Listening for Life

Darkness, Dolphins, and the Kingdom Within

Several years ago, my family was confronted with a difficult situation. Without getting too deep into the weeds of the New York City public school system with its charter schools, magnet schools, zoned schools, unzoned schools, dual-language programs, gifted and talented programs, sibling priority, and lotteries—I’ll just say that my five-year-old daughter had missed an opportunity to be placed at the same school as her two older brothers. Their school—well-regarded and highly sought after—was already miles away and in a different borough from where we lived. It seemed logistically impossible to be able to handle dropping off and picking up our children at two different schools that were not close to our home. My frustration and anxiety about how we could possibly make it work were pretty clear to my daughter. Rather than absorbing my emotional distress, however, she let it bounce off her and sent it back at me: “Just because I didn’t get into the school my mom wanted me to get into . . .” she said, with all the sass and accusation a five-year-old is capable of.

The situation itself was difficult, but hearing her put it in that perspective was disorienting. I heard the acknowledgment that she had disappointed me, but I also heard that it had been unfair of me to expect so much from her. I heard that I should have been more open to other results, and that she still needed somewhere to land. The sharp focus I’d had became a weapon that cut a gash in our path, but it was her words that opened up an entirely different perspective. I’m not sure if it was the bottom dropping out exactly—it could have been a skylight opening, or a wall falling away—but what was clear was that my world was different, and I would have to move through it differently. 

But at first I couldn’t seem to move at all. I felt lost in the dark, not unlike a child tentatively opening the door of an unlit room, afraid to step inside. Of all the childhood fears, it seems that fear of the dark is the most persistent. The ability to summon scary creatures and scenarios is one that continues throughout our lives—in both the physical and spiritual realms—and staying in a well-lighted, familiar place is an extremely attractive alternative. Which is why, as I faced this school situation, I hesitated, searching for any way to close that door and continue on the path we had already been walking—even if it was challenging in its own way. I wanted, perhaps, to hide under the bed.

But hiding under the proverbial bed would only keep my world small—a recipe for frustration and discontent. Even a cozy hidey-hole does not make for a life of joy or growth or progress. On top of that, my daughter’s words resonated uncomfortably in my soul. I had to stop and examine them more closely: “. . . the school my mom wanted me to get into . . . .” Yes, of course I wanted her to get in there. We all did. I wanted the same thing for her as I did for her brothers. I wanted them to be together. I wanted simple logistics. And yet, as someone who strives to listen deeply, I knew that if I was going to have peace in my life, I needed to retune, to listen deeper, to possibly change my own ideas and perspectives to help my family find our way through this challenge. And I don’t mean to say that I give the same weight of examination to every statement my children make in frustration or to every stranger who offers their opinion on my life choices. But there are moments when being open to other perspectives can be life-changing in the best possible ways—and times when it can’t. In this moment, I could feel my daughter’s words open something that gave us space to maneuver our way through this challenge.

As a person and a writer, I am intensely aware of the fact that there is a lot I don’t know and the only way to access that unknown information is by listening. I claim the writer Ted Conover’s thought as a guide for my interactions: “I’m the interested listener who is seldom disputatious. . . . It's more important for me to learn his point of view than to teach him about mine.” And so I try to listen: to deep stories of people’s souls, and to snippets of conversation snatched from strangers passing on the street, and especially to sassy little five-year-olds with something to say. These little bits and pieces of sound often provide a map through unfamiliar terrain, a jumping off point into deeper study. By listening deeply, hard, and well, I can feel my way forward—not unlike a bat or a dolphin using echolocation to find their way through the dark of night or the depths of the ocean to find food, shelter, company, safety, a place of rest.

I can think of another time the sound of something has had such an impact on me: the moment when a soft swish-swish, swish-swish pulsed from a Doppler machine’s tiny speaker in a cold and sterile doctor’s office and it was confirmed that a seemingly healthy baby was growing and developing inside me. The sound of that tiny heartbeat reverberated throughout the room and into a deep and powerful place in me, where a heretofore undiscovered person, a parent, a mother, was waiting to come forth. It opened up a wide range of experiences and feelings that were only theoretical before. 

It is a moment many can relate to, I’m sure, when suddenly they wanted things they never knew they wanted, shunned things that had been important parts of their lives, and in an instant (perhaps one lasting several years) they became someone different than they thought themselves to be. It is a testament to the power that hearing, listening has in our lives. 

I say listening, but I use that word in a spiritual sense. And perhaps what I mean is more like echolocation. For it is through this full-body-and-soul hearing that we connect most nearly with the unseen world. We close our eyes to feel the music more fully and deeply. We hear things before they enter our range of vision. We hold on to the stories from the mouths of strangers, turning them over in our minds and hearts for grains of truth that fill the gaps in our own understanding. We are called to speak of our own lives so that others can hear them and have the chance to resonate with us, to vibrate, for a moment or more, on the same frequency. Listening sends waves that emanate throughout our bodies, touching each emotion—sparking joy, soothing sadness, electrifying both love and anger. It leads us along as we encounter dark and unfamiliar paths. 

It is true that I have no personal experience of animalistic echolocation—the ability bats, dolphins, and other creatures have of navigating through dark and unfamiliar terrain by sending out sound waves and feeling them return in some different pattern or texture that gives them a clear sense of what lies ahead—but that is what I imagine it to be. Our encounters with each other, our conversations, our stories, even our arguments are a means of helping us steer through life, not only to find our way through the darkness but to reveal the caverns and heights within ourselves. Much like bats and dolphins in the animal world, we too can use a form of echolocation to deeply listen and discover the breadth and depth of our own capacities. 

And so, as I contemplated the two-school reality our family was faced with, I knew that I needed to first turn toward the darkness. Only then could I begin to feel out the unknown road ahead. With no lights to go by, no way to see exactly what could or would happen, I started asking questions, listening to the experiences and stories of others, and letting their words and ideas wash over me. As I listened, I began to find some spots that felt softer and lighter. And I let my daughter’s words continue to roll around in my heart and mind: Knowing that my sons’ school was just a school—just the school I wanted my daughter to go to, not the only school—opened the door a little bit. After all, there are eighteen hundred schools in New York City. Certainly we could find another one that would work for us?

The door did open a little bit—not a lot. In listening to those who had been in similar circumstances, with young children at different schools, I heard that the path ahead would likely be hard, but not impossible. That there would be things that fell through the cracks, and that it would be okay if they did. That there would be people along the way that would be understanding, forgiving, and helpful. And that it would not last forever. It could be done, and then it would be done. 

What I heard from those who had been there before, from those who were still walking the path, was that it was possible if we wanted to walk it (if not, we could always leave New York). But also that it would change us. We would have to make sacrifices. Our priorities would shift. We would find different parts of ourselves, different abilities that we didn’t know we had. Walking this path would reveal another cavernous level to our being.  

I feel that our entire lives and beings are marked by our actions and reactions to what we hear, both in our ears and in our souls. It is important, then, to spend much of our effort leaning on our spiritual ears, attuning not only to the actual sounds but to the echoes and reverberations as well. Through listening, we forge relationships. The space we give to listening is the space where we sound out our edges, find our boundaries, declare our limits, and meld into duets or fugues or the most intricate of harmonies.

It is an imperfect art, one that we must exercise if we are to develop it. Once, as a newly engaged college student, I sat alone in my fiance's apartment, waiting for him to come home from his job in another city. As I sat, half-heartedly doing homework, I idly wondered to myself whether I would know if my fiance was in trouble. Was our connection that strong? My musings were interrupted several times by the apartment phone, which I ignored as it was not my apartment, not my phone (I didn’t have my own cell phone yet). Of course, I soon learned that if I had listened more closely to the “idle” musing in my head, I would have thought to answer the phone so I could hear my fiance tell me that his car had broken down and he was, indeed, in trouble. 

Thankfully, the trouble was not immediately dangerous, but I recognized that I had been ignoring important spiritual sounds and resolved to be more aware in the future—a resolution that has led me to and through places that looked like impossible thickets from a distance. As I closed my eyes and listened, however, they revealed themselves to be merely challenges. One time, as I stewed in anxiety about the upcoming birth of my third child, a friend simply reminded me that I had done this before, that I would know what to do when labor started. Immediately, my worries evaporated. Several years later, again suffering from pre-labor anxiety, I was playing with my then five-year-old son when he told me, “Mom, you have to slay the dragon!” His words resonated through my body in a way that I knew that my labor with his unborn brother—just days away—was going to be difficult. I was grateful for his words, for the image of myself as a dragonslayer, as later I rode long, slow contractions to bring the baby out.

And while we can navigate our way through difficult situations by locating ourselves in the spiritual echoes of someone’s words, it is just as important to build relationships that way. As parents and caregivers we can recognize the cries of our babies as moments to listen and learn from them, becoming responsive to their needs and building a foundation of trust. As they develop their language skills, we can work to hear what they are really saying, not what our own experiences lead us to. We wondered where my toddler daughter had learned about house elves until we realized that, “Dobby, dobby, dobby, dobby!” was actually her beginner’s attempt at “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it!” And whenever I hear my current toddler say, “Harry Potter!” I need to remind myself that he, as a transportation enthusiast, is likely alerting me to the sound of a “helicopter!” 

It is good practice to take the time to hear what is really being said, whether by a baby or a toddler or a teenager or a new acquaintance or an old friend or a life-long companion. Imagine if we didn’t. If we insisted on hearing only what we wanted to hear and discarding the rest. Whole worlds of interest might be closed to us. Not only might I not be so aware of the many different types of vehicles that populate the roads, not only might my children have missed out on the magical world of J. K. Rowling’s creation, we may also have closed ourselves off to the world of each other’s lives and thoughts. Those who aren’t listened to tend to stop sharing, falling silent among those who are not open to their message and consequently, their very selves, continuing to live in the small, quiet darkness, disconnected and alone. 

I thought, when my daughter did not get into her brothers’ school, that the bottom had dropped out of our lives. I imagined that it was the end of our road in New York City. I couldn’t see the way forward. But as I listened to her, to others who had similar experiences, to the spiritual vibrations, I was able to find a way forward. We found a school that was logistically possible for us to get to—a mere two blocks from her brothers’ school, and with a start and end time fifteen minutes later. It was a relief, even if it was also a challenge. 

That school year we found ourselves walking a more difficult path, if only because there were a lot more flights of stairs to ascend on a daily basis. But it was also a much different experience in other ways. My daughter was one of only eight students in her kindergarten class. She was one of only two white children. Her school was much smaller, poorer, and more personal than her brothers’ school two blocks away. It was known for its high homeless population, for having purchased a washing machine so parents in need could wash their children’s clothing there. She had access to a lot of additional programs, free of charge. 

It was not something we sought after or necessarily wanted, but in choosing to fall through the floor—or walk through the door, or climb toward the skylight—into the darkness, we found more of ourselves. We found greater strength and patience, learned to think differently of time, received generosity we thought we didn’t need, felt more compassion, developed greater empathy, formed different kinds of relationships. It was a hard thing, but we did it. 

And in listening—to each other, to those on our path, to our own fears and hesitations—we were able to see better. We could see those who had already walked that path, and those who were still struggling with it. We could see the limits of our challenge and also the benefits of embracing it. And even as we fumbled and stumbled along our own poorly lit path, we knew that we too were heard, and in being heard we were seen and helped along the way. 

It is a powerful experience to be called—to hear something and feel it change or pull or touch something within you. And it is something we can experience regularly as we listen not only to understand but to move. Through listening we chart new territory in our lives. Deep, intentional listening leads us to become new people. It helps us know when a message is meant to help us grow, or if it is a signal that we should stay where we are, confident in our place and unruffled by the opinions of those who lack necessary insight. The notes and echoes and harmonies and percussive beats of our lives can sound out depths and breadths in our souls we may never have discovered. In following those beats, those resonances, the minor keys and discordant sounds, we can become aware of people and places where our voices can be heard, refined, strengthened, and magnified. In listening, we can become teachers, mentors, brothers, sisters, parents, children, friends. 

If we learn to listen closely, carefully, intently over the course of our lives, we will have had the opportunity to explore the entirety of ourselves, to have experienced all that we are capable of. We will have sounded out all the depths and explored all the breadths. We will have experienced the highs, the lows, the fast times, and the slow times. We will have patiently rested, joined melodies and harmonies, enhanced the highlights of others, and navigated the difficult minor keys. In fact, we may have found all the hidden pieces of our souls and be lacking nothing: perfectly sound, perfectly tuned, perfectly pitched. Perfectly whole. Instead of hiding under the bed, we will have found the kingdom of God that is within us. 

Lizzie Heiselt is a writer, reader, runner, mother, lover, and seeker. She lives in a small Brooklyn, NY apartment with her family and a lot of bikes.

Images are diagrams of Chladni figures, a visualization of sound waves.