders relaxed and I took a deep breath. And then another. I had my tenth and final sound: the sound of my own breathing.
I prayed, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”
This post originally appeared in SanTan Sun News.