{"id":463,"date":"2010-12-23T13:05:20","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T13:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html"},"modified":"2010-12-23T13:05:20","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T13:05:20","slug":"in-praise-of-listening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html","title":{"rendered":"In Honor of Listening"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>We&#8217;re approaching Christmas. The hustle and bustle. The songs and bells and tinsel. The complaints of shoppers. The joy of children. The dinner conversations with family members.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the midst of all the noise&#8211;the happy noise and the distressing noise&#8211;a reminder of the grace that comes through listening:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;Not listening fails to treat you with the dignity that is rightfully yours by being created in God&#8217;s image. Insisting on controlling the conversation is really seeking to control you. Listening is not passive, it is a way to exhibit humility, to embrace an active dependence on the Spirit of God so that walking by faith is not just my profession but my way of life. Refusing to control the conversation is not passivity but an intentional act of leaving it in God&#8217;s hands.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Denis Haack, in Critique, a publication of <a href=\"http:\/\/ransomfellowship.org\/\">ransomfellowship.org<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re approaching Christmas. The hustle and bustle. The songs and bells and tinsel. The complaints of shoppers. The joy of children. The dinner conversations with family members.&nbsp; In the midst of all the noise&#8211;the happy noise and the distressing noise&#8211;a reminder of the grace that comes through listening: &#8220;Not listening fails to treat you with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-what-im-reading"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In Honor of Listening - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Honor of Listening - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We&#8217;re approaching Christmas. The hustle and bustle. The songs and bells and tinsel. The complaints of shoppers. The joy of children. The dinner conversations with family members.&nbsp; In the midst of all the noise&#8211;the happy noise and the distressing noise&#8211;a reminder of the grace that comes through listening: &#8220;Not listening fails to treat you with&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-23T13:05:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In Honor of Listening - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In Honor of Listening - Thin Places","og_description":"We&#8217;re approaching Christmas. The hustle and bustle. The songs and bells and tinsel. The complaints of shoppers. The joy of children. The dinner conversations with family members.&nbsp; In the midst of all the noise&#8211;the happy noise and the distressing noise&#8211;a reminder of the grace that comes through listening: &#8220;Not listening fails to treat you with&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-12-23T13:05:20+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html","name":"In Honor of Listening - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-12-23T13:05:20+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-23T13:05:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/in-praise-of-listening.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"In Honor of Listening"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}